Trains, Shakespeare and a problem with our car keys

Yesterday was an eventful day. It shouldn’t have been quite as eventful as it turned out to be but I suppose that’s the joy of having three kids.

After swimming lessons at about half ten, we got ready to head up into London for a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Globe Theatre on the Southbank. It couldn’t be easier to get to for us, 2 miles to my office to park, then a train straight from St Albans to Blackfriars, which is a five minute walk from the Globe.

Unfortunately the boy didn’t want to go. He had a cold, he wanted to have a Eurovision party the night before but couldn’t convince any of his friends to come and most of all, he had a proper grump on and didn’t want to go out. I ended up man-handling him into the car, throwing his shoes and him and strapping him in under protest. So far so good. When we got to my office car park, which is just down the road from the train station, I ended up having to put his shoes on for him because the protest was still ongoing. As I lent in the car, the central locking clicked as I must have squished the car keys in my pocket. I eventually wrangled his shoes on and hauled him out of the car, slamming the door shut in partly in frustration, I suddenly wondered where exactly the car keys were.

You know that sinking feeling you sometimes get when you don’t want to admit to the worst possible case scenario but deep down you know it’s going to happen regardless? Well, I had that. I patted and checked in every conceivable pocket to no avail. I looked in the car and saw the keys sitting in plain sight on the boys car seat.

Bugger.

Wifey and I had a brief discussion over what to do, I said we couldn’t really leave the keys there on display as someone would probably steal the car, she said she’d see if her friend and her daughter would like to come instead of me and the boy. I shouted rather loudly at the boy, and dragged him at full speed to the stations taxi rank. We got in a cab with a lovely taxi driver, unfortunately he turned out to be the only taxi driver in St Albans who drove sensibly within the rules of the road. It seemed like hours until we got back home (he kindly offered to drive us back for free too, which was lovely of him). Once we got home I was faced with the issue that neither wifey or I had seen the spare set of car keys for maybe a year or longer.

This made it trickier and I employed the black art of “if I were a car key where would I be?” to find them. I started off looking in every coat pocket we had. No joy, I then diverted to a couple of drawers, no joy either but finally I decided to go through every handbag/manbag we had and eventually found them in the bag that wifey’s birthday present from last year had replaced.

Hurrah!

Wifey’s friend had been unable to take up the offer of tickets, so the boy and I bundled into my car and drove at exactly the legal speed limit all the way to the station, got a train, and arrived a full 15 minutes before the show was due to start.

Phew!

The show itself was great, although I must admit at some point in my life I’d like to see a proper period Shakespeare production (this one had Hoxton Hipsters, some Beyonce and other modern stuff in it). It must have been engaging because even Ned, 4, kept still for the vast majority of it’s 3 hour run time, no mean feat for a lad of his tender years.

I think that’s the first time I’ve ever managed to lock a set of keys in a car, and it’s lesson learnt from me on that. I don’t intend to let it happen again- the stress was too much!

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