Oh xxx

I was actually feeling quite proud of myself, that was probably my first mistake!

I was perched at the end of a bench in the old barn soft play area at Puxton Park, mid Easter holiday break.

It was loud!

I had managed to bagsy pretty much the last seat inside. Guardians were even seated outside looking after shoes. (1, not the Guardians of the Galaxy, Puxton Park hadn’t put on a Marvel themed Easter event, however that would have been awesome! 2, no shoes allowed in the soft play area)

I’d remembered to bring the boys bottles although Ollies had broken and leaked down my back, but I still felt like I was winning.

My mobile was fully charged and still linked to the WiFi from the previous visit. I managed to get lost in Candycrush and completely forget about the hundreds of screaming children and adults about me. The Mum next to me had brought a book, good luck with that I smugly thought to myself.

I’d literally just uploaded a post to Facebook saying how much I love the farm with a few photos of the days fun events when Harry rushed over to me.

He was incoherent and inconsolable with tears and snot running down his face. He started puling at me and my bag and saying he wanted us to leave straight away. I did point out we’d need to get Ollie.

I put him on my lap to get his shoes on but to also give him a healing hug.

It turned out a teenager had punched him in the face and through the tears I could see it starting to mark.

I asked him to point out who had done it, but he was still frantic and wanting to leave before Ollie got hurt too.

He pointed to an area of the climbing frame where I could see a group of lads gathered and sure enough there was our Ollie.

I asked Harry to stay in the seat, but he wanted to come with me.

Ollie came running towards us invigorated and said he’d seen the whole thing and pointed out the bully.

The group of boys scarpered as I walked towards them.

I somehow managed to keep calm although inside me a fire was burning! I’m amazed lasers didn’t shoot out my eyes.

Ollie had run on ahead (partly due to not having arthritic knees!) He’d managed to single out the antagonist. I walked up to him and punched him square in the face.

No, of course I didn’t.

I told him I wanted to talk to him and he replied by telling me to do one and that he had nothing to say to me (not quite so politely) and walked away.

Funnily enough this made me more cross, obvs.

I caught up to him and asked him to take me to his parents. I had still not raised my voice so was able to hear him profess his innocence.

He did not want to do this (I’m not sure why I wanted him to either to be fair, but it seemed the right thing to do)

I told him that he either took me to his parents or I speak to one of the security guards. He kept trying to talk to me, but I said it wasn’t appropriate for me to be speaking to a teenager and I would wait until he had someone with him. Note to self, might have been watching too many lawyer programs!

He stormed off and I did find it hard to keep up. Of course his mum was right at the back. He had a chance to update her and she’d jumped up by the time I’d got to her. Phew there wasn’t a load of them.

She glared at me and the veins were sticking out of her neck tattoo.

I calmly walked up to her and told her that my 7 year old had been punched in the face by her son and I was coming to inform her of what had happened. He stated again that he had not done it and to be fair to her, she said he was soft and it didn’t sound like something he’d do, especially not to a small boy.

I turned to Ollie and asked him again if he was sure it was him and I’m surprised he didn’t faint with the amount he was nodding and pointing.

I turned to the Mum who was getting agitated and explained I had no beef with her and didn’t think it was right for me to talk to her son without her, but facts were facts.

It turned out he had three little sisters who were also sat at the table, one of whom piped up to say it didn’t sound like her brother.

By then Harry had joined up to us and had somehow acquired an ice pack rolled in blue tissue from somewhere.

I turned to him and once more asked if this was the boy who had hit him to which he said no!

Oh my days! Earth swallow me whole! Am I actually going to be sick on the spot?

I turned to the mum and thanked her for her time, said she had a good one there, instructed Ollie to apologise at once and grabbed my coat!

If this was a programme from the fifties I would have said “there we are then” and turned on my heel.

Well that’s certainly the quickest I’ve made it out of Puxton Park and we’re due to be going back Thursday, might lay down some ground rules!

At least we were all able to have a giggle about it by the time we got home.

Love and hugs, kisses and wishes!