I was in the park today with the one and a half year old and put my things on one of the benches under the trees. Then I went off to play with the nipper.
Half an hour later these big American women arrived, parking their heaving four wheel drives outside in a row of gleaming bumpers and lavish gold and silver badges. Why they don't just storm through the chain link fence I don't know, it would mean even less walking. Then they unleashed their three-wheel buggies from the backs like tanks dropping into Iraq, plonked their kids in and came across the park in an attack formation.
"Mind if we share the bench," one of them shouted at me as they all moved in. I gave them a nod. After all, I was playing with the kid.
Over the space of the next half an hour more and more of them turned up and my belongings were getting pushed to the edge and a kid was viciously kicking my ball (the blow-up variety, not one of my testicles...) under the bench.
I wondered - not for the first time because this has in fact happened three times now - how come these women who sit and talk about visas and trips to the US consulate and did you see Simon and that awful Charise at the wedding, oh you didn't go Mary-Lou, were you ill, oh really, not invited, lordy!, can sit on a bench and I can't. And then I realised what it was, women go to parks to gossip while men go to play with their kids.
Yes, yes, I know, some blokes act like it's community service they're forcibly engaged in - and the reading of the newspaper hardly makes for bonding with your child on a Saturday morning - but women, they never play with their kids, they just gas-bag.
Anyway, eventually I gathered up my things and one of the women said to me, "Hey there, we did rather take over, didn't we?"
"Yes, I said, "I thought it was too good to be true when you said we could share the space. But I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, I believe you once said the same thing to the Arapahoe, Sioux and Cheyenne."
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