A surprise meeting in Brixton

Toddlers have a way of scuppering your plans don’t they? This morning’s plan was to go and see Arthur Christmas at the Ritzy in Brixton. Nathan and I were quite excited about taking Roo to the cinema, as it’s something we haven’t done since we took him to see Toy Story 3 about a year ago and he wasa little *ahem*restless. Meaning that Mummy missed the best – and most poignant – bit and therefore my chance to sob like a little girl. But given his new habit of gawping fish-like at a Pixar movie of a Saturday, this meant that a) I could curl up in a foetal position and cry my heart out last week as Andy played with his toys one last time and b) he might be ready to try the cinema again. But as you can tell from the opening sentence, this didn’t quite happen. On the 10-minute bus journey to Brixton, Roo was quiet and by the time we’d passed the police station, his eyelids were fluttering closed. Plan=scuppered.

So, we decided to go for a coffee instead – well, a coffee for Nathan, something decaffeinated and dairy-free for me. Humbug. Federation Coffee in Brixton Village was full to bursting (who were all these people who were up at 10:30 on a Saturday morning? Some of them didn’t even have kids!), as was the crepe place opposite. We ended up in San Marino, opposite New Look where I enjoyed a peppermint tea and tried not to covet Nathan’s latte. Then we went to Poundland….this has all the makings of a classic anecdote, doesn’t it? Fun fact was that I went to Poundland yesterday as well! Only in Lewisham that time. Departures from the norm for me, as a die-hard 99p store girl…..but this time I was prepared to spend the extra penny per item.

Is this not gripping you yet? Let me get to the point. Reuben woke up as I barged him into a display of flashing Santa pants (or something), so we decided to take him to Playzone at the leisure centre. Which looked a little like this…

Then, we left Playzone with the promise of a very special person for Reuben to meet, as promised by a chalk board in Brixton Station Rd. It took a bit of searching, and chatting to the nice man handing out fliers for his Shakespeare play (not a crazy, as I’d first assumed). But there he was…walking down the steps by the leisure centre!

/Irie, Man

🙂