Catching a Train with a Baby

It seems that it is becoming increasingly impossible to write this blog.  Piglet is either awake, in which case he is trying to grab the laptop and/or one of the many other things he is Not Allowed to Touch (TV remote, plug socket, anything that isn't one of his toys or my collection of books and DVDs, which I have long since sacrificed at the altar of Anything For A Quiet Life) and then shrieking, going all rigid and flinging himself around when they are taken away from him; or he is asleep, and I cannot leave him in case he wakes up and rolls off the bed.

He is, it goes without saying, never happy with anything, unless it involves ripping books to shreds and eating them, dragging my mobile phone along the floor while I am trying to speak to my mother on it, or physically attacking the television.  He is currently doing the latter.  I'm pretty sure all the guidelines for How to Bring Up an Emotionally Secure and Intellectually Stimulated Youngster say no TV before the age of two, but as my mother would say, it never did me any harm.  At least I don't think it did.  For all I know every single fault in my personality could be directly traced back to time spent watching Playschool in 1982.

Over the weekend I took Piglet to Bristol.  Until now, I had never felt any desire to own a car and drive around in it, but after several journeys to Bristol and back on the train, the prospect of several hours driving down the M4 are beginning to look extremely appealing.  This is because I would then not have to endure any of the following:

Piglet doing a poo on the train.
The dreaded journey down the escalator at Paddington with the pushchair (yesterday I was bold enough to ask a member of TfL staff for help, and practically got shouted at for my trouble-"I'M ON MY OWN HERE!"  I thought I was going to be lynched by angry commuters after being held single-handedly responsible for the next tube workers' strike).
A man walking past while I was breastfeeding Piglet and remarking "aww how sweet," followed by "you're making me hungry now!"
A full scale battle with the pushchair involving several passers by, trying to fold it down and squeeze it into a luggage rack before abandoning the whole idea and leaving it in the buffet car to act as a makeshift table for yokels drinking cider out of cans.

Well, at least it gives me something to write about.