She should not be allowed out unsupervised

So this afternoon I had the brilliant idea to go to b&m and try out the garden chairs. As we already had the scooter in the car it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Better still as both kids had fallen asleep mum could watch them while I scootered around in uninterrupted bliss. (Titch had attempted to sing Doodles into deep sleep with his rendition of poopy poopy little star, so that he could then sneakily remove her toy gun and sweets she had fallen asleep clutching; envision a scene similar to Indian Jones temple of Doom but instead of being flattened by a giant rock boulder he was at risk of being flattened by the much scarier and deadly angered Doodles).

Now a shopping trip for the average person is just that; you think ooh I need this, or, I wonder what this shop has and jump in a car/bus/walk and have a look. For us it becomes a mission of gigantic proportions. Do I have enough energy or is it going to flatten me for the next few days? Is The Man/My Mum feeling up to getting the scooter in and out of the car? Is it going to busy and make it hard to find an accessible parking space and will there actually be room for me to get my scooter round the herds of people??? And that’s not even factoring in all sensory delights shops pose for the kids.

So when the blessed opportunity to actually go inside a real live shop arose I excitedly grabbed it with both hands.

So there I was basket wedged up on lap (because of course I had forgotten the clip on basket for the scooter) and started browsing the aisles blissfully lost in shopping nirvana. 
I couldn’t find the pet cooling mats (that apparently are the latest must have trend for the disabled, you can keep your fidget spinners thank you that is SO last month). Despite going up and down the pet aisle 3 times (reversing into the same damn display everytime) 

I spent 10 minutes trying to describe to a lovely sales assistant the swinging chairs I was trying to find and whether he had any on display that I could try. For him to turn round, take off his staff neck fob thingy and break the news that he didn’t actually work for b&m.

I picked up several things I most definately hadn’t gone in for but suddenly desperately needed more then anything else in the whole world (like a multicolour changing led thingy for the bath oooh sensory delight?!) 

With everything wedged between my basket and chin I successfully made it to the tills. Well I personally consider having only run over two people’s feet successfully getting to the tills seeing as I couldn’t actually see much besides a giant cork/white board.

Apparently the quiet corner till I chose suddenly seemed massively attractive to every other shopper in the store as they all fell in line behind me. With the building pressure of ‘I must be quick’ I suddenly realised I had lost my purse. Shrieking out shit I’ve lost my purse whilst scrabbling around the empty chair and footwell of the scooter, I had visions of some evil person stealing it from my unattended scooter seat whilst I had reached up to get something early. It was then the lady behind me gently tapped me on the shoulder and asked if it was a butterfly one and that it was in the basket. Doh!! Tried to style it out by joking I would lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on but could see people tutting and head shaking in the back rows.

I then proceeded to attempt to leave having had the shopping packed and paid for, to be called back that I had left my card in the card machine. But now the shopping experience was clearly finished, cheeks flaming I could manage to leave with what little shreds of dignity I had left right?

Nope.

I then crashed the scooter into the corner of the neighbouring till and firmly wedged myself and my split b&m sack between the two tills. By now the lovely cashiers ‘are you ok love’ (lost purse encounter) had greatly slowed down in speech pattern whilst he was desperately looking around for my carer as I obviously shouldn’t be left unsupervised (in all fairness I really shouldn’t).

It took the cashier and two other shoppers to help pull me and my scooter out whilst another asked if I had far to go (again desperately looking around for the irresponsible carer who had deemed it obviously neccesary for me to gain some independence life skills). 

I then noticed the hanging swing chair which was the whole reason I had come into this shop in the first place. So having parked up I clambered into the hanging egg chair and proceeded to have a leisurely jolly swing whilst waving at all my adoring rescuers.

I think it’s safe to say I won’t be showing my face in b&m for a while. 

And if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day here’s me holding a barn owl at a home ed animal handling group at our local nature centre.