A Little Back Pedal

I HAVE a dormant blog post somewhere called My Most Useless Baby Purchases and this buggy featured heavily on it. 

As of today I take it back.  I take it all back.

We bought it several years ago because we had a voucher for the shop in question.  The first thing that pissed me off was even though it was their cheapest buggy, we still had to fork out 100/150 on top of our voucher.

Then we took it home and discovered a number of things about it.  The wheels were………………….weird.  They just were.  They had a mind of their own for one thing and they refused to go through most shop doors without first trying to take it off the hinges.  It was most annoying. 

It also hated all the aisles in all of the shops.  The wheels again.  They kept catching on things and knocking stuff over.  It was like a trolley on wham bars!

But my biggest gripe and the most dangerous thing about it was the fucker liked to topple backwards.  With a child in it. 

When the two older boys were younger they napped in a buggy downstairs.  It was the perfect arrangement for us all.  They would pan out for two hours; one boy on the couch the other in the buggy.  Until the boy in the buggy stretched after his nap and upended himself on the floor.

I thought it was a once off.  The second time it happened, I refused to use it. 

It has been redundant for about four years now but this morning I took it out again and eyed it up and down.

Maybe just maybe it would behave itself on the road.  With a child in it and a dog on a lead.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before.  In fact, I credit all buggy brainwaves to my sister who put the question to me over Christmas during one of my rants about not being able to get out for a run, “why don’t you put Brendan in a buggy and just go for a walk with the dog.”

Those weren’t Christmas bells chiming, it was realisation dawning.

Why don’t I just? 

Smallest Boy asked Juno if she wanted to go for a walk and once she heard “walk” I was going whether I liked it or not.

I did like and it was wonderful.

Over the Christmas break I got out each and every day for a walk or a run and I loved it.  All the cobwebs blown away before 10am (on a good morning) and I pined Sunday night over having to wait till the weekends to get out again.

I’m lazy too and if I take one day off, I’ll take the next day.  Which makes it easier for me to skip the third day.  So I have to keep going.

And now I will be able to!