First week without Ben and we’ve had visitors every day. I’ve been overwhelmed by how thoughtful and generous everyone has been. From 10am on Monday morning, I’ve been looked after. Two friends came over (tellingly both mothers themselves) with breakfast. They knew I’d be feeling a bit lost so, on arrival, did the washing up, picked up Nancy so I could go to the loo and sort myself out, and on leaving, left me some soup for lunch. And from then on there were visitors every day. And she’s had over 100 cards, and now has more disposable cash than both Ben and me combined, comforters for everyday of the week and a selection of beautifully knitted shoes- who knew there were so many young people who could knit so well?
We took our first trip into town, which resulted in me giving a shop assistant in Boots the finger, and telling a pensioner to fuck off. Sounds a bit worse than it was. Actually it was as bad as it sounds, but I feel it was justified. It had been a painfully slow walk into town, both actually and metaphorically. I went into Boots to get the pictures of Nancy developed to make the thank you cards, and to get some stuff for her and me. We were also meeting Lucinda and her daughter Daisy to go for a cup of tea. To cut a long story short- a reluctant shop assistant showed me eventually where the maternity pads were (which are nowhere near the sanitary pads which would have made more sense) just as Lucinda came into the shop. I was showing off and gave the woman the finger as she turned away as she had been massively unhelpful, but she turned back at the last moment so I was stood facing her, one hand on my pram with my new born daughter, the other giving her the bird. Nice.
And as we walked along London Road a couple of old women were walking towards us. Both Lucinda and I stopped to let them get past our prams. One granny started to talk to Lucinda, I assumed asking about Daisy, but seeing the look on Lu’s face, I saw she was getting told off. As the woman walked past me, she hissed, ‘you’re not disabled, you’re just a mum’ to which I retorted ‘fuck off!’ without out even thinking about it. Now I know that’s a bit of a rough response, what with her being an old lady and everything, but it seemed like an outrageously unfair thing to say. I had, only two weeks prior, had my labia, vagina and vaginal wall cut through and stitched up, and it was still very painful. I know that isn’t comparable with a wheelchair user, but it fucking hurts. And why would she think to compare the two anyway? And more to the point she was walking faster than me, so there was nothing wrong with her or her friend. So. Trip into town. Done.
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