This morning started off pretty well. Last night I published my post ‘stuck in summer’ and I had woken up feeling like a weight had been lifted, it really does help to get things off my chest and on to my blog, almost like offloading my worries and tension for all my dear readers. Sharing is caring after all!

The drive to school was uneventful until I pulled into the staff car park, this is where my day went from pretty good to rock bottom! 

Just for a little bit of back ground on the staff car park at school, there are two disabled bays in a relatively small car park which is not big enough for the size of the school and the number of staff it has, for a modern building it is appalling, but hey we can’t change the size of the car park. There are a few parents that do hold a blue disabled parking badge and generally we get on well and at times block each other in with no problem as we are all in the same situation where we need to park as close to the school building as possible for different reasons. Other than staff and blue badge holders the rules of the school are no dropping off in the staff car park, this is emailed out perhaps termly as a reminder with a note about sensible parking on the streets close to school.

What really annoys me is when people park in these two disabled parking bays that do not have a blue badge, I quite often get to school and can not park, on these occasions I block in staff cars knowing that they won’t be going anywhere for the 15 minutes that I’m at school for.

This morning it all got a bit out of hand when I pulled into the car park to witness another parent pulling into the only spare disabled space. Normally if cars are parked in it with no blue badge on show, although it annoys me there’s not much I can do about it. This morning to witness it for myself with the sun bearing down and nowhere else to park I got out of my car and polity asked the driver if she had a blue disabled badge, at this point any normal person would reply either ‘yes I have’ to which I would apologise and scurry off embarrassed and find somewhere else to park or ‘No I haven’t, I’m really sorry for parking here I will move it straight away’ this persons response was anything but polite and took me by total surprise, she had the nerve to call me a child! Say that I was rude and wrong as she was ‘only dropping her child off’! I got my blue badge out to show her and informed her that I had a disabled child in my car and I needed to park in the car park. Comments like ‘how dare I speak to her like that in front of her child’, she asked for my name as she was going to make a complaint about me! I told her everyone in the school knows who I am so feel free to complain and to tell them it’s the lady with the blue badge! Boom! 

I thought that was the winning line of the argument but she continued! I tried my hardest to stay calm, not raise my voice or to swear but believe me it was not easy! After she dropped her child off she pulled out wheel spinning as she left the car park to shocked onlookers. I kissed Eddie good bye as I always do as Livvy and I walked the short distance into the school building as we always do via the main reception, we are always met by Livvy’s TA who reassures Livvy that all areas have been checked and are UV safe. I get to kiss Livvy goodbye in the safety of the school building with her visor and gloves off, I soak in the smell of her hair as I kiss her head and squeeze her gloveless hand and wish her a wonderful day. This morning her TA had seen through the window what was happening and asked me if I was ok as I walked through the door, I was shaking with rage and disbelief. ‘No I’m not ok’ was all I could get out as tears started to fall down my checks.

She took me into an office, I told her it’s this time of year, it doesn’t take much to tip me over the edge emotionally. She totally agreed and understood my frustration. 

I’m just glad I had got so much off my chest the night before which perhaps helped me to remain calm in front of this clearly angry woman. I think I would have broken down and cried this time yesterday if she had shown such disregard to my question about a blue badge.

We all have bad days, we all run late from time to time but just be kind to one another is all I can say, you might vent your anger at a mere stranger in the street but maybe they are having a worse day than you. Kindness and a smile goes a long way.