Road rage

Argh, I need a traffic rant!!

It has just taken an hour to deliver the children to their day-camp and finally get back home again. And that does not include stopping to chat, having decided I can't take any more of Pickle jumping up and down yelling, 'Come on! stop chatting! I'll give you twenty kisses to stop chatting, Mummy!' (They don't realise how rarely Mummy gets opportunities to talk grown-up instead of pondering which Pokemon I'd rather be.)

No, this was strictly a drive-by drop-off but it still took an hour thanks to a massive traffic jam going past our house - again. I thought while school's out the traffic would be better but something obviously threw a spanner in the works where the traffic lights at the end of the road are concerned. Because that's all it was, no accidents, no arse-cleavage wielding road diggers, just dodgy traffic lights which seemed to have re-sequenced themselves to only let one road out at a time.

I swear one of these days I'm going to take matters into my own hands and make those lights mysteriously disappear overnight. The times when they've been completely kaput the traffic has flowed with ease, with most drivers being surprisingly generous and considerate. I reckon those red lights get to us when we're behind the wheel; the idea of being controlled and forced to pause our journey by some glowing three-eyed lollipop disturbs our psyche somehow and we all develop rebellious streaks, seeing how many amber lights we can jump and leaping on the horn when the chap in front won't join in the game. I swear I've developed a new condition - 'Traffic Tourettes'. When driving round Hungarian roads I just can't seem to help blurting out obseneties, 'a***hole!', 'f***wit!', 's*** for brains!', and the occasional 'You could get a b***** TANK through there!'.

No wonder the children are so well versed in rude words.

Though, thinking about it, I have an inkling that the traffic chaos might have something to do with last night. There we were, ten-thirty at night, Nobby catching up on emails, kids catching up on seeing-how-far-we-can-push-mum-and-dad-with-this-bedtime-plan-before-one-of-them-explodes, and me catching up on red wine and a good book trying to ignore the shrieking from my adorable offspring.

Then suddenly the whole house went dark. And pretty damned quiet for a change!

Pickle deduced the obvious - 'Power Cut! everyone into my room!', he announced and I dutifully bounded up the stairs, less to obey him and more to ward off the impending melt-down from the ever-dramatic Poppet who was already saying 'Ohmygod!, Ohmygod!' despite the fact that the streetlights outside her room hadn't even gone off so she could see perfectly well and the fact that if she'd gone to sleep already like we'd told them to she'd never have known about the stupid power cut!!!

Luckily I had a torch handy so I could get the candles out without too much trouble and we spent the next two hours melting our bits off (the air-con was down of course, so we had to resort to the old-fashioned method of opening a window, shock horror) and trying to settle the kids back down in one bedroom. Ha ha. Not a chance.

Pickle came over all authoritative and broke out the glow-sticks left over from Halloween. How on earth he found them when he doesn't even know which drawer his pants are kept in I'll never fathom. He proceeded to create a double-ended nest on his bed so he and Poppet could sleep together, placing glow-sticks all round the edge to light the way to the emergency exits. Cute.

Nobby and I had fun trying to remember which lights were on when the power went out and diligently unplugged the TV and computer, reminiscing about the 70's and those heady pre-marriage-and-babies days when we spent many an evening by candlelight. Around half past midnight, just as we were dropping off slathered in mosquite repellent by the open window, we found out that we'd both forgotten to check the overhead light in our bedroom, as the place suddenly lit up like Blackpool illuminations and a swarm of mossies headed our way.

So, I can only imagine that the traffic lights had a similar experience - being up half the night to the excited children and getting woken up when someone finally got the elastic bands at the power station wound back up tight enough and hit the magic button - which explained their sluggish behaviour and the 2 mile tailback this morning.

I decided to come home from the drop-off via 'the back streets' to see if it was any quicker. It involves going over rather than round the hills, which means risking the car suspension and all my tooth fillings on the patchwork, potholed roads, not to mention my paintwork from mad drivers whipping past out of nowhere. Note to self: next time you're tempted to use the back roads, wear a sports bra and take some clean undies.

Anyway, by the time I got back to the traffic lights in question, an unavoidable bottle-neck to get to my house due the presence of yet another hill with no way over it, I was definitely shaken, not stirred and cursing my luck since I would need to leave again to pick them up in only two hours. Then, oh! Someone had switched off the traffic lights. And guess what?

There was no queue!

I rest my case. Now, where did I put my blow-torch...?