How to Be A Grown-Up

I am very excited. Husband has stepped into the breach and kindly agreed to pick up the kids so that I can go to London Town to see friends.
The children are quite indignant about this.
"So does Dad actually know how to come and get us?" they ask. "Like, does he even know where our school is?"
I assure them that he does.
I am less worried about how they will cope without me than I am about how I will cope being on my own for a whole day. Stepping out of the provinces is such a rare occurence for me that I have palpitations for days beforehand just imagining what it will be like to sit on a train ON MY OWN. I make copious lists of what to take for the journey: iPod, earphones (I have been known to take the iPod without the earphones, which was very distressing as it meant I had to listen to The Public chattering around me), a book, a notebook, a pencil, phone, food, money, ticket, passport-- Oh no, I don't need a passport to leave the West Country. Although if devolution persists, no doubt it will not be long in coming. We'll definitely be needing one to enter Cornwall before the decade is out.
I realise that I am rambling, which is another sure sign that I am nervous about leaving home for the day. I pace up and down the kitchen, checking my watch every few minutes to see whether I can leave to catch the train yet. I am avoiding looking at the dog, as she has guessed that something is afoot and is giving me very reproachful looks.
At last it is time! I grab my ludicrously over-packed bag and run out of the house, freed for a few hours from the life sentence of picking up socks.
Escaping is not as easy as all that, though. First I must walk through a muddy, cow-pat bedecked field down a near-vertical incline to get to the station. This is a walk I regularly and happily do wearing wellies, but today I am wearing two-inch high wedge heels, because today I Am Going To Be A Grown-Up in London Town.
Sadly, I did not think that part of being a grown-up is remembering to think about which kind of footwear would be appropriate for such a walk. I also forgot that the last time I walked through this field to get a train to London I was wearing cream trousers. I slipped and covered them in green grass stains, but did not have enough time to go home to change so had to sit with my mac draped awkwardly over the stains until I reached Paddington where I ran to the nearest shop, bought a pair of jeans and changed into them hurriedly in the loos. It wasn't until the end of that day that an anxious stranger pointed out the jeans still had a security tag sticking out of the back. I had been sashaying around the capital all day, thinking I looked like the cat's whiskers, while all the time I had a large plastic grey lump hanging off my backside, announcing to the world that I was a shoplifter, and a pretty rubbish one at that.
I tell myself to slow my pace and teeter, cautiously yet precariously, down the slope. I am feeling quite pleased with myself that no disaster has occurred, when I lose my concentration for a second and go over on my ankle. Pain sears across the instep of my foot and my ankle makes a popping, crunchy sound. Too late to do anything about it, I tell myself grimly. Nothing is going to prevent my escape.

After two trains are delayed and I miss all my connections, the throbbing in my ankle is getting worse and I am beginning to feel that maybe these are all signs that I am better off at home, ironing pants and defrosting mince. However, I make it into Paddington Station eventually, and the sights and sounds of the bustling metropolis are enough to dispel any grumblings of doubt. I meet up with some old friends, two of whom have known me for a scary amount of time and have seen me do worse things than fall over in a field full of cow pats. We laugh and reminisce and drink too much red wine and I manage not to fall over or off anything. The wine serves to anaesthetise the pain in my ankle and I walk back to the station at the end of the evening thinking, "I used to do this all the time. I used to catch trains and tubes whilst wearing high heels and feeling a little bit inebriated without giving it a second thought. I need to do this more often." I pledge to organise another trip to London as soon as I can.
However, such plans soon lose their appeal once faced with the reality of the return journey: two and a half hours on a slow train, a change on a cold, rain-swept platform and a further twenty minutes on a train to my local station. I alight with the realisation that my ankle is now crunching painfully with each step, and I now have to walk back UP the dreaded slope. In the dark. As I slip and dodge my way through the cowpats with only a wind-up torch to light my path, convinced that there is a bull lurking at the bottom of the field, I think that maybe I am just not cut out for life in the fast lane.
 I certainly won't be wearing those heels again for quite a while, anyway.