Things we do because we love our children

Last minute, its always last minute.

"Would your son like to come on a family trip to France for three weeks to keep our son company? He would? Great, we leave on Thursday next."

There was a slight problem though, my son didn't have a passport and the issue of a passport required me to present his birth certificate which was, of course, somewhere between here and the university offices as I had recently sent it to them to verify that I was a bonafide parent of two. Personally I would have thought that the early onset of grey hairs, brightly crayoned-on shoes and my slight nervous tic might have been evidence enough, but that's another story.

So I contacted the university offices in a panic, had them send my son's birth certificate back post haste and called the passport advice line to see what could be done at very short notice. It turned out that I was able to travel to the nearest passport office, which was three hours away, and apply for his passport, in person, on the following Tuesday and it would be issued in time for the impending trip - but I would have to pay extra (no surprises there).

Great. I emptied my purse.

Four till receipts, a chewing gum wrapper, a paperclip, my ATM card, £5 in loose change and a used coach ticket. This was not going to get me very far. All I can say is thank goodness for friends with gold cards who are insane enough to lend me money knowing that I might accidentally set fire to it or use it for writing shopping lists on. But, £100 later and thanks to the wonderful world of Internet travel booking, I was set to leave, son in tow, for Liverpool, home of the Beatles and the Mersey Ferry and one of the main British passport offices. What I did not know was that it was going to turn into a Magical Mystery Tour of epic proportions.

At this point, a couple of my friends and family had started to tell me I was out of my mind. Why go to all this trouble for one trip? It was going to cost me a fortune to get all of the documentation we needed (three times more than usual) and couldn't my son wait for another opportunity? Well no, he couldn't. Not because he was doing the "I wanna" dance, quite the opposite, he was well aware that this whole scenario was a lot of trouble and had volunteered not to go and because of that I was more determined than ever that he would! Parents worldwide will understand that we sometimes do the insane and the seemingly extravagant, not because we spoil our children but because we love them and want to afford them every opportunity, however difficult it might be for us and that this is nurturing them, not indulging them. Travelling boy would go to the ball, well.OK, the continent.

We were due to leave Monday afternoon and my son was anxious to go visit a friend before we left, I agreed and he left the house clutching bus fare and the words "back by three" ringing in his ears. By ten past three he was nowhere to be seen, and we had to leave at half past to get to the coach station in good time to collect our tickets and board our coach at five o'clock. But three thirty came and went and my tic was getting worse. At a quarter to four I was sat in my friend's car, engine running, looking like one of the Twitches of Eastwick (sic) and wondering how much longer we could leave it before the car turned into a pumpkin, when the boy wonder appeared over the horizon, hot and bothered and running down the road like he was approaching the end of a marathon.

It turned out that the bus driver had decided that he didn't look young enough to travel for a child's fare and as my son couldn't prove it (because I had his birth certificate in my bag, ready to give to the passport office) and did not have enough money to make up the difference, he had to run the three miles home. Well thank you very much Mr. Bus Driver (not). I hope your children are never stranded somewhere and faced with a long, dangerous trip home because a grown up wouldn't believe them.

Fortunately, there was no real harm done though (just a bit if injured pride and sore feet) and we got to the coach station just in time, settled down into the seats for our straight through, no changes trip to Liverpool and breathed a sigh of relief. We got to Manchester and after about 10 minutes, the coach driver said: "If you are going to Liverpool and you want to arrive half an hour early, the coach in the next bay is leaving in a few minutes." I asked him if we had to change coaches or if his was still going straight through to Liverpool. He looked at me, pulled a face, shrugged his shoulders and walked off the coach leaving my question unanswered and me, the eternal nervous traveller, not knowing what to do for the best.

When he got back on, there was just me and my son on the coach. Our driver didn't seem too happy about this and said that if there was nobody at the next stop and the coach was empty he could go home half an hour early. Well, as much as I could understand what he was saying, I had paid for a straight through trip with no changes, I was expected at a certain time at a certain coach station and I didn't want to change my travel plans at the eleventh hour. Added to that was the fact that the second coach was now choc-a-block with people and it just looked crowded, stuffy and uncomfortable. This did not go over too well and the driver sent a fluorescent clad minion with a big walkie-talkie onto the coach to try and persuade me to get off. I suppose you could say it was stubborn of me and I know that I was stopping this man from getting home 30 minutes early but I imagine it was the earlier shrugging that put the devilment in me and I refused to leave the coach unless the service was being officially terminated. As it was not, the driver had no choice but to drive us the rest of the way, which he did, but like a daemon, with a huge anger vein throbbing in his forehead and a rather too fierce for my liking driving technique. Next time I will admit defeat and take the second coach! I hope that coach driver enjoyed his meal without giving himself indigestion although, if he eats the same way as he drives, I think it is likely that he did.

However, safely in Liverpool we spent a relatively relaxing evening with friends, recovering from that afternoon's coach journey rally and then got up really, really early the next morning for our appointment at the passport office at eight thirty. I presented my sheaf of identification documents, passport forms and photographs at the counter, only to discover that despite what I had been told on the phone that only the photographs and my son's birth certificate were required and that by the way, it would be seven days before the passport was issued.

SEVEN DAYS?! Hello?

I was horrified. I explained to the clerk about the call to the advice line about the trip to France on Thursday, two days away, and as sympathetically and apologetically as she could, she explained that I had been given entirely the wrong information over the 'phone. I thought about the trail of disaster I had left in my office at home, as I tipped out drawer after drawer, folder after folder, looking for the scraps in the paper trail I had been told to bring with me. I thought about the money I had borrowed to get here and pay for the passport I was now being told I could not have. Then I looked at my son's face. That did it; I went into pleading parent mode.

Yes, I begged. Unashamedly and unreservedly, I petitioned my case in a manner that would have made Clarence Darrow proud until, out of pity or a strong desire to just get away from a madwoman, the clerk agreed to see what she could do. All I could do, in the interim, was pay the fee (knowing that I might not actually get the passport), fill out a complaint form (because of the incorrect information I was given) and slink off to my friend's house and wait for a telephone call from the passport office whilst fashioning a makeshift voodoo doll of the advice line representative out of the surplus documentation and tacks.

Thankfully, at about eight thirty the next morning, the passport office called to say that they had my son's passport and would I call to collect it. Halleluiah! Gratitude and all power to the wonderful passport office staff who took pity on me and placed my application as a priority! I set off and called in at the ATM on the way to pick up some extra cash as I had now run out. Unthinkably, my account was showing empty. How could this be? Had I not been paid? Why had I not been paid? What was going on now? I went into the bank but the teller couldn't help, they couldn't understand it either. This was going to cause trouble, I have already booked and paid for my ticket home but I couldn't get us lunch or buy any last minute necessities for my son's trip, nor could I reimburse the folks who had lent me money to cover me until I got paid. What an awful predicament.

Totally stressed and distracted, I queued for my son's passport. When my turn came, the clerk said "Name." and I gave her my name. She scuttled off, came back, tapped on her keyboard and asked me to spell my name again. I did so and she scuttled off again, came back a second time and pointed out that I had just given her the wrong name. Oh lord, there I was, the passport so near and yet so far. I was giving her the wrong name and looking to all intents and purposes like someone trying to fraudulently obtain a passport for a child. My son has a different surname to me (long story) and when she asked for a name I automatically gave her mine! Sigh. I started to prepare for the likely indignity of being hauled away by security. My friend was just looking at me in what seemed to be a mixture of humour and disbelief and I don't blame her for wondering how I might manage to tie my own shoelaces, never mind organize a holiday for my child! To my huge relief we straightened it out and finally, passport in hand, we left to head towards the coach station to see if I could get an earlier coach to travel back to sort out the mess with my money. After a bit of a trek through the city centre we found the coach station and a very kind ticket clerk exchanged my ticket for one on the 1.30 pm coach, I was going home at last, mission accomplished.

But as I sat and watched the coaches roll in and out of the station, I looked idly at my ticket, the one that said: "Stand 3, 1.05 pm." I probably looked at it just as my coach was turning the corner out of the station and onto the main road. This calamity I call life was now in full swing. I was penniless, coach-less, hadn't eaten since the previous evening and very near to tears, really. On a scale of one to ten I could say that my misery was approaching fifteen at this point!

I shuffled back into the ticket office and told the clerk what had happened. I don't know if I misheard or if they gave me the wrong information but I was seriously considering that either I was jinxed or that I needed to have my hearing tested. There was another coach at two o'clock and without a murmur, but probably thinking "what an idiot" the clerk changed my ticket again. My long-suffering friend delved into her purse and gave me some money to tide me over and I insisted that she make a run for it, after apologizing yet again for once more involving her in my chaos. Where go I goes bedlam and nobody escapes unscathed. She seemed slightly unsure about leaving me to fend for myself and I don't blame her, I was not looking like the best organized or most capable parent in the world right at that moment but she did leave, probably thinking that I could not possibly get into any more trouble. Hah! How wrong could that be?!

I am thankful she left; because ten minutes before my coach was due to go out, I heard a ringing in my ears. First of all I thought I was right and I did need my hearing checked. Then I realized it was the coach station's fire alarm. My son and I just sat there, looking at each other in disbelief. We couldn't speak; we were just totally bewildered at this, the very, very last straw. Sure enough, within two minutes we heard sirens and two fire engines came screeching into the coach station and a troupe of burly firemen spilled out of them, racing into the station's main complex, pulling on jackets and helmets as they ran.

Fire? Bomb? Cat in an ornamental silk tree? I didn't care. I twisted my pin and paper voodoo doll a little harder and willed the coach to leave, because if they made me get off now I was going to have serious issues, really serious. I had to get my son back home ready to leave at ten the next morning. The coach station could not explode or burn down, it simply was not acceptable and as the coach engine started up I felt great relief that we were on our way and whatever was happening was not serious enough to prevent our journey. As the flashing blue lights faded into the distance I breathed a sigh of thanks to be heading home.

I suppose I should also have been thankful that the house was still standing when I returned and that penguins had not moved into my bathtub or that my other child had not been mislaid or run away to join the circus, although I would not have blamed her if she had. Recently, out walking with her, I confided to my dear daughter that sometimes I think I must have been a circus performer in a past life because I often feel and urge to run down the street, then somersault a couple of times and I also get the desire to climb trees and swing from their branches before landing with a flourish. She regarded me with unblinking candour and said: "Yes, or you could have been a monkey."

I was beginning to think that maybe she was right.

At a quarter to ten on Thursday, following an early morning mercy dash into town to buy last minute essentials for travelling boy, I arrived at the home of my friends who were taking him to France. They seemed pleased that I had arrived, as they had news, there was now no rush because the garage were late returning their car and as a result they were now not leaving until late the following morning.

@#%&$?!

Darn that tic.