Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Transport matters

Jack and I must be contenders for most car-phobic couple in Edinburgh. We met on a walking holiday and sometimes it feels like we've been walking most places ever since, with the only the odd token bow to public transport. This is somewhat unfair – Jack did arrange a Bentley to ferry us from wedding to wedding night hotel. But transport has been the source of long-running tension between us, since neither of us are willing or confident drivers.

Since Katy arrived there's been a series of agonised conversations in which I plead the need for a car, Jack agrees, then nothing happens. In truth, we are each as scared as the other of taking to the road and I am hoping to devolve the responsibility onto him, a burden he's refused to take on. Jack, meanwhile, is trying the same ruse – with more success – on me.

Years as Londoners meant we got along fine without a car but now we're out-of-towners and have a child, we need to rethink. A Lothian Transport rule, which the drivers enforce rigidly, allows only one unfolded buggy per bus. I spent the winter months standing at bus stops watching approaching buses, praying there wouldn't already be a buggy on board, otherwise Katy and I would have to wait for the next bus.

The turning point was a traumatic trip on the 34 bus that took us on a mystery tour of places I'd only previously seen as bus destinations. I was almost shrieking with frustration as the three of us toured pebble-dashed Edinburgh suburbia, never one of my favourite places at the best of times, one Saturday afternoon, going the opposite way to where we wanted to be going. I wanted to weep with powerlessness.

Two weeks after that we took delivery of our Ford Focus. Since then I've been driving it to work a couple of days a week, and today Jack fitted Katy's throne in it so we could have our first proper family outing – to the seaside, at Cramond. I was suprised the seat fitting wasn't a bigger deal; in the event it only took about 15 minutes, but it seems I was wrong to relax about the seat too soon.

Good to get there and back under our own steam – wonderful walking along the front in gale-force winds. But in truth it was quite a stressful experience; Jack and I had a stupid spat afterwards in a supermarket carpark about how tight Katy's seat straps should be; the lightning conductor for our fears about road safety more generally. Jack maintained he needed to adjust the entire strap mechanism every time he put her in her chair – quite a time-consuming process. I disagreed.

This is his thinking (I think): "I can't fasten the belt around Katy when the straps are tight enough to fit safely. I need to loosen the belt, fit her in, then tighten them again." Whenever Jack is uptight or worried he becomes hyper, hyper safety-conscious. In saner moments he's asked me simply to tell him when he's being like this, but when he's in the thick of a safety neurosis he never takes any notice of what I say. This was one of those days, when sanity flies out the window.

It all seemed to hinge on the number of fingers involved. "You should only be able to insert one finger under the straps," he insists. "Does it really matter if it's one finger or two?" I retort, holding up an indeterminate number of digits to him, feeling mildly hysterical. "I mean, is it really going to make that much difference? Other people don't readjust the belts like this everytime. I know! I've seen them! I have! I see people strap their babies in, oh, almost daily!"

He takes on his knowing look: "How many fingers can you fit under those straps now? Go on, try. Have you read the instructions?" And so on. Dusk is gathering. Without admitting it, we seem to realise how ridiculous we are. We call a truce and go home.

Posted 11 March 2007 13:02

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