A Walk in the Park – Sandra 23

 

[For back story go here: Story so far at 27 July 2020.]

[Relevant back story links also within text.]

It was a beautiful day, of that there was no doubt. Sandra was feeling less than beautiful however. She'd been up half the night fretting over Crown Apps and trying to discern precisely what planet Daniel was on. She recognised him as a great potential client and everything, but she was also increasingly recognising him as someone who was, perhaps, a little eccentric in his thinking, maybe even a little unhinged, at least from the current evidence.

The upshot of her night, in truth, had simply been a piece of paper with "Puppets?" written on it. When she'd tried to think about something else to write she found she really only wanted to write "Puppets?" again. So she took a break, had a coffee, a slice of the latest chocolate cake she'd made, came back to her desk again, sat down and wrote "Puppets?" five times underneath the first one. There was no getting past it. She'd seen the video, she understood the back story but she just didn't get it or understand what she was meant to do with the idea. Maybe she just didn't like puppets, so for half an hour she tried to drag up all the possible associations same had with the things, from seaside Punch and Judy to the Muppet Show and beyond. But nothing really inspired or traumatised her. She just didn't feel anything about them so maybe that was the problem. Puppets were just puppets.

"Do the kids like puppets?" she asked her sister Frankie as they walked through Frankie's local park, Sukie scampering ahead, Freddie in the pushchair. 

“Oh yeah, go mad for them,” she said, “Although I’m always worried they’re going to get bitten or something horrible will happen or they’ll get fleas.”

“From puppets?”

“Oh, sorry, thought you said puppies. Puppets are OK. But they prefer ducks."

Despite the confusion, Sandra continued. ”What kind of puppets do they like?"

"Kind? What do you mean?"

"Well, I did a bit of research right, and there's glove puppets and rod puppets and you know, different kinds."

"I really don't think they care about that. It's more the story side of things. Or if they do funny stuff. Or gross stuff."

"Gross?"

"Sure," said Frankie, "There's a dung beetle they like on one of the outdoor shows shows who – well, he's a dung beetle. And he has quite a few similar friends."

"Do they like Mr Sparklehat?"

Frankie burst into laughter edged by incredulity. "Oh good God no. Have you ever sat through an episode of Lost Unicorns of the Sparkle Galaxy? That stuff is a serious Marmite thing. Love it or hate it – and my kids, thank God hate it. The storylines are always the same and it's so unbelievable."

"Unbelievable? It's a..."

"Yeah I know, but come on. Are unicorns really that dumb? And why does Mr Sparklehat never run out of magic? Everyone else does. He’s also three times the size of Paisley Pig and there's no real sense of justice in that world, just 'everything suddenly works out fine because they’re so friendly’. It's weird."

The park was sparsely populated and relaxing and even when Sukie and Freddie started throwing peas and nearly themselves at the ducks, Frankie and Sandra were able to maintain a level of conversation that might have been difficult if other people were in the way. Despite the few people around Frankie managed to do a quick bit of celeb spotting.

“Don’t look now,” she whispered to Sandra, “But isn’t that guy on that bench ManzDown, the singer bloke with that amazing new song?”

“Who?” asked Sandra, genuinely.

It was the tail end of a strange summer and with more uncertainty on the horizon the afternoon offered a little respite. Which was probably the why Frankie felt now was a good time to ask Sandra if she'd do some childcare for her. Ask now, while the sun was out, the mood was good and the kids weren't screaming.

"What kind of childcare?" asked Sandra, warily.

'Well, I need to do some work and time at nursery and school isn't going to cover it," said Frankie. "Or at least it doesn't leave me with much time to work with, so I thought maybe you could have them a couple of afternoons a week."

"W-where?" asked Sandra, mentally scanning her home and listing all the child unfriendly aspects she could remember off the top of her head.

"Oh you could come to mine," said Frankie. "Probably better as they have their own toys and stuff. Less chance of freaking out or, you know, impaling themselves of that spiky plant holder thing you’ve got.”

“Sorry, I thought it was…”

“Whatever. Might be easier with them somewhere they're used to.”

And so, pending any further complications with regard to restrictions, Sandra agreed to come and watch over the kids for a few hours twice a week. She wasn’t certain she really had a choice, but comforted herself by thinking that if she did she would have agreed.

Other than this, Sandra was now worried there would be going to be a difficult time ahead with Daniel. Somehow she was going to have to break it to him that the great inspiration he thought was going to power his business forward was based on a hot bed of mixed messages.