When the wheels come down

I have new wheels. They belong to a sleek green and silver vehicle, the sort of vehicle that cannot be filled with the clutter and debris of family life, the sort of vehicle that those considerably younger than my middle-aged years covet and, indeed, may own. But these wheels, all two of them, somehow fail to impress those of younger years; in fact they seem to laugh a little at them or at least the combination of me and said wheels. For the wheels belong to Coco and are attached to his scooter.

Towards the end of term, Coco started scooting to school with me scuttling alongside beside him. He then expected me to walk home afterwards with the scooter in my hands. The arrangement suited me quite well on the days that I was not then hurrying into work, for it put pay to any dawdling and so helped us in our bid to reach school before register. But, as many other parents who have been left holding the scooter at the school gate will tell you, carrying a scooter is awkward and tends to bash against the legs and bruise them. The solution, or at least the temptation, is obvious. Leap aboard and scoot.

I tell you, it is fun. Smooth stretches of road glide beneath the wheels; trees, bushes, parked cars, street lamps, pedestrians seem to whizz by; the wind blows in my face. I am flying.

Yes, flying through the air to land in an undignified and painful sprawl on the pavement. One morning, growing in confidence (and convinced there was no-one around to watch), I tried a trick. I had seen local secondary school children speed downhill and leap with ease and grace onto pavements. It looked easy. The recent banning of these scooters at the secondary school was clearly the application of over-zealous health and safety rules. Typical nanny state stuff. I leapt and, with ease and grace, the scooter flew from beneath me.

I wonder if adults hurt more when they fall. I can remember skinning my knees on concrete, falling out of trees, going over the handlebars of my bike and generally doing what most children do. I don’t remember it hurting a great deal. This removal of the skin from my elbow by the pavement was excruciating. I felt sick. I made a fuss. Ted the teenager was still at home (looking for his tie and failing to find it inside his computer). I was grateful and dispatched him to find cream and bandages and to make sweet tea to counter the shock. He got off a lateness detention thanks to my shaky call to his school. It was all a bit dramatic, but the wound really was quite large and the skin had gone from the tips of my fingers too. Incidentally, don’t believe the ‘no sting’ promise on the cans of ‘spray on plaster’. In theory, you can spray a wound with a liquid that will keep it covered and clean and it will not hurt. The covering bit was true, the application was painful.

A few days later I was walking to school in the afternoon taking Coco’s scooter so that he could ride it home (carefully, safely, no sudden leaps). The road ahead looked smooth. Surely a little ride would not hurt...