Women With Pushchairs Rule The World

I have been waiting to use the title "Wheels of Steel" for when I took Mum out in her new wheelchair, but after my experience today I think this title is far more appropriate. I took Mum to buy a new wheelchair before the snow came again just after Christmas and today was the first chance we have had to give it an outing. It's very lightweight, so it's easy to get in and out of the car, and to push about, so out we went to the shops.

You don't have to spend much time either in a wheelchair or pushing one to see that there's this strange hierarchy in the shopping centre world. The people in wheelchairs come pretty much at the bottom, with counters that are too high, obstructions to the aisles when shops cram too much in, being spoken to like they are idiots and mothers using their pushchairs as battering rams in front of them. We had been to W H Smith today and Mum agreed to have a coffee, which was a great improvement on the last time we were out. We didn't go to Costa in W H Smith, as I think it's too hard for Mum to go there as she always used to go with Dad. I know exactly how this feels, as I still can't bear to go to a football match without him. Instead of Costa we wheeled round the corner to Starbucks. We were just trying to find somewhere to park/sit, when a woman pushing a toddler in a buggy barged in front of us and tried to take our table with her friend. What is it with some mothers? They ram around their fortress of a pushchair as if they are saying "Here is the fruit of my womb! Obey me!" When I pointed out that we were trying to sit down and I was bluntly told that there were two tables, so they took up most of the space and Mum and I made the best of the remaining room. Obviously in this instance that bag hanging off the back of the pushchair wasn't full of nappies. I think it contained her brain. All that hassle in the search of a skinny latte...

Despite pushchairs and Mum being patronised by various shop assistants, I think she had a good time, especially in Paperchase, a stationery-lover's paradise.

Whilst I know that I'm really helping Mum by taking her out, trips like this are filled with sad vignettes that will stay with me for life. We went to find the cashpoint in Boots and Mum said she would like to find out how much a small bottle of Channel No 5 costs. She had tried a sample of the perfume in a magazine and said that she would like to treat herself to some with the points on her Boots advantage card. She didn't have quite enough points, so she said she would wait until another time. There is something very poignant about this. Here is a 68 year woman, not far off the end of her life because of illness and she's still thinking about things she'd like to try. She'd never had a bottle of Channel No 5 and I never knew she wanted one before today. Such a simple thing like Mum wanting to buy a bottle of perfume that she'd not had before moves me to tears. And it's more than just the materialism of having something luxurious. It shows me she's not giving up just yet.