Adoption

I sometimes wonder if weirdness follows me around on purpose. A little while ago I blogged about being in London and coming across a woman being "chased" by a man. Well, yesterday I decided to take the daughter to Drayton Manor. She's now over 1.3 metres tall and a new set of fast rides are therefore available. As a speed freak and adrenalin junkie, at eight and a half she wants to go on the fastest rides possible. Problem is that J doesn't want to see junior on the fast rides! So as I was in charge yesterday and J was working, it was an ideal opportunity.

Up until lunch all was normal (if you count an eight and a half year old girl enjoying "G Force" as normal). We had lunch, short walk around the zoo to let the food go down (and I can't go there without seeing the tigers) then decided to go on the Bounty (pirate ship that swings back and forth until you are hanging looking straight down feeling weightless). Standing in the queue Junior gets to taking to this other eight year old girl. That's fine, happy to encourage her to socialise. We are let on to the ride and they rush to the back. There isn't room for me and I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of sitting in the row in front but hey, she's made a friend and the parent is in the back with them so it can't be too bad. Ride over and we walk out. The two girls say they want to go to Stormforce. No problem. But where is the other parent. It is at this point it dawns on me that the "other" parent was completely unrelated to this girl, instead we seem to have adopted an 8 year old who is wandering around the park by herself. Apparently her father is building a new ride and she is just left to herself for the day. So somehow I end up in loco parentis. What could I do? I wasn't comfortable with her being left alone in the park so it seems better that she comes with us. At one point she's supposed to be back with her father but he rings her (a plus is that she has a phone) and tells her she doesn't need to go back. I end up buying her tea (she did have money and was very polite but I couldn't take a twenty pound note off a child). And she stays with us until the park closes. When I still can't just leave her so walk her back to the ride being built and then spend half an hour getting the attention of her father, who appears more irritated at being disturbed than grateful that I have kept his daughter safe all day.

Of course what I now realise is that there is hours of CCTV coverage of me walking around the park with a girl who I only know by her first name. Anyone seeing us would have assumed she was my daughter as she was hugging me and playing just as "A" was.

All very strange.