Marky had a little breakdown

I often have revelations on the journey from Wolverhampton, on the occasions when we go up to visit Buffy's family, to our flat in south-east London. The train part is usually okay. (Although today we got delayed because someone selfishly had a seizure and had to be carted off at Coventry. Tut.) Last time, while on the bus, fighting the voices in my head that go 'Kill kill', I realised that I don't want to live in London much longer. Today's journey made me think I don't want to live much longer.

Either that or I need to learn to drive.

Buffy and I had Poppy in her buggy and more baggage than the donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem, most of which I was carrying. In one of the bags was Poppy's latest toy, a lamb puppet which sings 'Mary had a little lamb' in the most irritating squeaky American accent I've ever heard, the kind of voice that bores into you like a dentist's drill into an unanaesthetised nerve. Every other step, the bounce of the bag against my leg set the lamb off.

"Mary had a little lamb."

Bump.

"Little lamb."

Bump.

"Little lamb"

We carried Poppy's buggy down the escalators and queued up to buy our tickets.

"Mary had a little lamb."

I should point out that I am quitting smoking and hadn't had any soothing, lovely nicotine all day. I ground my teeth. Sara exclaimed that she would be very happy if I was able to remain calm (unlike her) in these situation. The vein in my temple throbbed. The lamb bleated its satanic bleat.

"It's fleece was white as snoooooow."

By the time we got to Brixton and staggered out into the rain and headed off towards the bus stop, having gone up and down about a thousand escalators - I'm not even going to mention the point where I stepped onto the escalator at the exact point Buffy decided it was too scary on the escalator, so I then had to walk up 100 steps to help her carry the buggy down the same 100 steps, the lamb shrieking about how following Mary to school is against the rules; oops I already have - we were both fantasising about how easy life would be if we could drive.

So why don't we drive? The simple answer is that we can't afford it. Despite having pretty good jobs, we are as poor as church mice. This is all Poppy's fault. Or rather, our lax approach to contraception's fault. The joy Poppy brings us is worth millions a month, but unfortunately we can't spend joy on driving lessons and car tax, or on clearing our overdrafts.

The more complex answer about driving is that neither of really want to drive. I had driving lessons a couple of years ago. Apparently I had good clutch control but poor steering. The idea of actually being in control of a powerful killing machine makes me tremble. I can barely walk from the living room to the kitchen without knocking something over.

And I fear that putting Buffy in charge of a car would be even more dangerous. An example: whenever we are walking along the road and she sees a pigeon anywhere near the road, she curls up into a foetal ball and hides in a doorway until she knows the pigeon is safe and hasn't been squashed. You should see what she does when there's a cat near the road. I can just imagine her driving along, one eye on the road, the other fixed on the pigeons perched on nearby rooftops, gripped with terror in case one swoops into the road.

So I think we have two options: put ourselves through the public transport hell periodically. Or never ever leave the flat.

When we got home, I put my vegetarian principles aside for a moment.