London, what are your mothers doing?

Back in September my heart had a number done on it, didn't it?

Four rows from the front, left hand window seat (the crow's nest) on the top deck of the Number 12 bus, I was grudgingly being commuted into the Smoke- a hangover the size of a whale's face pushing my forehead against the glass. Eventually the bus pulled up at the Notre Dame R.C. Girls School and I watched a mother and her daughter step off and walk towards the school. The daughter was skipping along, bright pink lunchbox swinging dangerous arcs through the air, hair in pigtails- generous lashings of generic schoolgirl stereotypes aplomb. The mother was tottering along in her high heels, tiny clutch bag squeezed against her velour tracksuit, arguably grossly overdressed and/or under dressed for the morning school drop-off. or any other conceivable occasion. 

The daughter, having tired of fiercely pirouetting, skips back to her mum's side. Walking side by side the daughter reaches up to hold her mum's hand only to have it casually slapped away like a nuisance fly. Slowing her feet momentarily and letting her chin fall, the little girl then hugged her lunch box and then skipped onwards by herself. In the fug of mental melancholy, partially (wholly) brought on by the previous night's endeavours, the sight fucking broke my heart...

London, you're doing it all wrong...