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Yesterday I went to London to meet my good friend EQ, also of this parish, as it’s been aages since I saw her last. It wasn’t planned as an omo adventure, but still, there’s a little bit of a story to be told…

My day didn’t start too early really, up at 7-ish for breakfast and all the other morning stuff, packed my bag (two big bottles of drink, as I usually do, plus my camera and some snack food), then away on a train just before 8.45 (actually just after 8.45, which was just as well otherwise it’d have gone without me). The train journey was pretty unremarkable, other than that I went to the toilet just over halfway there (I don’t know how some people on here get halfway through the day before their morning pee – there’s just always something else there for me to deal with once I’m up and about…), had a cup of tea before that and another one after, a glass of orange juice at some point and a little bottle of water too. Into London just after 10 and off down into the Underground; EQ arrived on the other side of central London at around the same time so we’d arranged to meet in the middle. That’s exactly what we did, then went up to a shop to buy some salad for lunch and another bottle of water, back onto the Underground at a station that was nearer to the shop, got slightly confused in the station because I thought I was back at the other station, enjoyed a short train ride where we tried to talk but failed to listen because it was too noisy, got off the train and into a lift that went up a long long way, and (back in daylight) started walking up the road to the big park where we’d decided to go for a walk and a talk.

Now at this point I might have thought about using a toilet if there was one nearby, just for convenience. There was definitely something there – not a lot, but enough to notice. Either way, I don’t think there was a toilet, and I didn’t want to spoil the fun, so off we went. It took a few minutes to get into the park, and then we walked along some paths through some quite thick vegetation, through an open space that had noisy children in it and finally found a bench overlooking some trees with occasional hints of a view over London. We sat and talked about stuff for a bit, no real revelations because we keep in touch all the time anyway, but trying different things on cameras and that. We had a bit more to drink each too, and EQ made me try her blood orange drink that seemed quite nice at first but then had a horrible aftertaste that made me pull a funny face. All the time, I could feel a fair bit of pressure, quite constant and quite external, right there at the exit. There wasn’t really a lot of pressure in my bladder, and that usually means that I’ve not been drinking as much as I usually do (plus it was quite warm out, and it was really warm on the Underground), so I thought it only right to get one of the big bottles out and have a good drink. EQ did really well with the blood orange, but I had to finish the last bit off too.

After a while, we decided to go walk across to the other side of the park, where most of the little attractions were. There was a pergola and a hill garden which seemed to go on forever, and then at the end of that an observatory that maybe once looked over central London but now just looked at some trees, and a nice looking bench next to a grassed area. Since we were both quite hungry, we decided to go sit there and eat, all the time with me feeling that constant pressure which seemed to be at a bit of a plateau. Standing up made it feel worse for a few seconds, and there was the first bit of internal pressure too, so I was aware that I was waddling a little bit like a penguin whilst going to put things in the bin. I’d admitted that I needed a wee to EQ whilst we were walking there (which I normally don’t do!) and she said that she did too, but she didn’t really seem to be showing any signs which made me slightly jealous. Lunch took a while to eat because we’d forgotten to pick up any forks to go with the salad, until we’d nearly finished and EQ gave up and pulled out the pre-packed fruit dessert that she’d bought and started to eat it with the fork packed in with it…

Onwards again, and now I noticed that I was being quite quiet, trying to keep us moving all the time and struggling to stand still when I saw something that I wanted to take a photo of and then taking longer because I couldn’t concentrate and kept messing up the manual settings on the camera. We were aiming to go to the animal enclosures next, and the path down to there passed through some wooded areas. I think I commented on how tempting the trees looked, and I certainly thought about it. There were quite a few people around, though. All too soon, we were out of the woods and next to the deer enclosure, where we sat for a few more minutes on another bench so that I could think about how badly I needed to go and how little EQ appeared to need to go! I was feeling quite thirsty at the same time, though, so I had a decent drink out of my bottle, and EQ did the same and commented that the act of drinking made her need to go quite a lot more, not that she showed any external signs to give that away. Sitting down started to get difficult (for me at least), though, and we moved on to find the actual deer in the enclosure. More importantly, there was also a little toilet nearby, which attracted most of my attention. It was really difficult to take photos by now, especially when I wanted to kneel down to get a better angle and then try to wait patiently for the animals within to do the right pose. When I stood up, I instinctively wanted to hold myself with one hand because it felt like it’d help, but it obviously wasn’t absolutely necessary and there were still a lot of people around. I was wearing quite thin, black trousers, so it’d have been pretty obvious what I was doing, whereas it might have been more subtle but also less effective with something thicker like jeans. Before moving on to the area where the birds and some other animals were, I went to check that the toilet was open and that it didn’t need any change – I didn’t really want to go in there, but I wanted to make sure that it was available as a Plan B if I really needed it. The first door didn’t open, which scared me a little bit, but then thankfully the other one did, which was more reassuring.

As it happened, things moved on quickly after that. We went to look at some sort of duck nearby, and then on to look at some sort of chicken, but I can’t really remember the details really. I sat down on another bench and didn’t really take any notice of anything else, but then a man with a really happy dog came by which wanted to say hello in its own canine way, and then the man himself wanted to talk about how dogs fit into our society and the importance of respecting their social status (or something like that). I tried to sound like I was contributing meaningfully to the conversation, but really I just wanted to keep moving because I really needed to get back around to those toilets. I felt in conflict, though, because we didn’t really have time now to come back to look at these things, so I tried my best to appreciate their natural beauty and all that whilst trying not to look like I was about to lose it in the middle of the park. I gave up even on trying to appreciate it all by the time we reached the lemurs, and walked (sort of) straight past them. I don’t really remember the details, but I do remember that I had one hand in my pocket (I was wearing a thin sort of jacket thing) pulled across my front slightly. I also remember EQ walking perfectly normally, no different to how she normally does, and couldn’t understand how she was able to do so. She did suggest that I ran ahead, so I guess that my situation was a little more obvious now, but I replied that I probably couldn’t run even if I wanted to. Soon enough, though, we reached the toilets and I asked EQ whether she’d look after my camera for me, then decided to leave my rucksack with her too when she sat down. I carefully handed her the camera, threw the bag clumsily onto the bench somewhere near her and waddled off around to the (thankfully vacant) toilet, had a moment’s panic when I had to undo the knot on my trousers (which I’d done up tight because they felt like they were falling down), overcame that problem and then nearly relaxed a moment too soon. Relief was sweet, and it just kept going and going and going.

We then went back to the lemurs for a quick look, where I took some photos and EQ stood – finally! – quite awkwardly, occasionally shifting the position of her legs and lifting a foot up once or twice, which I guessed was maybe an attempt to cross her legs slightly, but I’m not sure. We had to leave, really, though, to head back into London for trains home. I asked her whether she was going to go to the toilet first, and (unsurprisingly) she said that she’d have to really, but then added that she could probably hold it until she got home, which surprised me as that’d easily be another three hours or so! Turning back to the same toilet, there was a family hanging around the same bench where she’d waited for me to go, and sure enough it turned out that one of the family was in the only working toilet, so we had to wait for a minute, and EQ bounced a bit whilst we waited and I’m sure that at one point she went to hold herself but then stopped just before doing so. I didn’t think that there was anyone nearby at this point but apparently there was a park worker standing right next to us, hiding behind a tree maybe?

Anyway, that was that, pretty much. We walked to a different Underground station again, because it was nearer to where we’d finished up, back to my station where I sadly had to quickly walk up to the mainline station for my train, leaving EQ to make her own way across London. I didn’t go to the toilet again until I got home a couple of hours later, by which time I needed to go but not really badly, but from her messages it seems that she was struggling again by the time she was on the train, asking me to find out how long it’d take until her stop as though for reassurance. I wonder how it’d have gone if she had decided earlier to try to hold on until she got home?!

That’s that, anyway. Sorry if it’s a bit long-winded, but hopefully you can find the omo content in there somewhere…

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