Eavesdropping

I quite enjoy my morning commute to work. It's roughly an hour door to door.

After a quick drive to the station (this is where I reveal what a good wife I am... Because it's cold & miserable outside, I get to work an hour or so early everyday as I don't think it's fair that the Hubs has to walk whilst I drive... I did walk it once whilst pregnant but it did me in for the entire day!) we hop on to the train to London.

Because we leave so early (any time before 7am is just classed as 'so early' in my book) we always get a seat on the train. After a 25-30 minute journey, we're in Central London. For me, it's a quick ride on the tube followed by a short walk and I'm in the office. Where I sit now, alone as ever as it is stupid O' Clock. For the Hubs it's a slightly longer walk to work as he opts not to take the tube.

Every day is the same, and I really don't mind it. The only difference is the evening when I arrive home earlier than the Hubs. I drive home, prep dinner and then pop back to the station to collect him (let's see how long all these niceties last when Baby J has arrived!!!)

Today's journey was a little more interesting than normal... on we got to the train as usual. Both of us pulled out our phones (as usual) and got lost in a sea of emails, daily news, Tweets and Facebook posts. 

After the first stop, I noticed that a group of three people (comprised of two women and one man) got on the train and sat in the same section as us (they are clusters of five seats). They started chatting and I thought nothing of it. 

After a minute or so, I found that I was completely and utterly eavesdropping on their conversation. It turns out they were all parents and one of them was about to have twins (I had to stop myself wishing him congratulations!)

I am not usually so rude as to listen to other people's conversations (let alone blog about them and I did umm and err over this one) but I was just so intrigued by their conversation. 

It's worth noting here, that it wasn't just me listening in, after a few minutes I felt a nudge from the Hubs who when I turned to look at him had a cheeky smile on his face. He was another captive audience member!

Aside from the ins and outs of pregnancy, which is pretty interesting to listen to from experienced parents (it's crazy how indiscrete people are on train) it was so enlightening to listen to these people talk.

They knew EVERYTHING (to be expected when you have lots of children between you, the only parents I know have one, in one case two, little babies) 

Prams Vs. buggies, the best cars for long journeys, car seats, how to entertain the kids on long car journeys, the intricacies of birth (I won't share, it's far too early) and so on.

I have never wanted to join a conversation more, but that perhaps would have been too much... I know I'm a little odd, but they didn't need to. Plus, they clearly live close by so who knows? Maybe one day our kids will all be at the same school!

Needless to say, it made for a much more fun start to the day. Particularly when the Hubs whispered to me 'you're so going to blog about this journey!" Well Hubs, you're right. It was worth a blog. 

I do feel a little guilty though... like I am infringing on their privacy in some way... but it is a public space, and I could have revealed a lot more but I've politely chosen not to!

The moral of this post? You may think I am going to say something about being careful whose listening to your conversation, or what you're talking about in public. It's not. It's a free country and you're free to talk about what you want, when you want.

The moral of this post is that experience is everything. I for one am going to do my best to befriend parents of slightly older children. Whilst our parents have been there and done that it was a long time ago. What we need is advisers who have been their and got the t-shirt but not in the too distant past... 

I'm going to track some of these people down to source advice and hear their tales, if you are one of these parents or have had any pearls of wisdom passed onto you, please do share!