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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be more than a bit [shock] at the women in the park this morning?

34 replies

NotQuiteCockney · 29/09/2008 11:16

Three women. One pre-school kid, obviously on their way back from the school run.

And ...

A 1.5 l bottle of white wine! Ok, they weren't far into it, but ... it was 10:30 in the morning!

OP posts:

TrinityRhino · 29/09/2008 11:18

oh my god
I bet it was the nasty cheap shit I dirnk

{not at 10.30am I hasten to add}

pgwithnumber3 · 29/09/2008 11:19

Shit, I have been caught out.

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 29/09/2008 11:20

I don't know what it was. I didn't peer that closely, honestly, because, well, what sort of people drink at 10:30 in the morning, on a Monday, with kids underfoot! I was worried they might be up for a fight or something.

Does it make a difference that they didn't appear to have any glasses?

(I did peer enough to see that the bottle was open, and some was gone. I didn't actually see them drinking it. I guess they might have been carrying an open bottle around but not drinking?)

OP posts:

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 29/09/2008 11:20

Oh dear god, was it you! And you're pregnant, too!

OP posts:

WhereTheWildThingsWere · 29/09/2008 11:22

sun definately not past the yard arm on the way home from the school run methinks.

I am both and by the circumstances that must have arisen to prompt my ds's infant school to put up a sign reading 'no alcohol on school premises'.

Though I do think it's just the parents, not the children btw.

belgo · 29/09/2008 11:23

Presumably they were celebrating someone's birthday?

There was a farmer's fair in my town recently and the farmers were drinking beer and eating hamburgers ( real belgian hamburgers, not MacDonald's rubbish) at 10am. I had a hamburger, I just couldn't resist, but I couldn't face beer at that time!

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 29/09/2008 11:24

I've been to a lot of school events with alcohol, and I must admit to being quite by that, too. (But I'm forn, and we have a different attitude to alcohol where I come from - drinking in the street is illegal, for one thing.)

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Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 29/09/2008 11:25

I guess they could have been celebrating ... but really? Is a 1.5L bottle of wine in the local park, shared among 3 women, at 10am, really the best way to celebrate?

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Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 29/09/2008 11:26

I did shrug to myself, whatever, I mean, it's possible they're hardened alcoholics, it's possible one of them has had a Very Bad Thing happen, or indeed a Very Good Thing - I don't really know, it's not actually my business. They didn't seem drunk, to be fair (but they'd only had about an inch of the wine so far), and they weren't rowdy or anything.

OP posts:

TrinityRhino · 29/09/2008 11:26

I thought it was illegal to drink in the street here in the uk too

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 29/09/2008 11:28

No, it isn't - sometimes there are local bylaws that make it illegal, but the 'default' setting is, it's legal.

You've only just made it illegal to drink on tubes and buses.

Every so often I explain the drinking culture to Canadians back home, just to watch them go

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Marina · 29/09/2008 11:28

NQC, they weren't accompanied by two naked small girls were they
(hoxty and versdesociete were in a park in that area last week and were accosted by a nutter, they might have decided to fortify themselves for today's visit )

NorbertDentressangle · 29/09/2008 11:29

I would have been a bit too.

Then again I feel a bit guilty buying alcohol at that time of day in case people think I'm going to drink it there and then (not if its in with a big weekly shop but if you've specifically gone to buy wine for that evening for example or gone to stock up on a good offer from Lidl etc )

EffiePerine · 29/09/2008 11:29

that's what you get for living in London

though the drunks round here have Traditional Values and hide their tinnies in brown paper bags

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 29/09/2008 11:32

Oooh, which park were they in? No, it wasn't Hoxty, I've met Hoxty.

I don't know why I was that , I see men with tins all the time, even early in the morning, next to their wives pushing pushchairs. It's unfair that I'm that bothered by it being women with a big sociable bottle rather than a man with a tin.

I don't mind buying alcohol whenever, but I got really really really really trashed on Saturday (birthday party in afternoon at mine, 50 kids, then karaoke until 2am, how mad am I?) so the thought of any wine, ever, makes me a bit green at the moment.

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pushchair · 29/09/2008 11:36

Once had to very tetatively tell a dad that another parent had reported his ex wife, who was not allowed to pick up the son, drinking gin at the school gates. Could it have been her? He thought for a moment- 'ah no it couldnt have been her she only drinks vodka!' Well thats all right then. It was a bit of a rough area.

batters · 29/09/2008 11:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 29/09/2008 11:39

Hmm, but I'd expect an MN meetup to happen at someone's house. And for there to be glasses.

Maybe this was a Bounty meetup?

OP posts:

CherryChapstick · 29/09/2008 11:40

It might have been somebodys birthday.

batters · 29/09/2008 11:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 29/09/2008 23:00

So ... do I check to see if they're there tomorrow, too?

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hapsty · 29/09/2008 23:08

NQC Welcome to Our Country, we do things different here
I am remembering with fondness my American friend's look of sheer terror and horror when I attempted to take my open can of beer into a car in which I was travelling as a passenger
an open can of beer, apparently, is the key to opening the floodgates to anarchy and lawlessness, and quite possibly the apocalypse

susia · 29/09/2008 23:14

well someone I know has a night on speed/coke then 'sobers' up the night day by taking her son to the park with a few cans of cider

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 29/09/2008 23:17

Yeah, in North America we have Open Container laws, which mean that carrying an open container of alcohol (except in the boot) in a car is an arrestable offence. (I think these laws were to let them arrest people who were driving drunk, in the days before breathalizers.)

I suspect people really only get in trouble for it if they do something else stupid, though like arguing with the officers, or being Black.

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Snippety · 29/09/2008 23:23

I do a bit of litter picking now and then round our local play area. I'd done the bulk of it, binned the bag and was walking back along the road with my son in his trikey. Spotted a Special Brew can at the gate to the play area and picked it up to put in the litter bin at the garage a few streets up.

Then noticed I was getting really disapproving looks from all the old dears at the bus stop on the other side of the road. They must've thought I was enjoying a liquid breakfast at 9.30 am in charge of a toddler

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