Bugaboo racing

Most days, sporty young mums can be seen arriving at the park with their children in pushchairs and jogging around the perimeter, pushing baby in front. At first it looked like light exercise and a good idea, but more recently they have been gathering in packs, the speed has picked up and it has begun to resemble a battle of the gladiators.

Mother and Bugaboo hurtle through the park gates and onto the circuit, mother panting and pushing, baby clinging to arm rests, little fingers white with exertion, body hanging over, neck bent at 45 degree angle by G-force, mouth pulled back in rictus grin, wind blasting into chops, lips parted and vibrating, dead midges on milk teeth, eyes streaming.

‘Why no windscreen like dadda car?’

She digs in the Osmozz trainers and takes one hand from the Bugaboo to adjust her sports bra. He chokes back a scream as the pushchair keels over to the right and he grips even harder as she struggles to restore its balance, then she kicks hard and he feels the acceleration; this one is going to be a wild ride. He wants to poo. Perhaps he already has pooed. His blanket blows up into his face and his exposed legs are freezing. Suddenly the blanket drops and his view of the morning world is revealed; it’s Grand Theft Auto without the auto.

He is the auto.

“Fingers cold. Can’t hold on, head too heavy. Want it to stop. Mumma could leave me with Geena the dog. Sleep in basket with doggie. Why don’t she give me goggles? Or bandana? I need helmet. She drink too much wine and had fags so do more than ten laps today. She fart like motorboat too. Putt putt putt.”

This is just a rehearsal for the main event, the Bugaboo Grand Prix. Up to fifteen sleek chariots each with a white-faced powerless little jockey strapped firmly in to its cockpit, the lycra-clad participants all chatting, their insouciance hiding a grim resolve; they all know why they’re here. This is the Dulwich Park Death Race and only one über mummy will survive.

It starts amicably enough, or it seems amicable. Then they pick up the pace and begin jostling for position, indiscernibly at first, then ostentatious shouldering – bugaboo as battering ram. Every now and then one of them will move through the pack apparently to chat with someone fresh but what’s really going on is the surreptitious push for the front, the fever for the finishing line disguised as the need to talk to Julia about how short is the life of the long life light bulb “like the summer of a dormouse my dear”. Push, shove, a bugaboo is clattered out of the gossiping pack and careers off into the rhododendrons, its driver wrestling with the grips desperately dragging it back towards the course in a scene straight from Ben Hur.

“Sorry darling,” lies a mad eyed mumma, “Didn’t see you?” Course she saw her, she just tried to maim her. The great Dulwich Park stroller disaster. They’ll be pulling bits of mangled pushchair out of that bush for weeks. Too bad about the kid; wrong place wrong time. A tiny little chalk outline and the remains of a lolly melted into the grass.

Then the final sprint to the line. It’s up on two wheels now. She loses control, bugaboo snaking, she gets tank slap like Valentino Rossi moments before he goes over the handlebars. The terrified child swings in the chair from one side to the other - a drunk midget in a slalom, snot flying and screaming, his lolling head threatening to leave its shoulders: Maaammmaaaa!

The finish line approaches and with mere millimetres in it she gives a flying shove and the buga is over, the child’s legs splayed in front of it to buffer the impact as he hurtles panic-stricken towards a dozing, cider-drinking man on a bench. Mum shows no sign of triumph as she deftly whisks the buggy out of the derelict’s way and jogs gently towards the Porsche Cayenne, job done, other mummies mashed.

Later the combatants will re-convene at the cake shop (which conveniently keeps a decent cellar) and over a couple of 14-ounce glasses of Pinot (“I shouldn’t really darling. Oh go on then”) they will mull over fitness and the next day’s event. In the buggy park, the little jockeys stare at each other mute with fright, brains scarred and nappies full, sadly still too small to figure an escape route and make a break for it.