The Post Office is a Scary Place, Peanuts are the Anti-Christ and Cell phones can bomb a Petrol Station.

Key discoveries 10 weeks in.

1. Vallergan Forte is the only way to fly with children. It's a schedule 5 antihistamine that will save your life. It's prescription-only, tastes like jet-fuel but will ensure that you're not the Taliban equivalent on a plane headed to any destination. 
2. Public transport is for the birds. We were all raised with cars. We come from a country where cars are normal. It's not elitist. It's how nature intended. Standing waiting for a bus is the biggest waste of time and slightly degrading especially when you have two children, an unwieldy pram with groceries hanging from the handles and your wine bottles clinking in the basket tray. The clink of shame.
3. Don't cry in the post office after you've posted your son's school application without the stamp you've just bought but forgot to stick on. Don't try and get them to open the postbox to retrieve aforementioned application. This is apparently illegal. Especially don't cry when your children are with you. They will cry too. You will all cry. It will be humiliating and you will be judged. Moral of the story: get your husband to post from his work. Never go into a post office again. Ever.
4. Don't send your child to school with peanuts as a snack in his lunchbox. Innocent little Avent cup with offending peanuts will be quarantined in the principal's office and your child will be treated with scorn by his peers. You as his mum and principle peanut offender will get a tongue lashing on health and safety regulations. 
5. On the subject of health and safety: don't think it's a joke when your child comes home with a letter signed by the principal stating that he fell off the jungle gym, or bumped into another child, or tripped down the stairs, or scuffed his knee. It's not a joke. It's to prevent a lawsuit. This is taken very seriously. 
6. My favourite health and safety rule has got to be the fact that the moment the clocks need to be pushed forward in April - you have to include sun cream and a hat in your child's book-bag. This is funny for 2 reasons. No.1, they'll never be used. And no. 2, in the (dubious) event that the sun reaches a temperature when a burn is likely, your child needs to have sun cream application training as the teachers are not allowed to apply the cream themselves. If it's 35 degrees and your kid can't apply sun cream, he'll come home with 3rd degree sun burns - but at least the teacher won't have touched him. Go figure that logic.
7. When you come across a petrol station, don't sit and wait for the guy to come to your window. No one will come. You'll sit for a while until you realise that everyone does it themselves. There is no one who helps. If you try to call your husband to ask how to remove the petrol cap on the car and which of the 16 nozzles you use to pump the petrol into your car, you will be screamed at by a nameless faceless man over an intercom. You will first ignore this, assuming that the racket can't possibly be for your benefit...when out of nowhere a lunatic man will emerge from a kiosk and tell you that you're going to blow up the petrol station up by using your phone. This isn't a joke. Don't laugh. He threatens police action. Don't laugh again. Hang up sheepishly, apologise profusely and figure out how to do it yourself. Never go to that petrol station again. 
8. When 2 Mormons come to your door at 6pm, your children are jumping on the couch after you've bribed them with chocolate mousse to let you read your book and the guys (despite the background carnage) ask politely to come in and talk to you about Jesus. You tell them that it's not a good time and that they should come back another time. They will. And they'll come back again after that. When the doorbell rings, get your 4-year-old son to answer the door and hide in the downstairs loo. They haven't come back since.
9. When your son en route from school needs to do a wee, the proper thing to do is encourage him to hold it in until you've reached your house and he can use the toilet. If he suddenly whips his penis out and starts peeing on someone's verge, you can only walk a little faster and pretend he's not yours.
10. You can also pretend he's not yours when you're at a soft play area and a mother turns to you and complains about the blonde boy in the gray hoodie (your son) who's just shoved her brutish looking kid down the slide. You didn't see the incident. You were on Facebook on your phone. You agree that the blonde kid is a cretin, leg it to the toilet and move to another area and hope cretin kid doesn't come looking for you.
11. When you're at the doctors and she gives your child a yoghurt sweet for having 2 jabs in his leg (he had to have a 2nd MMR vaccine and a Meningitis C jab, poor oke) and he drops the sweet on the floor and promptly picks it up and puts it back in his mouth and she's beyond horrified, don't laugh and go "5 second rule"…or "we're from Africa, we eat anything"... You won't crack a smile. Not even remotely.
12. Finally my biggest learning to date. Never completely lock your house. This isn't Africa. No one will try to creep through a 10x10cm square windowpane. If you do keep all your doors and windows locked and your front door is self-locking you may find yourself in a situation where you lock your 18-month-old child inside while you and your 4 year old are left outdoors with a bunkbed delivery man. You have no phone. You're in your PJs with no shoes and it's 5 degrees and 5:15pm. Oh and your husband is in Europe. Luckily our landlords live in a big fancy detached house at the end of the row of terraced houses (of which we are no.6) and on this particular day when psycho South African bashes on her door screaming that her infant daughter is locked alone in the house, she's able to help by calling a locksmith and 50 minutes later with a crowd of about 12 neighbours looking on shaking their heads and you can only then hold your little girl who's cried herself hoarse. After the ordeal, landlady suggests a cup of tea and you smile wanly and reach for the wine. Landlady and 12 onlookers avert eye contact and avoid you wherever possible.

Windsor High Street Post Office - my site of shame.