Went to Heart Lake this afternoon to get some sunshine and so that D could have a splash around. The beach wasn't too crowded, so we sat down by the waterfront so that we could see D's every move. After being there for half an hour or so, an Indian family of around 25 people decided to come and stand right beside where we were sitting, slightly infront, and blocked my view of D in the water and shouting loudly to each other. The beach is not tiny, there was plenty of space for them to be, why did they have to choose to stand 2 inches from where we were established and sitting? I'm not exaggerating, several of them were actually touching me they were that close.
Eventually G asked one of the women very politely if she wouldn't mind their party moving slightly to give us some space. She, for some reason, decided to take offence and got her husband who then launched into a verbal attack on G complete with much swearing and threatening of violence. G stood up and the guy backed off a little but continued to hurl abuse at the top of his voice (so that everyone on the beach could hear) about how we didn't own it, our parents didn't own it, and he could stand there if he wanted, blah blah. Total lack of respect for personal space on their part!! Anyway, this guy was out of control and eventually (we had remained calm) G said to me let's go, and walked off to retrieve a toy of D's. When he'd gone I stood up and the guy started shouting at me, so I calmly said look, we asked you politely to move that's all, you're right infront of us, surrounding us, we wanted to see our son in the water. At which point the man grabs me by the arms and shoves me, forcing two of his family members to pull him away. Bearing in mind I am 36 wks pregnant this was absolutely terrifying and I was completely shaken. G came back and found me in tears - I told him what happened - at which point another guy came over and threatened to hit this guy because he'd seen what happened, and then the security for the park came over and they dealt with these people (who of course denied everything)...... we left, I was in a dreadful state, couldn't even breathe I was so upset and scared. It took me about an hour to calm down... horrible. What kind of man attacks verbally and physically a pregnant woman?
The day improved slightly by having fireworks this evening on our street for "Canada Day" (whatever it is, all I know is everyone had the day off today) which D really enjoyed. There's a full moon outside so I'm hoping the old wives tales will come true and I'll end up going into labour ;)
Posted by katie at July 1, 2004 11:12 PM