THE SECRET LIFE OF YOUR LONDON NEIGHBORHOOD

I never knew how much my little London neighbourhood changed during the day until I went on maternity leave. When I was working I only ever saw it at either end of rush hour or on the weekends - just lots of fast-walking business people with headphones in their ears and coffees in their hands. I read articles in the Metro that referred to my postcode as 'Nappy Valley' for it's desirability as a place to raise kids, but was always surprised by that. Our neighbourhood is all trendy pubs and cafes, a place of refuge for weekend brunch crowds or people with cute dogs, sure, but far from the American suburban streets I grew up on. What do all the London kids do all day if they can't ride their bikes around the streets while their mom's stay in the house and watch soap operas/drink wine with the neighbours?

But I am willing to wager that every neighbourhood in London has a secret double life, even yours. As soon as the last rush hour train pulls out of your local tube station all the mums and babies of your area will scuttle out of their flats like little stressed out hermit crabs and take over everything for exactly 6 hours.

First, they'll jam their prams into the tiny coffee shops around the corner from your house, competing for space against childless freelancers in an awkward game of buggy Tetris.

Then they'll gather outside your local pub, waiting for the doors to open at exactly noon. They'll flood through the double doors and spread out blankets, toys, prams, iPads and other home comforts, forming cliques while their kids run around the pub in feral packs with only the bartenders looking after them. Some will pull out laptops and pretend to work, typing furiously while their child bites their arms, rips up napkins or tears jewellery from their earlobes.

They'll swap numbers for childminders and nannies much in the way I imagine stocks are traded on Wall Street. “I gotta girl who can do Tuesdays and Thursdays, anyone need Tuesdays and Thursdays? Can anyone trade their Monday for a Friday?"

Your favourite local restaurant will be full of grandparents who travel down from Manchester to look after their grandchild on the same day every week. They'll spend way too long deciding what to order for the baby and then sit around and narrate it's every move. “She likes the bread but doesn’t like the cheese!” they’ll bemuse while the child throws cheese on the floor. “Oh look at that! He’s slobbering on the coasters!”

On a sunny day groups of mums will commandeer every outdoor patio, breastfeeding while disscusing sleep methods and feeding schedules as if they’re war strategists contriving a plan for their next battle. They’ll debate parenting books with the rigour of an academic, arguing their theories and evangelising about any successes they've had testing them on their kids.

They very rarely sit, preferring instead to stand, shush, jiggle, rock and pace while they talk, marking their territory with stray pacifiers or muslins or the little bits of soggy bread that seem to follow mums wherever they go.

If a mum is alone, trying to accomplish some form of “work,” she’ll get up at regular intervals to ask nearby mums if they wouldn’t mind watching her laptop. She’ll head to the bathroom, baby in hand, while other mums smile with sympathy knowing the intricate dance she’s about to do in the toilets - baby in one hand while she undoes the zip, shifts baby to the other hand to give jeans a good tug down, one side at a time, baby on lap while she pees, baby awkwardly balanced on sink while she tries to pull her jeans back up, against gravity and over her widened hips, one butt cheek refusing to comply. She'll go to wash her hands but they’re both already unhygienically in her baby’s mouth…plus the baby is terrified of the sound the hand dryer makes and will cry for 15 minutes if she even so much has accidentally swipes an elbow under the sensor.

Your neighbourhood park is full of women who have just sat down on a bench to breast feed their crying baby cursing anyone who sits on the same bench. They’ll awkwardly reach for a muslin to cover up with, but the wind will blow it sideways just as their baby breaks the latch to look at the stranger next to them, boob suddenly exposed, breastmilk everywhere. “Why THIS bench you batty old man???” she’ll say to herself in her head, or maybe even out loud without realising. Then she’ll feel guilty when she imagines her own baby son as an old man going to the park every day to sit on his favourite bench.

You can hear them striking up conversations on the tube, trying to out-self-depricate each other.

“I’ve only lost 5 pounds of my pregnancy weight and I had my baby 7 months ago.”

“You’re so lucky to even have time to weigh yourself! I wish I was that organised.”

“I’ve actually gained weight since I was pregnant,” they’ll say, turning the original woman’s self-deprecating remark into an outright brag.

The waiter at your local restaurant - the one who always takes great care to explain the local, organic, seasonal, farm-to-table breakfast menu to the weekend crowd - will spend their daytime hours patiently waiting for a new mum to remember “that word for a big circular piece of bread with sauce and cheese on it.”

“Pizza?”

“Yes! One of them, please.”

Your neighbourhood streets are full of parents trying to have phone conversations while chasing kids on tiny scooters. Or women chasing after buses, hands full of baby paraphernalia, a single breast swinging wildly to and fro because they forgot to do up one side of their maternity bra.

Your tiny neighbourhood shops are full of women bashing into store displays with their buggies, knocking over potted plants that they’ve deluded themselves into thinking they’re finally ready to buy, wrongly believing that if they can rear a child they can keep a houseplant alive.

Suddenly the clock strikes 4 and, as if by magic, the bedlam subsides as all the stay-at-home parents scuttle back to their houses before the rush hour trains start heaving city workers back into your neighbourhoods.

The pubs will take secret delight in going around telling anyone who dares to stick around with kids that, “I’m sorry, we have a no kids after 5 policy.” They'll evacuate the last child just before the first city worker comes in for their after-work pint, blissfully unaware that hours before that very same table was being used as a makeshift nappy changing station. They'll finish their pint, peel a sticky coaster off their elbow, and wander home to their families, glad to be out of the chaos of the city and in to the calm serenity of Zone 3.