Thursday was an interesting and varied day. As you know, we all went to the pictures on Wednesday night (Orange Wednesday – 2 tickets for the price of 1 – excellent). However, because the earlier showings were all full, we had to see ‘Karate Kid’at 8.15pm. It was only 6.15pm so we went over to Frankie and Benny’s for a feed, which was earth shatteringly expensive – I’d been planning to take them to MacDonald’s on the way home. Consequently, we didn’t get home until quarter to twelve, which is very late for young chaps and chappesses.
I had agreed to help Lady Marjorie with some spring cleaning first thing on Thursday morning but I had to take my car to the garage at 8.30am. Luckily they lent me a car for the day as after Lady M, I had to pick up The Boys and leg it over to Mrs Cromarty as I have been helping her partner to make something for his disco rig. We have had to design it almost as we go along and there is a lot of sewing involved. A lot of sewing. We were still working on it late into the night, with only a break to pick up my car (now purring along happily) and get some fish and chips. At one point, there was a crash and a lot of yelling and Boy the Elder came hobbling downstairs in great pain. He had tripped over a cable and a large television had fallen onto his foot. Ow.
I inspected it closely, put a cold pack followed by a stabilising bandage on it and made him lie on the sofa with his foot up. By 11pm his foot had turned many different and exciting colours and it was decided that Thursday night in A&E would conceivably be quicker than Friday. Mrs Cromarty is much nearer to The Leicester Royal Infirmary, where they also have a dedicated Children’s A&E, but I’ve never been there, so she opted to come too. We left Boy the Younger at her house.
It could have been much worse. We were given a wheelchair so that we could avoid Boy the Elder’s inevitable RADA audition, as he hopped, grimacing and groaning along the corridor like a low rent Long John Silver. After only half an hour, we were ushered into Triage or ‘See and Treat’ as it was helpfully labelled, where the nurse started giggling as Boy the Elder described what had happened. “I’m so sorry”, she said, “It’s just that we have another boy in the waiting room who had a really large clock fall on his head at about the same time. Strikes me as quite funny”. We agreed in principle that it was quite funny.
There was then the usual A&E Foxtrot between X-Ray (BTE: “Why have you put that heavy sheet on my privates?” Nurse: “In case you want to have children when you’re older”), The Adolescents’ Waiting Room and the Treatment Cubicle. The Adolescents’ Waiting Room was fun. There were posters everywhere about AIDS, drugs (all types), STDs (and how to catch one), chlamydia, female circumcision and forced marriage. These stimulated some interesting conversations, I can tell you.
We were delighted to discover that we were waiting with Clock Boy who had a hole in his head. I told him all about trepanning to cheer him up. His lovely parents were with him and we chatted happily until both boys were called in to the treatment room. Boy the Elder was feeling quite cheerful by now and regaled the nurse with his tale in articulate and gruesome detail. “I bet it hurts like buggery” she said, which got The Boy firmly on her side.
There appeared to be no bones broken and, having dropped Mrs Cromarty at her house, we finally arrived back home at 2.45am, tired, cold and hungry. After a brief pause to shovel down some cheese on toast and Ovaltine down us, we retired to bed at 3am. I had an appointment at 9am. Not happy.
I collected Boy the Younger and we gave ourselves the afternoon off. I made up some of my special Bruised Bone Liniment (Top Secret formula, incredibly efficacious), applied some to the offending foot, after which we retired to the sofa in a big heap with cake, tea and ‘Blazing Saddles’ on the DVD.
It could have been worse.
Wartime Housewife 