As days go . . .

. . . it started really nicely. Sid and I cuddling in bed, because Jeremy was at home and could see both boys off to school. Started going slightly awry when he came upstairs to roust us out, and Sid asked to be carried downstairs because it hurt too much to walk.


What?

It really did. Sitting in her chair for breakfast she was her usual chirpy self, but wouldn't walk. Because it hurt too much. When I dressed her, and had to manage her into her trousers and socks and shoes, and blimey, I couldn't move her leg without her yelling out, we were down at the doctor's pretty sharpish I can tell you.

And he said, 'Well, she's got Irritable Hip.'


What?

These doctors have diagnoses for pretty much everything these days. Irritable Hip, I ask you. Tcha. But, while 95% of these cases turn out to be Transient Synovitis, 5% of them don't, and turn out to be Septic Arthritis. I had to get her to A&E NOW.

And after that? Six hours of pure unalloyed Boring shot through with flashes of either Horrible or Scary. And with nothing to eat. They poked and prodded, Sid yelped. They smeared anaesthetic cream on the backs of her hands and in the crooks of her elbows, covered it over with plaster, and told her not to bend her arms. You try it for two hours. They X-rayed her, they took blood (when my opinion of that anaesthetic cream positively plummeted) and told us to wait. And wait. And wait some more.

And, six hours later, the winner was . . . Transient Synovitis! Ya-aa-a-ay!

And fifteen minutes after we got home, Sid halfway through a bowl of cereal, Friday being my shopping day so there was nothing else in the house, when Jeremy raced Kit to - yup, you guessed it - A&E. He'd fallen badly at a friend's house and cracked his head on a brick. He was woozy, felt ill and kept scrunching his eyes up against the light.

Came back rather past his bed-time, gagging for something to eat, and indignant that the doctor had forbidden his reading until he was better. Twenty minutes later he declared himself fully recovered.

These doctors know a thing or two about healing the sick.

A distant dream

Half term? What half term?

Oh, that one. But it was ages ago!

Well, it was lovely. We went to Centre Parcs in Wiltshire (unexpectedly hilly for those riding bikes. For those of me who had to travel on the little train because little daughter chose that week to refuse to sit in the carrier on the back of Mummy's bike, hills? What hills?) mostly for the lovely swimming pool. The playgrounds are wonderfully inventive, the games facilities comprehensive and the hot chocolate absolutely vile. And, them being only a few miles away, we spent our coming-home-day with friends who were Very Happy.

But hey-ho, three days into the new term and life is right back at full throttle. I noticed with horror that this week, it's my turn to host all three play-date groups that Sid belongs to. On the upside, it should mean that for the whole of next week I will not have to set eyes on any children whatsoever.

And I'm supposed to be updating the church website with the Easter events, but I keep getting too drunk. Ah - that sounds bad, doesn't it? I mean that, having been out the last couple of nights and taking alcoholic advantage of not having to drive home, I've put in an hour's work on the site, only to have to delete and re-write most of it, because that extra glass of wine has blunted me to the difference between A Serious Church Website and my own blog. My, but anyone happening across www.chalfontstgileschurch.org.uk would have thought us the most extraordinarily relaxed of churches. Chattery bordering on the indiscreet. Revealing much beside, but vanishingly little to, the point.

All using perfect grammar, though.

At tonight's book club we talked about Peter Hobbs' The Short Day Dying. A young 19th century methodist lay preacher wrestling with faith, unacknowleged love and grinding poverty. Surprisingly engaging. As a companion piece, our next one is Iain Banks' Whit, about
a young 20th century messiah wrestling with faith, unacknowleged love and grasping betrayal. I've read it before, and am so looking forward to reading it again. The only book I've ever only read one short chapter at a time, because I was enjoying it so much I didn't want it to end.

Hooray for Half Term

Everyone goes on about the little buggers beggars darlings really needing Half Term, it's been a busy time, they are tired, poor poppets, but What About Me? I'm bloody blimmin' jolly tired too, let me tell you. It's the lunch boxes that do my head in. I actually timed myself one morning to see how much of my life was swirling down the drain while I prepared another collation that stood but a small chance of actually being eaten and was horrified to find out that it - well, both - took about six minutes. Together, not each. Why on earth does it seem to take so much longer?

Took a leaf out of my friend Elizabeth's book - after school, she will only give a child of hers something to eat if it's lunchbox is empty. It's a win-win for her.

While Sid went for a sleep-over at her Aunt Julia's, Jeremy took the boys to see a film they told me was called The Warthog Wars. I thought that was a fantastic title for a film.

I was going to write at greater length but having removed some of the filthier keys on my keyboard to clean them, I've somehow buggered fouled up the spacebar, and now it will only work if I strike it a) VERY HARD and b) repeatedly. Any longer and I will wake the household.

Moral Inferiority

Blimey - how often do I go on at the kids about the importance of SHARING? Often and often. LOTS. After all, it's only stuff, and stuff stays pretty much stuff (until it's comprehensively totalled by your two-year-old, which is why you don't share your laptop with him.) But you know what I mean - kids have to learn, and I am secure in the knowledge that as a GROWN-UP I have outgrown the petty tyranny of childhood possesiveness, and risen above paltry enslavement to mere Things.

Oh yes I have.

*groan* Oh no I haven't.

That beautiful Nano I salivated about a while back was bought, on my suggestion, as a way of moving forward with our record collection - a way of storing and carrying and playing our CDs which didn't rely on the somewhat second-rate qualities of the PC. Notice the plural of the pronoun. 'Our'. My birthday might have been the excuse, but it was intended as a joint household item. On my suggestion.

BUT I DON'T WANT TO SHARE! I want it to be mine! I love it I love it I love it and every time we do some music dubbing and sorting out playlists and syncing the iPod, I have to bite the inside of my lip until it bleeds in an effort to stay a grown-up.

And just now I took delivery of my new chair and all the kids want to do is play with it and I REALLY REALLY don't want them to.

Because its MINE.