Where was I?

He phoned just before 4pm.
"I've crashed, " he said.

Being married to a man who loves his sports cars (not to mention the motorbikes) means that I've been expecting this call for nearly seventeen years. When it finally came, I was grateful he'd phoned me himself, having hung up on the emergency services lest they get to me first.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"I'm fine," he replied, "but I think I've hurt my foot."
I had a little panic then: this is a man who could slice off his finger and mention only a small cut.
"What sort of hurt-your-foot," I asked.
"It hurts when I move it, and I'm stuck."
Poor lamb. He was stuck in the wreckage for over an hour while they searched for him (he didn't know exactly where he was, and his satnav had been flung out by the force of the impact). Eventually, he was spotted by a kindly farmer, bumbling along on his tractor, who noticed something unusual sticking out of the hedge...

Altogether, he broke three bones; one of them in four places, and the 'hurt foot' required a major reconstruction of his lower left leg. Three months, and three operations later (so far), it remains encased in a steel frame (with all kinds of exciting bits to twiddle). He doesn't get much pain now, he says, and has stopped swearing at his leg, but I can tell you he swears a lot at his crutches instead.

Now he's past the seriously-injured stage (sleeps well, can stay awake all day, isn't popping pills every hour), he's reached the frustration stage. He thinks he's better (which is laughable), and being a man, he's trying to get on with Normal Life. Only he can't. Not even nearly. Hence the swearing. This is at least as hard to live with as having a fragile, bed-bound, smashed-up invalid in the house.

He's getting better. Not day-to-day, or even week-to-week, but if we look back a month, he's much better than he was. Eighteen months, the consultant said, and we've done two of them already.

--------------------------------------------
These people have made it all possible: the Brighton Orthopaedic Trauma Team, who are talented and lovely with it; Queenie, who thinks she's neglected me, but has just been wonderful; Jane and Angie who have picked up so many pieces I've lost count; my dad, who paid for a cleaning fairy; and my kids, who stepped up to the mark when I needed them to.

To Infinity and Beyond

Himself and the small boy (aged four-and-a-bit) were having a conversation in the car this afternoon. The small boy was writing numbers on one of those magnetic drawing-boards.
SB: Look at my number eight, Dad. Isn't it good?
H: Yes very good.
SB: Eights are easy. You just start with an S, and carry on going.
H: Yes, that's right.
SB: And look. I can write infinity. It's just an eight on its side.
H (astonished): How on earth did you know that?
SB (adopting the air of a university professor): Infinity is bigger than the biggest number there is. I bet you didn't know that!
H: So, can you count to infinity?
SB: No! Don't be a silly head. It would take me the rest of my life to count to infinity.

They don't half put you in your place sometimes!

---

I have been awarded the Mwah by Helen. She has no idea how much this perked me up at the time (I've had a really shitty few days). So thank you, Helen! I hope it has the same effect on Sarah G and Honeysuckle, both of whom have made me think a bit just recently. Thank you, girls.

Della Galton's Course I

It was when I reached the motorway, switched on the cruise control and turned the stereo up so loudly that I practically had Jimi Hendrix in the car with me (Voodoo Chile makes such a great change from Wheels on the Bloody Bus), that I realised I was actually doing my own thing.

The next fun part was finding Helen. She was in the queue for the coffee machine when I spotted her. She glanced at me a couple of times, no doubt wondering why I was grinning at her! Once introduced, we sat together, and giggled a lot. We all giggled, and laughed. It was a great day.

There were six in the class, and Della (who is as genuine a person as I could wish to meet) allocated half an hour for each of us, and we were all encouraged to comment and advise on each other's stories, which was a constructive and encouraging exercise. Everyone had good ideas! Certainly my story, when it is subbed, will need to be credited to Me, Della, Helen, and a nice lady called Christine.

Helen's going to write a proper course review on Monday. This is good, because my brain is a shambles, and I can't think of anything else to write except that it was a great day. But, I think I said that already.

It was a great day (sorry). I learned a lot. I'm very glad I went. It was all thanks to Della, for being so clever; Helen, for being so adorable; Jane, for Bullying me into it; Julia, for looking after the small boy; Liz, for looking after the small girl; my lovely step-daughter (and her mum), for looking after the baby; and himself, for picking up the pieces.

See the Della Galton website for details of more courses. I can't recommend her teaching highly enough.

Star of the Show

Himself has just returned from a week's morris dancing (read: beer drinking) in the States. I had the chance to go with him, but couldn't face it.

I hate flying. I hate the thought of flying for seven hours with three small children. I hate the thought of flying for seven hours with three small children and a husband who hates flying for seven hours with three small children (and a terrified wife).

I didn't go.

We had a pleasant, self-indulgent week, with no grumping; but it's nice to have him back, hangover and all (jetlag, my eye).

The baby amused everyone at Heathrow this morning by crawling a good way into the open space from under the barrier. She stopped, sucked her thumb, inspected her audience (all those waiting for arrivals), deemed that all was well, shrieked "Yah," and crawled back again. It made me laugh to see everyone grinning/waving at her, even the hard men!

Made my day.

Bouncing Boy

Still feeling poorly, but was greatly cheered up by listening to the small boy (on the telephone) telling his father all about his trampolining class today. He was describing certain moves he has learned, and it was funny listening to his interpretation of his teacher's instructions:

'Reach up to the sky' became 'fly up to the sky'; 'push down hard' became 'whoosh down hard' [it's a bit echoey in there], and; 'kill the bed' [and expression meaning to stop suddenly] became 'and we had to kill the trampoline, but, Dad, I didn't know how to do that, so I just stopped bouncing.'

A Relaxing Lie-in

I was still in bed at 8.30 this morning, when Jane came to collect the small boy for school.
"But it's inset day," I wailed from an upstairs window.
"No, Leigh. We've had this conversation before... [we have?] ...and it isn't inset day."

Arrrrrrrrgggh!

With only a small amount of oiwwing, the small boy was prepared to leave the great CBeebies-website portal (my computer) and get dressed. Meanwhile I made his lunch, found his PE kit (anyone who has seen my downstairs cupboard will be particularly impressed by this), and yelled "We're off," up the stairs.

Recently, himself has excelled in being a Good Husband, and I felt only slight guilt as I shut the door on the urgent cry of a newly-potty-training toddler: "Wee-wee coming. Wee-wee coming."

Miraculously, we made it to school, just as the bell went.
The small girl made it to the potty (and then carried the thing, sloshing, upstairs to show Daddy).
And I realised that panics are so much more relaxing when you don't know about them in advance.

Eureka!

I've been working really hard the last few evenings, doing real money-paying work [resists temptation to spit], and I've been going to bed with a buzzing brain, and thus, insomnia. As a consequence, I have had some hours to rehash plots, characters, titles, names and so on.

Last night, about half past midnight, number-three-novel title came to me. This was a Eureka! moment, and I sat up in bed like a shot. Of course, a proper writer would have a Moleskine and pencil beside the bed. Me? I found a dried-up felt-tip and a copy of Women's Weekly's Christmas Special; but it sufficed, and I wrote down my new title.

Now why is it, when the baby's still wailing at 2am (after three drinks of water, a cuddle, milk, Nurofen, Medised...), or when a child has been sick in its bed, or when you go into labour, men just mutter "this is not a good time" and go back to sleep? And then, when there's absolutely nothing wrong and you just need to write something down (knowing perfectly well that he won't wake up, because the chimney hasn't fallen in) he wakes up!

The funny thing was, he was really concerned. Was I alright?
"Yes, sorry, just, ahem, thought of...er...a...um...a title".
"Oh," he said. "That's good. Have you written it down?"

I shan't grumble about him leaving the milk out for, what shall we say, three days?

Adorable Children

Himself has a birthday today.

Sometime around six thirty (am) I became aware of a conversation going on downstairs. Now the small boy (nearly 5) can get up when he likes, but the small girl (nearly 3) is not allowed out of her room before the clock chimes at seven (when the baby gets up). She had quite clearly ignored that rule this morning.

Having been working on my Message until after midnight, I really couldn't be bothered to fetch her back to bed. There were no sounds of struggle, so I left them to it.

Shortly before seven, I heard them coming up the stairs, whispering. They were dragging something heavy. There was some discussion while they stood outside our door, until I heard a quiet "Yeah, let's go in. Come on." They crept into our room, and stood silently beside the bed for three whole minutes until the clock struck the hour.

They had retrieved all Daddy's presents, from the various places in which we hid them yesterday evening, put them in a bag, and had brought them up to give to him.

How's that for adorableness?

Final Message

Phew. Final Message just posted (00:14). What a struggle that's been today (not helped by various offers of help from various small children). Several times I nearly just posted it, even though I wasn't happy with it, but Himself encouraged me not to give up (this was just before he said, "right, I'm going to bed"). I'm glad he kept me at it, though. I'm pleased with it now.

I've done all but the first four, and have enjoyed myself ever so much. I'm not sure what I'll do with all my free time now. Oh, yes...Christmas.

I forgot.

Your Messages & Silence

Posted a second Message (20:30), and am really pleased with it. Words came as quickly as yesterday, and more or less in the right order. Very satisfying.

Also, I've done lots of editing today. Among other things, I have finally found the solution for a Problem Paragraph. I've been staring at it for over a month (in between eating, sleeping, and taking various children to various hospitals), and suddenly it clicked!

This revelation might have had something to do with himself being airborne somewhere over southern England, the small boy being at school, the small girl being at Jane's, and the baby being asleep. I could actually hear the cogs going round, which was good - although the graunching might not have been...