It’s been a hectic couple of days with lots of fun and games in the Andrew-Barr household.
Most worrying and serious was a phone call I received on Wednesday afternoon. My comedy writing mate Ant (who reads this blog so hello and a big shout-out – I hope you don’t mind the blog nickname love) had just popped round and we were chatting about my screenwriting course. It was about the time Vee usually calls to say she’s on her way home and if possible, I normally take Roxie dog out to meet her in the park.
This time however it was a call from the school. Vee had taken a tumble down some stairs on the way out and had hurt her head, side and her right ankle, which was giving the school nurse some concern. I phoned Gee who fortunately was on a job close by (on a job – I make him sound like a burglar or safecracker when in fact he’s a carpenter/ handyman!) so he came round to pick up Vee’s lid and went to get her. I had managed to speak to her and although she sounded OK I wanted to see how she was before deciding what to do next.
She was in a sorry wee state when she came home on the back of the bike. We got her into the house and out of her jacket. I then eased her right boot and sock off and sure enough her wee ankle was swelling up. I checked to make sure it wasn’t broken by moving her foot and ankle around then put her foot atop some cushions on a footstool and used the old standby of a packet of frozen peas on the swelling. I tried to get her to take some ibuprofen tablets but, like me at that age, she finds it hard to swallow them over and the kiddie formula we had compromised on up til now wouldn’t cut it so I made her eat them crushed on a margarine sandwich. During this time the wee soul had an adrenaline dump, where the shock of what happened and being a brave lass suddenly hit her and she burst into a big flood of tears, so it was time for a big mammy hug. We decided against taking her to Casualty so Gee went back to his job.
I got out some elasticated roll bandage and using my first aid skills learnt from my dad and several workplace courses I managed to strap up Vee’s foot (it always amazes people that I can do this – I think it’s an essential skill and not at all extraordinary –another rant for another time!). Poor Ant was still there so I had a wee chat with him and got some really positive feedback from him on my scriptwriting – Ant is probably the most intelligent man I know, possibly to genius level because he can talk about maths and quantum physics like you and I talk about the price of bread. His family are from Glasgow but he was born and raised in ”Landan” and only moved back up here a couple of years ago where I met him on my first comedy course. He headed off home and I made the dinner.
I was joking later after that Vee had fallen downstairs on purpose to avoid an after-school bollicking because she and Gee shouting the odds had rudely awakened me earlier that morning. I was having a wee lie in because a doctor assigned by the tribunal at the Department Of Work and Pensions was coming over to examine me later that morning for my appeal (I had applied for Disability Living Allowance back in May during the worst of my thyroid problems and because I cannot work due to my various ailments and disabilities – but again that’s for another blog!) so was pretty stressed out. It turned out that Vee had lost her school tie which she wears as loosely as possible in her own wee rebellion at having to wear full school uniform in her own version of the uniform protests of the early days of “Grange Hill” (a BBC young adult series about a high school that started way back when I started high school in 1979 and ran til recently) that somehow between leaving school the previous day and getting dressed had gone missing. Gee was turning the house upside down and Vee was getting all worked up fearing admonition at school. The tie couldn’t be found so we sent her off to school with the intention to look for it later and the caveat of her having to replace it out of her own funds were it not found.
During a lull in the afternoon Gee and I were talking and I suggested in my usual diplomatic way (I should really work for the United Nations – not!) that it is his lackadaisical “leave things at your arse” attitude to belongings (there is pile of clothes on his chair in our bedroom that possibly hides the real Turin Shroud) and not my almost OCD (or as I prefer to call it CDO because then the letter are in alphabetical order!) penchant for tidiness which resulted in Vee losing track of her tie. He stormed off to his job and then Vee’s accident happened.
I had hoped to have a civilised discussion that evening once we were all fed and watered but I think with Vee hurting and Gee and I stressed out to fuck it quickly descended into argument (what do you expect with 3 highly creative people under the same roof? – we are all drama queens in our own way) which ended with me gesticulating with a Newcastle Brown Ale bottle and threatening once again that if things don’t change I’m off (although I don’t think Dominic West is quite ready to take me in yet).
Yesterday was a day of seeing to Vee – we kept her off from school as she couldn’t walk – and Gee took her to the local hospital’s accident and emergency where they gave her a Tubigrip bandage (while praising my first aid skills) and elbow crutches with the suggestion that she stay home from school til Monday and rest up. So she settled into the recliner with a pile of Chemistry revision (she has her first “mock” exams or pre-lims as we call them here next month) and I got on with my screenwriting and study plus some sorting out of washing and things that had accumulated for the nearby charity shop while Gee went off to work.
I know I do get a bit up to high-doe about the fact that I live with 2 of the untidiest people in the world. I was raised by my dad to be neat – he had done his National Service with the army in the early 1950s and stipulated things like my brothers and I laying out our clothes the night before in the order you would put them on and having your school shoes polished and shined, hence the missing tie debacle with Vee – and as a teenager unlike Vee my own room was my inner sanctum and had to be “just so” with me having regular clearouts and furniture re-arranging. I have tried to apply this to our house but with 3 people and a crazy dog (don’t let me get started on her and the fact that when I move a couch to hoover I find enough tennis balls to give one to every dog in Battersea) it’s like swimming against the tide but I have this compulsion to keep at it and some fevered dream that one day, one day mind, I will live in a home where there is no mess and everything is in it’s place. No ending up like Miss Haversham in a house full of cats and being found dead (and partially eaten by said cats) crushed by piles of newspapers and hoarded junk. No sirree bob.
Anyway, suffice to say Vee is OK except for hobbling about like Tiny Tim (much to our amusement and cries of “God Bless us everyone”) and that last night I fell asleep at 8pm while watching “Made I Dagenham”, succumbing to the woes of the past 36 hours and the best part of a bottle of Spanish plonk. Hence me writing this at 4 o’clock in the morning as I am wide awake. C’est la vie, mon braves, c'est la vie x
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