Lost Rambler

On Saturday mornings, when we get up early enough, the wife and I bundle the kids into the car and head off to Shootash, just outside of Romsey, a pleasant 20 minute drve down the country lanes to the west of Southampton.

The reason we go to Shootash is that there is a car-boot sale there. For those international readers who may not be familiar with this traditional English event, imagine a field full of cars, arranged in rows. Behind each car there is a table full of the stuff which the owner of the car is selling. The place has an air of festival about it; there will be at least one fast-food van selling burgers and hot-dogs and at least one ice-cream van. At a good boot sale there will be a mix of traders (who make their money by buying and selling junk) and people who have had a clear-out and want to make a little holiday money.  We far prefer the latter as you pick up almost anything for pennies.

We love the sales for two reasons. Firstly it’s nearly free entertainment (there’s a very small entrance fee): Nosily raking through other people’s junk is fantastic fun. Secondly, we usually find something we need. Among our best purchases have been a trampoline for the son, garden-grown vegetables and more baby clothes than you could shake a stick at.

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The son has a really nasty chest infection for which he is on antibiotics. He’s been ill for over a week, and is not eating. He has shrunk a nappy size. We’re very worried. He coughs all through the night and wakes himself up. He has trouble going to sleep.

The last one I can do something about. I usually sit in his room and do something on my laptop while he falls asleep. Today I thought about clearing up my desktop. I didn’t have time. I did take this picture of it. Would you believe there are 218 icons on my desktop. I really should be more organised.

By the time I had arranged them for the picture (no mean feat), the son was fast asleep.

Mission accomplished.

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Two nights ago I slept badly. The son kept wandering into our room at all hours of the night. I put him back to bed three times, then gave up and slept the rest of the night on the very small sofa in his room. I got up stiff, tired and irritable.

Last night, I had barely fallen asleep when the son started crying. I went to check on him and found he was hot to the touch. I undressed him, gave him some paracetamol, sponged him down and rooted around in the house for our thermometer. He was running a fever of 39.2, and that was after I had worked for 20 minutes on cooling him down!

I still get freaked out when the kids get sick, so I took him to the local hospital’s A&E department. The triage nurse measured his temperature (38.2), gave him some ibuprofen, then sent us to wait in the children’s waiting room.

About three hours passed.

The son’s normal temperature returned almost immediately, and with it came his usual upbeat personality. He spent the whole time doing anything energetic he could think of. He ran around, pushed his pushchair, played with the toys, pressed the buttons on the vending machine, climbed on and over the chairs and pushed me around in a wheelchair, all the time making loud and happy noises.

I spent the whole time trying not to fall asleep.

When we were called through, the Doctor took the son’s temperature (perfectly healthy), checked his ears and throat (perfectly healthy) and said that it was probably a virus and just ‘one of those things that children get’. We were sent home with some ibuprofen.

We arrived back at about 3:30am, and I collapsed into bed and fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, I was not awoken by the wife. She, sweetheart that she is, tiptoed around the house all morning. I was not awoken by the son, who is quite content if the TV is on. I was not awoken by the daughter, who is generally a quiet baby anyway.

What woke me up was the digging up of the road outside my bedroom window. There’s nothing like the sound of a pneumatic drill to shake away the cobwebs.

So, it’s 9:15pm, and I find myself once more sitting outside the son’s room waiting for him to go asleep. All that’s really on my mind is getting to bed myself, and the hope that the night will gift me with at least six solid hours of deep, uninterrupted, beautiful sleep.

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