ENGLISH MUM: never knowingly undercatered

So I need to tell you about Friday night’s little crisis. I think I told you that there was another house just along from us, didn’t I? So the little fellas were along in next door’s garden playing rounders or ‘it’ or whatever it is children are doing when they all get together and run round in circles a lot, with Little C & L. It was just starting to get dark and Hubby and I were guiltily discussing whether we should have an AFD (Alcohol Free Day - we talk about them a lot but rarely manage one) or crack open a bottle of red, whilst planning an evening of CSI. We had just made a note to give the kids their 5 minute warning for coming in, judging 8.30 as not unreasonable on a weekend evening. Well, all of a sudden, hell broke loose. The back door slammed open and in rushed #1 in full panic mode. From then on, the evening went something along the lines of:

#1: ‘Comequick! Little C hascuthimselfandisbleedingeverywhere aaarrrggghh!’
Us: ‘Wha…?’
#1: ‘Hurry! There’s blood! Lots of blood!’ (looks very white and starts to sway slightly)
#2 also rushing in: ‘Mum! Dad! We need you! Little C is hurt!’

So in all the bedlam, I go rushing out the door in my slippers, run across our garden, climb in a very ungainly fashion over the fence dividing our two houses and leg it into their kitchen. In the meantime, Hubby, who is trained in such things and is generally much more sensible in a crisis, has grabbed clean towels and some sort of sticky white masking tape and has managed to hurdle the fence and get there before me. Ominously, we both notice that their patio is covered in blood.

In next door’s kitchen, Little C is slumped in a kitchen chair, with his poor Mum (also called C, confusingly) looking completely frantic and blood EVERYWHERE. I must point out here that the man of the house, D, was away for the weekend. Ohhhhhh yes, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre has nothing on little C who is bleeding like one of those Icelandic geyser things. So, whilst C and I rush around in circles, flapping about and generally not helping much, Hubby has elevated little C’s leg, applied pressure with one of the clean towels, found a bowl (little C now feels sick) and arranged for a glass of water (I did that!) for him to sip. Calming a little now the blood flow is ebbing, I take the bull by the horns and decide to have a look so we can decide what to do next. Oohhhh dear. It’s not pretty and (look away now if you’re squeamish) I can see not much flesh and lots of uncovered kneecap. Discounting thoughts of calling an ambulance to our pretty remote houses, we decide on plan B and Hubby carries Little C to the car where he and C embark on the long drive up to the A&E in Cavan while I try to clean up then take #1, #2 and L round to ours.

Long story short, then, at about 1am they return, Little C having been anaesthetised, stitched and bandaged. Poor little L is still awake upstairs (bless her, she’s only known us two weeks!) and decides to go back home with her Mam.

‘Well’, says Hubby, crawling into bed next to me. I guess I can mark that down as an AFD then. ‘Yup’, says I, ‘although I can think of easier ways to cut down your weekly units’.