But you know I like to share those with you.

I spent a good 20 minutes last night shooting pictures of the boy in the bath against the fabby checkerboard blue and yellow tiles. My camera, in all it’s wisdom, decided it was best to whack the ISO settings right up, meaning that every shot thats properly exposed is as noisy and granular as a bag of Tate and Lyle in a Rotterdam nightclub in 1994.

I’ve been bellyaching about this all day, bemoaning the lack of decent shots.

Until I realised that I’m here for another four days and he’ll have another four baths in the meantime.

And more to the point, I can take test shots *without* him.

Right now.
I can go downstairs and take pictures of the empty bath.

I’m an idiot.

Marching around a shopping centre with niece Natasha, looking in mobile phone shops and foiling their sales pitches.
“Good morning Sir, are you looking to buy a new mobile phone today?”
”Not in the slightest.”
“oh.”

Gaggles of teenage girls coo over Natasha as we roll by, little old ladies beam at me like Bonnie Langford (an old Bonnie Langford, obviously. Fewer pigtails, more support stockings), male salesmen try to fandango their way into conversation with me by bobbing down in front of her. She dead-pans them until she catches my eye, rewarding me with a sky-splitting smile, vivid pink gums, sparkling eyes. Good girl.

My lovely new suede, crepe soled boots tramp across the cheap nylon carpets, unbeknownst to me, building up a colossal static charge.
I’m not earthed, hanging, as I am, onto the plastic handles of the buggy.
The electron house party developing in me only becomes apparent when I lean over to chat to her, stroke my finger down her cheek. There’s an audible “tick” and she jumps, wriggling in her seat.

My name is Kal. I electrocuted my 7 month old niece.

The whole day panned out as some terrible child protection nightmare. I wandered into the kitchen to find my brother and nephew popping the baby into the washing machine, her chubby calves dangling over the door’s lip. Oliver chatters away, she’s going on a trip to the moon, in a racing car, a hot air balloon.

“J, what have you just qualified as?”
”Ummmm…Children and Families Social Worker.”
”And you’re putting your baby in the washing machine?”
“Hey! Don’t start with me, Mr “Health Care Professional” – what’s this I hear about you putting pillows on Oliver’s face?”
The lad butts in.
“Yeah, you know, when I lie on the sofa and you put pillows on top of me and I climb out again.”
“So we’re equal then? You forget that I’m trying to spin-cycle my daughter and I won’t mention your attempts to smother my first born.”
“Deal.”

Snotty woman, with over-arching eyebrows, daisy-cuttered to an inch of your hairline, perfect makeup, pencil suit, with angelic, pristine, Baby Gap clad neo-nate in arms.

You may well sneer at the rambunctious toddler in our company, tug your handbag under your feet as he marches around our respective tables.

But by God…your time will come.

Blazing sunshine, Bristol city centre, a camper van, homely, upholstered, tiny wellies neatly stacked in storage compartments, a gleaming stereo, MP3 hookup, vast capacity Ipod in the glove box, volume cranked. The vehicle could only belong to my brother.

We stab at the shuffle buttons, skipping tracks until we encounter something fitting to the summer mood. 2 Many DJs, Peter Gunn theme blended with a little hard house. It segues into The White Stripes and we’re off again, dancing in our seats, bucking and twisting against our seatbelts, exuberant in sound.

Behind, two tinies, four point strapped, stare at us. The elder bobs his head along, half smiling, seeking reassurance that he’s got it right. Good lad.

—-
Later, eating dinner, we take it in turns to count;
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Seven…”
“NO! Silly Kal! Five comes next!”
“Sorry, sorry, five.”

Twenty arrives soon and his Dad asks, with a twinkle.
“And now in Dutch?”
From the mouth of babes, a score of ancient Germanic tones.

A flabbergasted obscenity dies on my lips. Three days from three, he smiles, shrugs, bashful.

—-
An oven glove on each hand, I introduce him to “Lefty” and “Righty”. Originality died this morning at 5 o’clock when I got up. He feeds them kitchen utensils, laughing at the guttural East End accents I’ve given them. He points, pudgy fingers.
“What’s that called?”
Righty answers.
“A grater.”

“Gray’er.” he replies, mimicking the puppet’s glottal stop perfectly.
I’d better start enunciating…
—-

Sitting at this keyboard, my brother, whose voice howled along this afternoon to the stereo for all to hear, sits on the landing downstairs. The rain smears dusk’s light through the roof windows and I type as he sings his son to sleep, a childhood tune, nonsensical and repetitive, macabre in the details yet soothing in gravel baritone.
“She’s dead…of course.”

Burly man with shaven head, goatee, black shirt, tie, suit, oil slick shades despite the plane’s dimmed flourescent lighting.

Are you CIA? MIB? Contract killer?

Or just a cock?

Ah…that’ll be it then.

He’d been found collapsed, the staff flustering down to our room where we sat with coffee and gossip. We helped him to his feet and managed to walk him three steps before his knees folded under him again. I caught his head as he fell, letting his shoulders slide down my chest and hips, my fingers interlaced in his hair as he lay on the sticky carpet, twitching and grunting. Without my interference my first two fingers on each hand slid to the corner of his jaw, pushing it forward, clearing his airway as he fitted and started.

His muscles relaxed, eyes snapped open. In minutes we had him downstairs in our room, laid out on a trolley, his family, pulled from their seats by staff, gathered round, ashen faced, gaping mouths plugged with trembling hands. We run our standard tests, he’s lethargic, complains of nausea, weakness and, despite being soaked in cold sweat, terrible fever.

Within seconds he’s grasping at the blanket bail at his feet, wrapping layer after layer around his shoulders. Denies existing medical conditions, never had symptoms like this before, no pain in chest, shoulders, arms or abdomen. I rule out epilepsy, diabetes, heart attack. Pulse comes in at 60bpm, BP 125/90. Away from home, he’s eaten the same meal for the past two nights and nothing like this happened last night. Anyway, he insists he’s felt dodgy all day.

He throws up, strings of cheese and egg from his dinner time omelette, we hold bowls, twitch our noses, narrow our eyes.

We make a call.

His wife’s accent is soft, sing-song, I play my ace.

“That’s no’ a local accent….”
“Nooo, we’re fae Orkney.”
“I guessed as much, whereaboot?”
“Kirkwall.”
“Papay.”
She beams, we establish mutual friends, my accent changes gear.

Green suits in the doorway, handover, ECG, BM, SATs, another BP, more vomit.

The room is packed with uniforms, I eavesdrop long enough to establish a picture of what the crew think and slip outside to update the family.

They listen to me, nodding, eyes grim. His sister takes my hand.
“You ARE telling us everything, aren’t you?”
“Of course, I don’t keep secrets.”
His wife tuts.

“Mary! The boy’s Orcadian, he’s not going to LIE to us!”

Community’s a funny thing, it develops from proximity, but isn’t restricted by geographical boundaries. We reach out to each other in the storms
regardless of our knowledge, a friendly face, a touch stone and familar accent can be all that’s needed.

This island theme seems to be chasing me all week, I’ve been rocking out to the Cardigan’s “Dont’ Blame Your Daughter” which, as far as I can see, is about insular wee communities. I watched “The Ring” the other night and my heart resonated so hard with the island doctor “See, when you live on an island you catch a cold, it’s everybody’s cold.”

I’ve got an aching desire to watch “Breaking The Waves”, or maybe just to jump on a plane and head North.

My feet itch and with it, the hairs on my neck. They need wind and cold sunshine, oystercatchers, bonxies, sea-pinks, scurvy grass and primula scotica, dried salt tang on my lips, selkies, tangle stink.
I want to lie under dykes out of the wind and watch clouds, boil crab, creep up to nesting fulmar chicks.

I want to be 10 again, living my Wasp Factory, catapult, air-rifle life.

In a fortnight I’ll start the new job, a real, grown up, responsible job; maybe I’ll line up some leave after the summer and head off north, I could do with some isolation.

A perfect replication of childhood Orcadian bike riding…

As always, click for bigness

Brring.
“Occupational Health?”
“Hi there, I’m Kal Traumaqueen, returning a call from D yesterday?”
“Oh, I’m afraid she’s not here today, can I help?”
“Well, I’m not sure, she left a message asking me to call her back, I’m applying for a position as Trainee Ambulance Technician.”
“Oh right, let me see what’s on her desk….Traumaqueen, Traumaqueen…ah! Here we are, yes, she’ll be phoning you because you said on your medical form you sometimes have a stiff neck?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, the job you’re applying for is very physically demanding and involves heavy lifting, so she’ll want to talk to you about that.”
“Oh right. It’s only exacerbated by sitting at a computer for long periods of time, really.”
“Well, can you phone back tomorrow and speak to D?”
“Ok, I’ll do that bye”

I want to puke…or cry.
Please God don’t let this fuck things up, not after all this work…

Oh jesus…

Did you know that people did cheerleading in Scotland? I thought it was solely an American thing, how wrong I was.

A whole day of cheerleading activities required first aid on Saturday; it’s a leisure pursuit I know little about and frankly, having spent the day watching it, I’m none the wiser.

There seemed to be no happy middle ground in how they portrayed themselves, every cheerleader had a big smile and revealing costume and cutesy ‘innocent little girl’ facial expressions. These looked perfectly appropriate on the 5 year old entrants, but very strange on the older competitors. Similary, the ass wiggling and tit jiggling made perfect sense on those competitors in the late teens and early twenties, but left me wanting to shout at the school aged kids “How the hell can you shake hips you don’t have?!”
Weird.

I quickly learned the hierarchy amongst the coaches and assistants. Those that were serious had visited America and been given those weird waist length sports coats that everyone wore in Happy Days. That seems to be the secret, if you want to find out who’s the big cheese at a cheerleading event, look for the menopausal Richie Cunningham lookalike.

Head judge was the Chairwoman of “Christian Cheerleaders of America”.
I can’t think of a concept that could be any more ghastly.

So, an eye-opener, lots of soft tissue injuries, lots of ‘magic’ ice packs and a pat on the head for us at the end of the day.

Job done, see them next year, at least I’ll be prepared this time.

Because apparently I have a very vocal reader who wants some things explained.

I am a first aider with enhanced skills and have at no point claimed to be anything else.

The word “medic” is a context dependent term, with no inference of qualification or skill level. In the situations in which I use the term(be that simulated or real), it’s employed to differentiate between the patients/casualties and those treating them, regardless of their qualifications.

It is not a term used to inflate first aiders beyond their station, but one which encompasses the wide variety of medical and paramedical skills present at each scene (in the post below this includes the paramedic, technician, ex-technician, cardiology nurse and mounain rescue medical officer, all of whom were present.)

Finally, dear friends, I’m turning off anonymous comments; a shame that one person can have such an effect, but I’m sure they’ll be proud.