Summer Holidays: At The Hospital

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Jo woke up at 6.30 this morning, crying in pain from what I first thought was a headache.

She suffers from the occasional migraine, but this was significantly worse than anything I have seen her experience. She, herself, admitted that giving birth without any pain-killers was nothing compared to this particular pain (!).

Luckily, Jo’s mum was at hand to call an ambulance (a more normal occurence when living in the countryside, one-hundred kilometres from the nearest hospital) and after an hour’s speed-ride, we got to spend seven hours in a room with Jo constantly in pain.

These five-hundred minutes of nothingness (for Inger, Freya and me, that is) were interspersed with doctors’ and nurses’ visits, giving Jo morphine, taking her away for various x-rays and scans, and, as Freya and I got to see, taking brain fluid from near Jo’s spine.

Freya, as usual, seemed in her element, just thankful, I suppose, to be in Mum’s, Dad’s and mormor’s presence. I went to the local toy-shop after about five hours (not knowing how long we would be there) and bought her a toy doctor’s kit, and a 4cm tall Barbapapa.

Jo was given a clean bill of health at around 7pm (no tumour or hemorrhaging). It is possible, the doctor said, that this was a particularly unusual form of migraine, coupled with a cramp-induced headache. Whatever it was, I just hope it is as frequent as it is unusual.

Summer Holidays: Jo’s Birthday

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It’s Jo’s birthday. I had, as usual, forgotten which day it was on, this time mixing up hers with my mum’s, who celebrates hers in two days (mental note: try and remember this, Jon).

This year’s presents were not as grand as previous years, due to economic reasons; however, they weren’t bad: a Narnia DVD, tickets to see Linton Kwesi Johnson, and New Super Mario Bros for the DS.

Being Jo’s birthday, Freya received a present (why am I still not a child!) from mormor: an inflatable crocodile. We asked Freya what it should be called, and she at once replied “Tim” (although it may have been Tin or Bim). So congratulations to Jo, who is thirty-blghrrhmm years old, and Tim, who celebrates his first (and maybe last, depending on the construction) birthday.

Summer Holidays: At The Toy Shop

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In town, we stopped by a toy-shop to buy presents for the two birthdays that occur this week, Jo’s and Jo’s nephew, Alexander.

Freya found the plastic animals (of which she already has a small, but growing, collection) while we waited to pay, and, after some deliberation, she made an interesting choice of purchase.

Not the forty centimetre turtle, or the equally as long killer-whale; she did not bat an eyelid at the giraffe, and nonchalently ignored the array of farm animals. No, she went for something not all young children would immediately clammer for: two flies and a beetle. All of them, black. And small (though much bigger than the biggest fly I have ever seen). And, best of all, cheap.

Summer Holidays: A Journey In To Town

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9.13 Leave home, full of joy and anticipation over what our journey will bring.

9.18 Unusually, we are overtaken (by a red Citreon van). It comes to light that Inger has some information about our assailants: they are ex-druggies from a neighbouring village. Driving as fast as they were, I’m not so sure.

9.24 Inger posts a (rather large) envelope.

9.25 There is a small incident involving Inger’s sunglasses, followed by the singing of the Postman Pat theme (see 9.24).

9.28 Stop for petrol. I try to take a picture to capture the moment, but my phone is turned off. I miss the window of opportunity, resigning myself to turning on the mobile, smugly aware that the same mistake will not be made twice.

9.33 Jo yawns.

9.34 We pass a garden which has a line of flags, hung at waist height, along one of the sides. Placed in front of the flags is a chair; on the chair stands a blue parking sign. A long and humourous conversation ensues which really doesn’t translate well. Though it was amusing, and passed several minutes.

9.38 Jo possibly bored. She begins to sing Sandra‘s Maria Magdalena

9.44 An insect loses its life flying into the windscreen. A sorrow-filled moment made light by the mildly amusing sound it caused from its death: tschk

9.59 As if to bring in the new hour, Inger’s phone rings, Freya gets a biscuit, and a few drops of rain fall serenely onto the windscreen, though not enough to erase the memory of our departed insect friend.

10.02 Inspired by Freya’s confectionary consumption, Inger takes out the first banana of the day.

10.04 Our daughter chokes on a sandwich, Jo says.

10.06 Freya requests Dr Bombay. Fortuitously, my mobile phone is now turned on; much less fortuitously, Dr Bombay’s CD is stored on it. Freya is content.

10.13 The car in front of us is driving just 5km/h slower than the speed limit, which irritates Inger intensely. I try to assuage her animosity by telling her to imagine the limit is 90, and not 110, but this fails to help.

10.17 I wonder what kind of insect it was. The splat size suggests a medium-sized fly, but there are many strange flying things this summer, so a wild guess is the best I can offer.

10.27 We have essentially arrived at our destination.

Summer Holidays: Thoughts From The Garden

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Finally, after literally years of waiting, it’s the summer holidays again. As usual we’re spending it at our house in the north, where the weather has thus far been an uncomfortable 29 degrees, which means that two sweaty days working in the garden has made me a beacon for the midges, mosquitos and horse-flies (aka gadflies) to take their sumptuous morsels of Jon.

And so, with much greenery of different varities and obscure Latin names drowning my field of vision, I’ve been thinking a bit about grass.

I have always thought that grass is a weed. I have yet to check this out, as I do not have a computer nearby (this entry has been written using the traditional method of pen and paper, to be transfered at a later date), so in order not to have wasted this hitherto titilating insight into my life I shall just presume it to be so.

Anyway, in Swedish the word grass is”gräs”; the word for weed is “ogräs”, using the prefix “o”, which basically means “un”; thus ogräs means ungrass.

What struck me about this Orwellian building of words was that if you take gräs, and plant it purposefully in a well-kept border of exotic plants and flowers, does it become ogräs? Or is it still gräs? Or is it both gräs and ogräs?

I wonder, then, if there are tempestuous debates in the forums of Swedish horticultural sites, where ogräs supporters vehemently brandish the followers of Gräs as simple-minded, asinine sheep-shaggers, whilst the gräs clan mock their nemeses as self-involved, ostentatious fools.

I wonder, also, if I should be spending less time in the sun.

N.B. According to Wikipedia, a weed is an unwanted plant, which means that my theory about grass is wrong; however, on the same page, Cannabis is stated as a possible weed, so I’m not sure I should believe anything from this particular wiki entry.