Author: alex

Cesarina and Stefi arrived a few days before Lola’s fourth birthday: it was to some extent the reason for Stefi’s visit or, at least, the timing of it. We’d decided to hold the event in the playground between the end of Stourbridbge Grove and the common, and to lay a trail of balloons from our house, through the back, across the common. A plan which would have been more successful if a) the herd of bullocks hadn’t decided to hang out on the relevant section of the common and b) we’d finished the trail and decamped before all the guests arrived.

Of course, these things never go to plan. Almost everyone had arrived before we’d left the house and the one or two who hadn’t encountered Isa or me scurrying between the house and playground.

It was a scorchingly hot day, as were most during the Italians’ visit, which made trundling a wheelbarrow full of party fare across dungy hillocks past curious bullocks both surreal and deeply enervating.

All good fun, though. The playground was empty save a group of laconic youths playing basketball and the kids had a great time chasing each other around the comparitively (to our garden) vast playground. We’d even organised a few games (knowing Stefano was coming!) — Lola had wanted a “monster” party, so we’d bought some fun fur and cut it into scraps and fitted elastic to it so it could be strapped to limbs, torsos, heads, and thus monsters created. It turned out that many came as, or subsequently became, fairies, too. So games where monsters chased fairies, and vice versa, ensued.

There was also a more traditional egg and spoon race, and a rope knotted for tug of war which found other uses. Nor were the chairs we’d carted down there used for musical chairs. But I did give a quick rendition of a song or two on my guitar.

I’d made a cake: plain fatless sponge with a whipped cream and raspberry filling and lemon icing. Quite yummy, if a little uninspired in the shape department. Nothing has really beaten the monkey cake we did for her first birthday.

Oh, darn. I’ve run out of steam. Again.

Neve Elenda Hooper, as she is known by Lola, is an explorificator. The treachorous regions she prefers are those dominated by looming bleach bottles or teetering towers of pans, or the abandoned muddy hulks of shoes, wellies and vast three-wheeled buggies, or the impossible verticality of stairs.

With her distinctive three-limbed gait (left leg tucked under, presumably to be deployed as a spare when required) and whooping excitedly, she has mapped out her world with the ferocious zeal of an Elizabethan cartographer. But without the ruff.

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“Can I help you to do work?”

“Not really — you have to know about computers.”

“I *do* know about computers!”

“Oh, what do you know?”

“They run from batteries. And they don’t work. And they don’t know.”

I think she’s got the job!

Down at the butchers, buying meat to make a bollito/stock, I couldn’t resist spending £2.50 on a pigeon as I’d never cooked one. I’m glad I did (though my girls were a little less glad). Here’s what I did:

Took the legs and the breast off (which is dead easy to do) and put them to one side in a bowl with extra virgin olive oil and a crushed clove of garlic while I chopped half a small onion (v small dice, about 2 tbsp). Then got the frying pan nice and hot, sizzle a lump of butter in it and then fry the breasts (I fried the legs as well, but I’m not sure it was worth it).

It only takes a minute or two, though one should add a few minutes to Isa’s portion. When done, remove from pan and keep warm. Throw the onion into the pan and fry fast for a couple of mins then throw in a couple of tablespoons of our apricot brandy (we had a couple of kilos of dried apricots hanging around so, a few months ago, we put them in kilner jars with some cinnamon sticks and covered them with brandy. I tried it for the first time this Saturday as we didn’t have the straight brandy which I was intending to use — absolutely delicious).

Then pour in a little cream, mix well; arrange pigeon breast, sliced, on toast; pour over sauce. Drool, eat, etc.

Then throw the rest of the pigeon carcass into the frying pan and brown before chucking into the stock — it really adds to the stock.

“Giraffe, giraffe, standing on the ocean”.

“Show me the ocean, tra-la-la-la-la!”

Unfortunately. We’ve all had a 36-hour bug that the NHS (via the pandemic flu website) decided it would be appropriate to take Tamiflu for (we declined). Lola first, with a one-day fever of 39 and no other symptoms she could vocalise, followed by Isa on Wednesday, who added a sore throat and true-flu aches and pains, and your humble author the day after who threw a horrid headache into the mix.

Then, at about 2 am on Friday, Neve’s temperature started going up and she entered a three-hour crying spell after which she assumed a calmer, unusually torpid, mode and maintained a fever between 37.5 and 38. Which calm statement belies the fraught nature of the experience. Isa was extremely worried, especially with regard to the bulging fontanelle, which is potentially a sign of meningitis. We rang NHS Direct; they said we’ll call you back — give us eight hours. “Does that imply you think we need take no immediate action?” “Sorry, I can’t offer an opinion on that.”

Super. By now it was 5:30 and Neve, though still with a fever, seemed happier. We elected to extract some solace from this and the fact that the NHS Direct conversation hadn’t triggered any immediate “Take her to hospital!” response and wait until our local surgery opened so we could speak to the doctor there.

We rang the surgery when it opened, and the receptionist referred us to the NHS Pandemic Flu service, who referred us back to our GP, where the receptionist apologised for misdirecting us and said she’d talk to the doctor and get back to us. Meanwhile, an NHS Direct nurse rang back and recommended that, due to her being only 3 months old, we should take her to A&E.

Which we did and let the various helpful nurses triage her then send us up to the paediatric day ward where we saw a doctor who, essentially, gave Neve a thorough-looking examination and declared her to have no complications and recommended they kept an eye on her for a few hours.

So we hung out in a room off the day ward and they stuck a sign on the door saying we were infectious and left us alone. Four hours later, we decided we might as well monitor her at home as her temperature, though high, was under 38 and she seemed otherwise happy. The hospital was only five minutes away in the car, and it wasn’t like they had a close eye on her…

So I went to get the car and Isa told the nurses we were going to toddle off. That woke them up. Half an hour later and I’d parked the car again and was back in the day ward where a small but powerful vortex of outraged opinion had formed. A senior registrar had been called, Neve’s temperature had tickled the 38C trigger, and she was outraged that we would want to remove Neve from their care given the potential risks. Isa was outraged at the inconsistent messages we had been given and the woeful lack of communication between staff and patients, and staff and staff. Steely blades of will clashed; at climax, the registrar claimed that yes, actually, she *could* keep Neve against our will.

I backed up Isa’s outrage and then helped forge a compromise where we agreed to let them run blood tests on Neve to look for indicators of infection and that she (and Isa) would stay in overnight so Neve could be kept under observation. They reluctantly agreed *not* to pump Neve full of antibiotics (“but, if her temperature rises over 38C, we *will*”) or Tamifluâ„¢

If I’d been more with it, I’d have realised how utterly exhausted and frayed Isa was at this point and taken Neve to get the bloods done on my own. But I wasn’t, and the nurse’s various attempts to locate a point to insert a cannula while Neve cried were more than Isa could take and she walked off with Neve insisting that they were going home.

Well, when the shock dissipated, we agreed I’d go with Neve to do the blood. That done, Lola and I went to the Haelan Centre and then home to get some bits and pieces for Isa and Neve. Lola, I should mention, was fantastic all day, quite enjoying the hospital with its corridors, doors, siderooms, nurses, toys, books and the cafe. She was a bit less keen, once we’d returned to the hospital with an overnight bag, actually to leave her mother and sister for the night but a bit of discussion as to why they were staying and how we’d soon be back to see them in the morning and she left quite happily.

That night, after Lola was asleep, I sat up and read the NICE Guidelines for Feverish Illness in Children. I wish I’d done that earlier as it gave me a much better perspective on Neve’s symptoms and their appropriate management. I ended up glad she was being monitored in hospital but upset at the way Neve’s case was initially handled, at the poor communication (both inter-staff and between staff and parents), and at the lack of credence given to our own description of Neve’s symptoms (particualarly her high temperature).

Well, all’s well that ends well and Neve passed the night without incident and the registrar was happy to let her go in the afternoon. I think letting slip that I’d read the NICE guidelines helped convince her that we had some clue; as ever, it provoked the ‘who do you work for’ question.

As an addendum (yes, these paragraphs are getting shorter as I tire of writing this), the BMJ was in the news the next day for publishing a study that suggested that Tamifluâ„¢ should not be given to children. Which made us go, “Ha!”.