M'AIDE

Feminie intuition? I believe in it ... in fact, I believe in it more and more as I get older!

As Garrison Keiller says in his Lake Wobegon monologues "It was a quiet day today ... at least it was quiet until ..." and off he goes telling of the local happenings in his mid-West America Small Town.

Well, it was a quiet day today. I decided to stay in as I had a sore throat and my eye infection has returned (though not so badly). Whenever there are men working on the house I am aware that someone ought to be around in case of an accident. Today, the men were laying batons on the roof in preparation for the roof tiles to be put on tomorrow

At midday Davie opened the back door, sticks his head in and I see he is holding his hand dripping blood.

"@***!@@***" "I've done it again!" Several months ago he drove a power drill through his left palm when attaching a wing mirror on to his car. Today, he was holding a plank and his mate drove a nail, using a power nail puncher ... through the same place! A very neat hole was pouring blood from his very dirty hand.

Well ... could I find a clean basin (catching drips in the loft space) or the First Aid Kit (in the Black Hole in the loft space)? Could I find the Dettol (like all bottles and substances they are all kept up high out of reach of the grandchildren)?!

Never mind. Tip the bread dough out of the only clean bowl I could find, get the bag of cotton wool that I use for my sore eyes and a packet of Band-Aids, well, actually Elastoplast Band-Aids if you know what I mean.

We cleaned it up and he went back to the hospital where he went with his first injury. All turned out OK - skewered on muscle; he got off lightly! (I remember the days when I worked on an eye ward and I had a patient who had exactly the same injury but it went into his eyeball. He lost the eye.)

So ... a resolution: [1] get the First Aid stuff organised and keep it handy [2] always follow my instincts!