Emergency, Emergency ...

I was sat in the lounge room on Thursday evening, minding my own business, not doing anyone any harm - I was, in fact, watching a program about the 2013 UK fruit and veg harvests - when Twitter alerted me to the fact that Freyja was on a train, making an unexpected trip to Sheffield.

I must admit that my first thought was along the lines of: That's odd; Freyja didn't say she was coming to Sheffield this weekend.  This thought was swiftly followed by: But of course, it's an unexpected trip so she probably didn't know in advance.

But *why* was Freyja making an unexpected trip to Sheffield?

Freyja rang me.  But the phone line was crackly and kept dropping out. And all I could hear with any degree of confidence was "Simon"  and "hospital".

Simon's in hospital?  (This would be Freyja's Simon, not any passing brother that I might have with the same name!)

It turns out that he wasn't actually an in-patient. But he had been sent to the hospital as a medical emergency when he had turned up at his GP's surgery feeling not particularly well and the GP had done a blood test only to discover that Simon's blood sugar levels were astronomically, life-threateningly high :-S  He was, in fact, very close to being an ex-Simon. Which would have been a very unsatisfactory state of affairs.

Turns out he has type 1 diabetes. Which I suppose is also not an entirely satisfactory state of affairs but it is much less unsatisfactory than being dead. At least diabetes can be kept under some sort of control.  Well - it can once you know you've got it. So Freyja and Simon are learning about diabetes clinics, and counting calories and carbohydrates, and using insulin and stuff.

And I am quite well informed about the state of the 2013 UK fruit and veg harvest. Just in case you were wondering.

I was on my way up to bed on Saturday night when below me I heard quite a lot of swearing, very closely followed by a very loud thump, followed by lots more swearing.  I turned round and went back downstairs, to find The Builder lying flat out on the lounge room floor.  It seems he had stood up to turn off the telly and to go and lock the kitchen door, and his ankle had simply given out underneath him and toppled him like a mighty oak. He had, in fact, nearly taken out the telly!  I had to administer medicinal wine and everything, thus delaying the whole going to bed process! He could barely walk yesterday and had to have more medicinal wine with his lunch.  And with his supper.  Fortunately, I was not incommoded in any way and could drive to the dairy for milk, and could make our Sunday roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, and apple and blackberry crumble.  I could also top up the medicinal wine supplies. So all was good. Well, from my point of view it was.

But I think that might be enough excitement for now.  It's the week before Freshers' Week. Nice and calm and quiet is in order, before the chaos and bedlam of First Semester kicks off.