TheEarl
Occasional visitor
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2002
- Posts
- 9,808
O, zhe zhen shi ge kuaile de jinzhan...
I had a great day yesterday! I hung out with my sister, we went out and about in ***** and we went to the amusements and rollercoasters down by the seaside. Log flumes, carnival wheels, rock climbing, karting, rides and games of skill (at which I am profoundly unskillful!). Then, we went home for pizza and A&E.
Yes, that's accident and emergency.
I really shouldn't be let out on my own. Going to the amusements had left us all kinda hyper and we were running and bouncing along the street. I ran, I jumped, I skipped down the street, I jumped up onto a bench and ran and jumped and skipped along that and then leapt to the next bench to continue running, jumping and skipping along that one.
Sadly, that bench was a little further away than I thought. So, I ended up slipping, falling and scraping my shin open instead. Went very thoroughly arse over tit, rolling in a spectacularly funny manner before limping down the street, cursing profusely in Mandarin and English.
My sister finally persuaded me to stop and sit down and to let her have a look at what I'd done to my shin. She lifted up my (ruined) jeans leg and had a brief look and then went kinda pale. So, then I had to have a look and agreed with her that I probably did need to go to a hospital. Regular readers of this blog will understand just what a concession this is from me, given my intense dislike of health professionals.
I have seen some cuts in my time, but this was fairly sizeable. It was about four inches long and two inches wide, very gaping and I could see muscle and tendon very clearly. I also agreed that I shouldn't drive my car to the hospital and that my sister should ferry me there.
Then the fun started. Clearly, in the light of day, the option of choice would've been to phone for an ambulance. However, it's very heavily drummed into us from an early age that 999 calls are only for very serious things, that the emergency services are very busy men and should not be called out for anything trivial. So, we didn't phone for an ambulance, as we were far too English to want to cause a fuss. However, not a one of us had a single clue where the hospital was. So, what did we do?
We phoned directory enquiries of course. Wouldn't you have?
Thankfully, before we started trying to find our way to the hospital in a Nissan Micra, driven by someone who's not driven for two years, owned by a back seat driver with an injured leg, to a place which neither of us knew how to find, the police turned up. Whoever said, "There's never a copper around when you need one," was talking out of his arse, cause two of them and a police car turned up at just the right time. They helped me into the back, gave directions to my sister and drove me to the hospital.
Now, I didn't really think about the impression I would give off at the hospital. A twenty-one year old, with short-cropped hair, limping heavily in blood-stained jeans, holding his hand rather gingerly and accompanied by two policemen. On a Saturday night, at 11.00pm. In *****. I can't say I blame the receptionist for being surprised when a) my speech wasn't slurred, b) my accent hit every single consonant and didn't have a flat vowel to be seen and c) the police turned out to just be giving me a lift. She was so surprised in fact that she spent most of her conversations with my saying "Oh, you have got a posh voice, haven't you?" Unfamiliar situations tend to bring out my best interview accent and that is as close to Queen's English as you'll find outside the Royal Family. It doesn't always go down well in *****.
Thankfully, I think the hospital staff were thoroughly grateful to have a patient who wasn't steaming drunk and swearing at them and twelve stitches later, I was a free and limping man again.
Things I have learned from this adventure:
I had a great day yesterday! I hung out with my sister, we went out and about in ***** and we went to the amusements and rollercoasters down by the seaside. Log flumes, carnival wheels, rock climbing, karting, rides and games of skill (at which I am profoundly unskillful!). Then, we went home for pizza and A&E.
Yes, that's accident and emergency.
I really shouldn't be let out on my own. Going to the amusements had left us all kinda hyper and we were running and bouncing along the street. I ran, I jumped, I skipped down the street, I jumped up onto a bench and ran and jumped and skipped along that and then leapt to the next bench to continue running, jumping and skipping along that one.
Sadly, that bench was a little further away than I thought. So, I ended up slipping, falling and scraping my shin open instead. Went very thoroughly arse over tit, rolling in a spectacularly funny manner before limping down the street, cursing profusely in Mandarin and English.
My sister finally persuaded me to stop and sit down and to let her have a look at what I'd done to my shin. She lifted up my (ruined) jeans leg and had a brief look and then went kinda pale. So, then I had to have a look and agreed with her that I probably did need to go to a hospital. Regular readers of this blog will understand just what a concession this is from me, given my intense dislike of health professionals.
I have seen some cuts in my time, but this was fairly sizeable. It was about four inches long and two inches wide, very gaping and I could see muscle and tendon very clearly. I also agreed that I shouldn't drive my car to the hospital and that my sister should ferry me there.
Then the fun started. Clearly, in the light of day, the option of choice would've been to phone for an ambulance. However, it's very heavily drummed into us from an early age that 999 calls are only for very serious things, that the emergency services are very busy men and should not be called out for anything trivial. So, we didn't phone for an ambulance, as we were far too English to want to cause a fuss. However, not a one of us had a single clue where the hospital was. So, what did we do?
We phoned directory enquiries of course. Wouldn't you have?
Thankfully, before we started trying to find our way to the hospital in a Nissan Micra, driven by someone who's not driven for two years, owned by a back seat driver with an injured leg, to a place which neither of us knew how to find, the police turned up. Whoever said, "There's never a copper around when you need one," was talking out of his arse, cause two of them and a police car turned up at just the right time. They helped me into the back, gave directions to my sister and drove me to the hospital.
Now, I didn't really think about the impression I would give off at the hospital. A twenty-one year old, with short-cropped hair, limping heavily in blood-stained jeans, holding his hand rather gingerly and accompanied by two policemen. On a Saturday night, at 11.00pm. In *****. I can't say I blame the receptionist for being surprised when a) my speech wasn't slurred, b) my accent hit every single consonant and didn't have a flat vowel to be seen and c) the police turned out to just be giving me a lift. She was so surprised in fact that she spent most of her conversations with my saying "Oh, you have got a posh voice, haven't you?" Unfamiliar situations tend to bring out my best interview accent and that is as close to Queen's English as you'll find outside the Royal Family. It doesn't always go down well in *****.
Thankfully, I think the hospital staff were thoroughly grateful to have a patient who wasn't steaming drunk and swearing at them and twelve stitches later, I was a free and limping man again.
Things I have learned from this adventure:
- What a tendon looks like
- Parkour is overrated when attempted by untrained hyper people.
- My jumping range is a couple of centimetres shorter than I thought it was.
- Everyone expects Saturday night injuries to involve some degree of alcohol.
- Policemen tend to be amazed when they get thanked, as they mostly have to do things that no-one likes them for.
- The NHS works! I came, they saw, they stitched, I left! One hour in total, if that.
