Harvey goes to hospital

Yesterday, our day began quietly but ended with a bit of drama.

All morning, we sat lazily around, enjoying the rural quiet, the occasional lowing of the cows in the fields and the bleating of sheep on the green, green hills.  At one point, a cow went 'mooooo', and Harvey mocked it, saying 'whaaaaat?'.

The biggest thing I personally did all morning was visit the Bow Street butcher shop to buy a dozen eggs.  At the same time, Mag and Tom had gone to town, so the rest of us were alone for a while.

In the afternoon, we took a sleepy drive, passing through Borth and Clarach, before finally visiting our friend, Alison, at Llanilar.  Hannah and her two gorgeous little daughters were there, and Harvey and Emilia enjoyed playing on the stairs for a while, cautioned regularly by various parents to play more safely.  Eventually, Emilia came away from the stairs but Harvey was still hanging around the bottom step.  All had gone reasonably quiet.

Suddenly, Harvey fell off the bottom step.  I heard a smacking of flesh against the hard floor, and tears quickly followed.  Harvey was bleeding from above the right eye.  Hannah said he'd not actually hit his head but had saved himself with his hands.  His glasses leg had snapped off and poked into the side of his head.  It was quite a deep cut but he was really good about it.  We went to Bronglais Hospital just in case.  

The hospital system was very good.  We arrived at about 6pm, and left at 7.20pm.  We were shown a special waiting room for children, where they could play with some toys, including the digital, interactive kind.  The staff allowed me to use their telephone to provide an update to Mag, and they even gave Harvey a nice little teddy bear.  I didn't think we'd get any of that in Australia.

It was bizarre in one sense.  Twenty years ago, on an earlier visit to Wales, our then two year old daughter, Jess, was playing in the back garden at Alison's house.  When a RAF jet suddenly roared over the rooftops, a terrified Jess fled, gashing her eye on a flower pot.  She was taken to Bronglais Hospital, and has a scar to this day.  Now, 20 years later, another eye injury - at Alison's house! - and another visit to Bronglais.

The doctor treats Harvey's little injury, placing sticky strips over his eye.  He didn't need stitches.