EDitorial ± 15-Sep-2003

Stated Dose

Like most weeks, I really should be catching up on my zees instead of bashing away on the keys. But heck, it's Monday, and that's the day, darn your eyes, when these indefinite articles get thrown together. Mostly. Unless it's a Bank Holiday. Or I'm on holiday. Letra cetera.

What were you up to at 4.30am on Monday? Dreamin', like Sir Cliff (1980), The Quo (1986), Blondie (1979) and M People (1999)? Some of us, squire, were to be found in the bathroom, trying to persuade an 8 year old daughter (8YOD) that she should give up trying to be sick and return to bed, taking the handy washing-up bowl (doubles up as projectile receptacle) for company.

Gonna take that medicine
A cold, cold medicine
— Gomez, Rie's Wagon

8YOD relented at 4.45am and went back to her room ... only to be up again at 5am when we spent another ten fruitless & carrotless minutes in the smallest room. Thankfully her mother took over for the third attempt, and 8YOD finally got things out of her system downstairs in said bowl around 6am while yours truly was inert in bed.

Calpol is a registered trade mark of Pfizer Consumer Healthcare, in which all parents should have shares

Last Tuesday 3YOS (work it out) was the first to go down with the bug. After much wriggling and wimpering that evening, I was upstairs, holding him prior to going to bed. He then mouthed the single word - bowl - which was my cue to rush him to the bathroom. Unfortunately he left behind him a noxious trail.

One final memory: when I was no more than ten years old, I came across Roget's Thesaurus in the library at my junior school. Flicking through the pages, I found the entry for vomit (verb):

be sick, be sick to one's stomach, bring up, throw up, regurgitate, disgorge, retch, gag, spew, puke, cat, honk, poop, chunder, be seasick, feel nausea, heave, have a bilious attack
As 3YOS says, gross!

Be seeing you!

Ed