Of all the things that we are running out of during this strange, unprecedented time of limits and restraint, it is plasters that come top of the list.
I spend my time worrying that The Four Little Seymours will injure themselves and require an ambulance which may then not come, but instead they have (thankfully) had many minor scrapes that have necessitated an Elastoplast.
Both Mini Seymour and I have sliced the ends of our toes off.
I fell down a hill, taking the skin off my left arm.
Boy Seymour has picked his biopsy stitches out.
Big Seymour has splinters- and splinter dugout injuries.
I also have a Gripperrod slice – you know the sort. Like the teeth of Hell those, Gripperrods, especially when they are not Gripperrods and are just in fact bits of woods with vintage nails poking out.
This does of course mean that we are yet again back in the throes of Funny Little Bungalow renovation as Baghdad, the long-forgotten North Wing and glorified dumping ground is getting some attention at last. Big Seymour has a week’s holiday, and so, not wanting to waste the time, he is cracking on. It’s exciting – but also scary, as we are losing our storage depot. What will we do with the piano now? The old bits of worktop? The boxes and boxes of tools and nails and pipes, not to mention the spare furniture…?
We did have trouble getting plasterboard for this mission, but in the end, good old Wickes came through with the goods. And as long as Big Seymour keeps busy, it stops him worrying about this dreadful virus. He emerged from the house yesterday pale and wan, waving his phone which was bleating out a recorded, shared Whatsapp message via one of his friends, heralding doom and death, wartime clampdowns from Thursday and ambulances not coming when you need them, purportedly from a senior NHS representative… stuff like this is not helpful. If it’s legitimate, the BBC will report it in due course. If not, it should be banned.
Hopefully, I’ll still be able to get to Tesco on Friday for my weekly shop – and at the top of the shopping list are those plasters. If we are to be barefoot in the garden for many more weeks, it had better be a bumper pack, too, for no doubt more skin will be shed. And if the doom and gloom is correct and I won’t be able to go shopping after all, I shall simply make plasters out of dandelions and Camellia petals, of which we have a glut.
UPDATE: Big Seymour has just jumped, cat-like, out of the ground floor window he is moving, and landed on a nail. He swore a bit, lamented the absence of antibacterial wipes (!) and calmly produced a plaster! From his own personal stash.
I don’t know whether to be impressed or miffed! On the one hand, it’s good to know he can lay his hands on such sought-after items, but will he take pity on the rest of us, who look like we have been mauled by angry kittens for the past three weeks, and share them?
Mini Seymour’s toe is flapping open again, so no doubt we shall find out.
(This is not a plaster on a toe. It is the last of the microporous tape – a poor substitute.)
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