From le Carre to Neighbours

This afternoon and evening has felt more like a soap opera than a spy novel. Nothing to report on the immigration issue today, thankfully, but by 6.00 pm we were sitting round the dining table trying to eat, hold ice onto my wrist after a splash of hot oil jumped out of the pan while I was cooking, cuddle and comfort an increasingly sad and sorry Mancub who was moaning in pain, wanting to pee every five minutes and developing a high temperature, trying to contact our doctor neighbour but repeatedly getting the 'please try again later' message, and fielding calls in swahili from the oven fundi who was supposed to come yesterday, then again this morning, and finally (after a number of increasingly heckly phone calls from me) made it up to our neighbourhood this evening but couldn't find the house. Mr B ended up going out to search for him twice before he finally made it.

It is now 8 our time and in the last two hours we finally managed to contact the doctor, have him visit, diagnose cystitis and prescribe an antibiotic, nip down to the hospital pharmacy to collect it, get home to administer it, get two kids fed and to bed, and finally track down the fundi and have him rip the heart out of our oven and disappear to town with it on his pikipiki (motorbike) promising to come back tomorrow (hmmm!)

Phew! A million thanks go to Dr E who very willingly, as always, stopped by our house on his way home from the hospital to examine the Mancub. Can't imagine having had to lug him, at his bedtime and after several nights of poor sleep and days of poor or no napping, down to the drop-in clinic at the hospital, with its several-hour long waits to see someone, who doesn't always turn out to be a qualified doctor.

Now, I'm going to text round cancelling Music Makers tomorrow morning, have my tea, try again to phone my Mum - Happy Birthday Mum!  and perhaps collapse on the sofa with some chocolate and another episode of Doc Martin.