NotSheep

Why am I sore all over? Because I fell and bashed pretty much all of me. While carrying Toby.

We were on our way to the dentist for George to pick up his brace. It was raining, traffic was heavy, we were tight for time. Our dentist’s office is on a street with no parking, but right beside it is a narrow, very steep lane which used to have a car-park at the bottom. I planned to park there, but on arrival, I discovered the space where the car-park used to be is now home to a huge new building, which seems to have been built in about three weeks. Anyway, I managed to find street-parking slightly further along, and we hurried back down the street - Barney, George and me, with Toby in my arms.

We had to cross the busy road, and the light turned red for traffic when we were a few yards away. I said “quickly!” and we started to rush across the road. We were half-way across when I slipped on the wet surface, and went down forwards. With Toby in my arms.

It’s amazing how your instincts change when you’re carrying a baby. Normally I’d have put my arms out to stop myself, but instead I put them up to hold Toby out of the way. I landed on my front, with him slightly under me - his legs were between me and the road, but he was wrapped in a thick blanket and between that and the fact that the front of me isn’t very hard protected him. I, on the other hand, bashed everything between my feet and my knees, my right hip, my hands, elbows and chest (where I managed to pull a muscle and also punch myself when I went down).

A couple of people stopped and tried to help, asking if I was okay, but my first thought was to get up and get off the road - Barney and George were standing there in the middle of it too, and it didn’t seem like the safest place to be on a dark rainy evening. We got onto the footpath and someone tried to usher me into the health centre next to the crossing, but I said “I can’t, we’ve a dental appointment.” We were half-way up the hill on the lane when breathing started getting difficult, and I just about made it up the stairs at the dentist’s office before I went into meltdown with the shock.

I was fine after a few minutes shaking and a glass of water, and I’ll be fine in a few days when the bruising etc goes away, but it was a scary experience. Toby is absolutely fine - he didn’t even cry at all, and was cheerfulness itself for the rest of the evening. Barney and George were a bit shocked, I think, though I didn’t think to talk to them about it until later on, when George was in bed and Barney at St John Cadets (heh), so I’ll talk to them today.

Don’t try this one at home, folks (or anywhere else).