Midsummer Madness...

In which just midnight strikes - and so does disaster...

IT is on the stroke of midnight and James is lying on his back in a pool of blood.

Thirty seconds ago I had heard a thump, and a yell, and realised that despite my most strict instructions to the contrary, James had tried to get out of bed and go for a wander.

This is a perilous undertaking at the best of times, but I was already worried at bedtime that he had another urine infection brewing and had resolved to contact our GP in the morning.

All day he had been more than usually clumsy and wobbly – his  breakfast was spilled all over the bed (more laundry), a can of beer was dropped fizzing on to the kitchen floor and a fall from his chair at dinner time had seen bright green petits pois dancing merrily across the room looking for somewhere beyond the reach of the hoover to conceal themselves and start a new life.

So having decided an early night was in order I had, with some difficulty, coaxed James into bed.

“You are very wobbly this evening,” I told him as I tucked him in, “so I want you to PROMISE me that you will STAY IN BED.”

James promised.

But then James always promises...

And I have a list of his “previous” as long as my arm proving, as Sam Goldwyn once so famously remarked, that “verbal agreements aren’t worth the paper they are written on...”

So I was not altogether astonished by the noise of disaster striking as the clock struck twelve.

By the time I had reached him moments later, the blood pumping from James’ bashed nose, combined with a bottle of water he had knocked over in falling, had formed a frighteningly-large scarlet pond around his head, which, with bloody hand-prints all over the radiator, created the appearance of a drive-by shooting

James himself, shaking with shock and fright, was quite unable to raise himself from his position wedged between the bed and the wall.

And he was beyond my strength to help.

So for the first time I pressed the help button on his falls alarm to see what would happen.

A nerve-shreddingly loud siren rang out from the master unit and then a crackly voice came on the line asking what we needed.

I forbore to say “time off for good behaviour” and settled instead for someone to come and get James back into bed for me.

Tea is a great solace in these circumstances, so I settled James as comfortably as I could on the floor with a duvet and pillows, gave him a cold flannel to staunch his nose bleed and then made myself a large pot while I waited for the cavalry to arrive.

Chris arrived an hour later, assessed the situation with a practised eye and between us we shoved my heavy mahogany four poster bed to one side so he had room for manoeuvre.

He rolled James on to a drag sheet, hauled him on to what looked like a heavy duty li-lo, and pumped it up until it had turned into an inflatable armchair the same height as the bed.

Then, with a few deft moves, he got James on to his feet, turned him through 90 degrees and popped him back into bed flat on his back.

Mission accomplished. The Eagle had landed...

Of course getting James to stay on his back proved more problematical as he rattled his cot side endlessly for the next four hours, while shouting to be allowed to go back to the very bed to which he had so recently been restored.

But I enjoyed the tea...