Bee sting

It is 9 am, and Tiger gets stung by a bee while she is slamming about the schoolroom, throwing things at Shark.

Actually, I do not know she is stung by a bee, because I am in the leaking shower, downstairs. The first I hear is a lot of screaming, which I ignore. Screaming is usual and one learns to not hear it. Then Shark is hammering at the shower door shouting 'Mummy!' Since this is also usual, I ignore that too, and shout back, 'I am in the shower! Go and fetch Daddy!'

In a few minutes I can hear Dig upstairs shouting as well. So it must be a real emergency. I leap out of the shower and run upstairs wrapped in a towel to see Tiger sitting on a chair with her leg in the air, hollering her lungs out. On her big toe is a bee sting.

Mummy Grit flies into action by pulling out the bee-sting with a pair of tweezers, sticking a packet of frozen peas on the offended foot, then dragging on a tee-shirt and tracksuit bottoms before jumping in the car to the chemist's shop down the road.

I wish I looked like Bo Derek in a wet T-shirt competition, rather than Grit, five minutes out the shower, wearing yesterday's T-shirt with paint and a tomato stain down the front, wet greying hair, flip flops, even though it is pouring with rain, and saggy bottoms that even the RSPCA shop would dump. I blend in perfectly with the inhabitants of Smalltown and wonder if we are all standing here buying anti-bee sting mixture while our daughters scream the house down and prop up their big toes with bags of frozen peas.

Well, it was not fatal, and Tiger is showing no distressing signs of allergy to bee stings or to anti-bee sting mixture from the shop. By 11 am she is back to normal, and barefooted, running about the house throwing a cuddly toy bullfinch at Shark's head.