Who Says Eggheads Are Clever?

Ladies and gentlemen the results are in. Officially the worst parents in the world are Steve and Andrea Kerr.
Poppy has a bruised eye after toddling into a table at a Church toddlers club. All things bright and beautiful just about describes her face at the moment.
George is cast-free, having had it removed a fortnight ago. The broken arm occurred when he tripped in a neighbours garden. As he's only six I was explaining to the doctor what had happened. George had suddenly decided not to speak to the doctor after a six hour wait in casualty where he had spoken incessantly.
"Just tell him you fell, George, just tell him you fell" I blurted out in an attempt to convey what really happened. The doctor wrote something extra on his little doctor notepad after that. Probably a coded message to social services. The Kerr's are back!
And that brings us to Swingball, the Caravan Club's second favourite pastime after swinging itself.
The rackets are very light, very large and very thick. And that just about describes how Callum's head felt last night after one of them connected with it instead of the swinging ball.
Of course he howled like a wolf and cried like a river. He's allowed tired simile's as he's only ten and it hurt like hell. Is that another one?
I came running downstairs to find him seated in the kitchen holding a cold compress to his forehead. Howling Wolf dried up for a moment and asked the question that made me lie to him.
"Is it bad, Dad?"
He frowned as he said this but all lines stopped about 3 inches from the middle of his forehead as a free-range size lump appeared almost instantly. It had a life of its own, growing as I spoke to re-assure him and wondered who was going to re-assure me. I know who will. Casualty.
He didn't want to go as he knew his brother had spent hours down there - talking and suddenly not talking. He had football tournaments to play on Saturday and Sunday.
"What if I don't head the ball, Dad. Can I play then?"
I thought that if he turned up looking like he does now then his head just might be mistaken FOR the ball.
I didn't want to go as I knew the lady on reception just a little too well by now. She went to the same school as my children, albeit many decades ago, and she also seemed to write more and more every time we arrived with another childhood mishap. It didn't help that she was a bit deaf, she was behind nutter-proof glass and the speakers weren't working. Why employ a hard of hearing person at Accident and Emergency reception? Why hadn't I concentrated more on the hand signals waved to me as a child from Vision-On?
Well arrive we did expecting more a gestation period than a waiting time.
We played I-Spy to pass the time. Callum couldn't get what was beginning with 'B' even though it was staring down at him from his head like a Daleks probe.
To my astonishment we were seen very quickly in under an hour. Testament, surely, to the decline in binge drinking in Northampton. We had also arrived well before chucking out and chucking up time.
The doctor could not have been more thorough. Though I was concerned that although he was holding Callum's notes when we entered the examination room, and Callum's bump preceeded us by a good 10 seconds, he asked Callum what seemed to be the problem! My natural sarcasm screamed to be let out but I subdued it with a promise of fun with a call-centre operator the next day. It worked. I stayed silent and bit my lip.
Bandaged, bruised and on our way out of A&E we passed the waiting room. It was by now filling up with the binge drinking, chucker-uppers of Northampton. Testament surely to the rise in binge drinking in the town. It seems you can prove anything with A&E statistics.
We arrived back with a subdued Callum who was greeted by his younger brother as if I had pulled him from the beaches of Dunkirk. His concern was touching. Normally they argue, fight and make noise all the time, pausing only to eat, which frankly is still pretty noisy.
Sibling rivalry cast aside in the face of adversity.
"Will Callum be going to school tomorrow, Dad?" George asked touchingly.
"Don't worry, George, he's going to be just fine"
"No, Dad. If he does he's gonna look real stupid!!"