How First Aid Ruined My Life

As part of being a foster carer I had to go on a paediatric first aid course. This is good, everyone always means to do these things  but life gets in the way. I've babysat my siblings for ten years, but what do I do if a child in my care starts choking? Screaming for my mother somehow doesn't seem like the right answer.

So I did my course a few weeks ago. It was on a Saturday when my husband and I were looking after my six siblings for the weekend. I got up, wished him luck and left the house, laughing to myself as I went.

My laughing was, however, short-lived. The instructor was an amiable enough man, who responded to my informing him that I was a foster carer by going off on a tangent about the horror he'd felt when his friend came out to him just before they were due to move into a flat together. I don't see the connection, but there you go. We had to perform CPR repeatedly on adult dummies, child dummies, and infant dummies. My hands, neck and shoulders were killing me. You have to push down unbelievingly hard to restart an adult heart, and while I'm glad to have that skill now the part of my brain that remembered I had fibromyalgia was frantically screaming 'This isn't an emergency! Why are you hurting yourself if this isn't an emergency?!'

I could have told my instructor, and he probably would have let me off some of the rounds, but that's not the point. In an emergency I'll have to keep going, and if I give up in a practice what hope have I got? Sure, in a really sticky situation adrenaline would probably sink in, but still.

The worst part was going through the numerous potentially fatal accidents that can occur in the home. Breaks, allergic reactions, asthma, burns, chemical burns, ingestion of solvents, things in the eye, falling downstairs, getting burnt by hair straighteners, choking on pretty much anything, getting bitten by dogs, run over by cars, hypothermia, hyperthermia...the list goes on. At lunch break I ran out and frantically called my extremely capable husband to check that one or all of those things hadn't happened to one or all of my siblings. Of, course none of these things happened.

It's scary realising how fragile the human beings we care for are, and how easily the bad stuff can happen. But you can't let it run your life either. How do you guys cope with the fear that surrounds everyday living?

Of course, if this happens then you may really be in trouble.

Will post an update on my writing tomorrow.

My Writerly Routine/Once More With Feeling

My Writerly Routine

My working days tend to take a fairly regular pattern. I get up early, walk the dog, and aim to be sitting at my desk for eight am. Then I do my journalistic work which, on a good day with no procrastination, I can do in under two hours. Then I do some household chores and set myself up for an afternoon of writing. My husband works is out of the house for around twelve hours, and often times the only people I meet are dog walkers, the postman and the biweekly Tesco delivery man. In some ways it's a hermetic existence, well as hermetic as you can get when you live in a suburb of a capital city. My routine (and even the fact that I call it a 'routine') makes me sound all hard-working and diligent, but just because I'm at my desk in person does not mean that I'm working. I would not like to see a tot up of the hours that I waste fawning over fora.

I write in the kitchen, with my French doors open onto our lovely garden. We have an office in the front of the house, but it doesn't get the sun and can be dark and gloomy. In the kitchen I can see the sun filled garden and listen to birdsong which is all very inspirational. In short, I love my routine and didn't realise how much until I found out that my husband and I have an appointment tomorrow morning in our house. This will mess up my system. If I don't get a certain amount of work done in the morning, my day is practically a write-off. I find it hard to get into the groove again. I've been this way as far back as I can remember. This may make some of you worry that I have some form OCD, but trust me, fifteen seconds in my less than immaculate home would set you straight.

Once More, With Feeling


So, this is it for Storms in Teacups. I've set my submission date for Wednesday June 1, the day when I sent out my sample chapters, synopsis and cover letter out to agents across the British Isles. I have a month of hard editing to do, and then I'm done. Now, I love my book. I think it's good, and there's parts of it that still make me smile even though I've read it around a dozen times. The problem is, this edit is making me crazy. Maybe because it's the last one, maybe because I've edited it countless times before, but I'm starting to lose the will to live. Not to mention the fact that I have The Fear. On previous edits I haven't worried to much over whether or not my corrections are the best they can be, because if they don't work then I can always pick it up in subsequent edits can't I? Ah, no. Not any more.

My husband must know I'm under strain, as he bought me this Fry's Chocolate Cream (well, not this exact one) completely unprompted. Yummy and scrummy and completely dairy free. He's a man in a million.