When we felt like Hagrid...

It wasn’t swine flu: I diagnosed myself. I didn’t seek medical advice about it but the respiratory bug that it was, knocked me right off my feet. Crucially, it didn’t give me a temperature and I’ve passed it onto the children who just got coughs. So, in anticipation of their return to school tomorrow we stopped in at the hospital to get them ‘declared fit.’

I warned my strapping 6ft 1” son (who’s 15) that we still had to go to the children’s department, and we all had a snigger that he’d probably try and get into the climbing frame room. Son was most disappointed to discover the play area was closed because of the swine flu virus, which I understand can exist for up to 24 hours on hard surfaces.

Toddlers raced around and babies howled. My great big children hung their heads and looked down at all the small people.

The tiny Thai nurse stood Son on the height and weight scales and then needed a step ladder to reach up to place the ruler on his head. Son obligingly crouched down to enable her to extend far enough to measure him which rather defeated the object, but then I suspect there’s no danger of him not growing sufficiently. I think after yesterday’s appointment that his files might well show him as having shrunk. A medical mystery perhaps.

Barney the purple dinosaur sat on the doctor’s desk; just in case one of my children might need him…The doctor examined them and then declared them both fit for school but in possession of coughs. He prescribed ten minutes each on the nebuliser and we were all issued with masks to make our departure from hospital safer for all the other patients.

I can’t believe that I took this picture in the treatment room. Clearly they weren’t very sick and I couldn't resist documenting the final embarrassment: the nebuliser masks they had to wear.