Adulthood, Finally?
I was all gung-ho to return to work on a hospital ward around the time of my application for interview but that was in sodding February and I am prone to the heeby-jeebies when I have to wait and wait. The HR dept at the hospital have been outstandingly cack-handed but the Occupational Health dept gave a good showing in the ineptitude stakes by sending me a form so clumsily photocopied that a couple of questions were sheared off the top of a page. Thus my precious paternity leave was twice interrupted by calls from these depts looking answers and, in the case of HR, looking for my references which they seemed to have lost yet again. I pray the payroll dept is not similarly numpty-staffed.
I had to visit Occ Health in person today because I was foolish enough to 'fess up to being under the physio for back pain - oh, I tell you, age doesn't come alone. A pointless trip as I told the nurse, whose surname was Strain, nothing I hadn't told 'em down the phone, but I did get out of the office for a bit on this fine sunny day. Outside various hospital buildings, workers and patients clustered together to smoke fags. The only way I could tell patients from staff was by the scrubs and nursing/ancillary uniforms - they all looked half dead. Good old east end. Not for the first time i thought, Oh Lor, what have I done? But the thought of my family sustains me in a way I wouldn't have thought possible before the Bean was born. I picture the gurgling, snub-nosed bairn in her mother's arms, with Pooka the cat perhaps nearby, and I am strong again. As my man Mr Q, himself the father of an 18-year-old daughter of whom he is justly proud, suggested: you get braver when you've got a kid.
And now, at the risk of being one of those tiresome baby people (man, all these habits I used to deplore in others, the whipping out of the wallet snapshot at the drop of a hat, the my kid-centric attitude [as in 'I am not being biased when I insist that my child is the most beautiful entity which has ever existed on this world or any other] but it all changes once you're on the other side, you gotta belive me!!), I present the Bean once more, in sweet repose:
Mo's parents were here this weekend and both had tears in their eyes on seeing the child. Would that my ain folk were so emotional. No, that would be weird.
As has become traditional, oul Papa J and I went for a wee refreshment on Saturday afternoon. The Old College Bar, the Tolbooth, the Clutha Vaults, the 13th Note and the Cathedral Bar. We tottered up the road like figures from silent comedy. That night, the baby raised Mo and I from our slumbers every hour, it seemed. A hard night, but what joy to see the child become calm again and goggle at the world before drifting off once more.
I was euphoric for a good ten days after the birth and then more or less returned to normal but now the world has a centre.
I had to visit Occ Health in person today because I was foolish enough to 'fess up to being under the physio for back pain - oh, I tell you, age doesn't come alone. A pointless trip as I told the nurse, whose surname was Strain, nothing I hadn't told 'em down the phone, but I did get out of the office for a bit on this fine sunny day. Outside various hospital buildings, workers and patients clustered together to smoke fags. The only way I could tell patients from staff was by the scrubs and nursing/ancillary uniforms - they all looked half dead. Good old east end. Not for the first time i thought, Oh Lor, what have I done? But the thought of my family sustains me in a way I wouldn't have thought possible before the Bean was born. I picture the gurgling, snub-nosed bairn in her mother's arms, with Pooka the cat perhaps nearby, and I am strong again. As my man Mr Q, himself the father of an 18-year-old daughter of whom he is justly proud, suggested: you get braver when you've got a kid.
And now, at the risk of being one of those tiresome baby people (man, all these habits I used to deplore in others, the whipping out of the wallet snapshot at the drop of a hat, the my kid-centric attitude [as in 'I am not being biased when I insist that my child is the most beautiful entity which has ever existed on this world or any other] but it all changes once you're on the other side, you gotta belive me!!), I present the Bean once more, in sweet repose:
Mo's parents were here this weekend and both had tears in their eyes on seeing the child. Would that my ain folk were so emotional. No, that would be weird.
As has become traditional, oul Papa J and I went for a wee refreshment on Saturday afternoon. The Old College Bar, the Tolbooth, the Clutha Vaults, the 13th Note and the Cathedral Bar. We tottered up the road like figures from silent comedy. That night, the baby raised Mo and I from our slumbers every hour, it seemed. A hard night, but what joy to see the child become calm again and goggle at the world before drifting off once more.
I was euphoric for a good ten days after the birth and then more or less returned to normal but now the world has a centre.