A mountain bike ride on Makara Peak this afternoon, in the heat. A bit rusty with my skills after a break of a couple of months, coped OK with the workload but on one of the more technical runs* I came to grief, falling sideways off a bridge into a gully. I quickly scrambled to my feet, and a rapid inventory of my body parts revealed no lasting damage, so I could reply “yep, fine, no worries” to the couple of cyclists following after me, who were looking a little concerned. Tania, riding a bit ahead, also had a bit of a spill on the same run, ending up with a nasty bruise on her upper arm. “You OK?” “Yeah, All good” “OK, on we go then, something a bit less technical, do you think?” Contrast this no drama approach with something I saw at the beach yesterday. There was a young couple frolicking in the water while I was there swimming with the dogs. All good, until I heard the sound of wailing and loud crying from the young woman in the skimpy bikini. She sounded so distressed I expected to see that she had been bitten in half by a shark or something. The boyfriend was carrying her to the car by now, and I still couldn’t see what was wrong, her limbs all seemed intact. Certainly there was no problem with her vocal cords. I swam back across the river, retrieved the soccer ball they’d left behind, and followed after them. Still no ominous pools of blood visible, not even a light splattering. By the time I got to the car park, they’d gone. I asked the freedom camper who was there if he’d seen what happened. Oh yes, he said – the girl had cut her foot. I left the ball behind with him in case the couple returned and headed home. You might think this is unfair of me, but I did think the girl was being a drama queen, and I would have been most unimpressed if one of my daughters had carried on that way. What’s going to happen if she ever has a baby? A bit of noise and swearing is perfectly understandable, the midwives are good with that sort of thing, but there’s no need to add unnecessary drama with woe-is-me type behaviors. I’ll concede child birth can be a bit sore. I remember crying out “it hurts, it hurts!” when the twins were born, and they were minuscule, the poor things, forced out a month early (preeclampsia) and undersized. I should acknowledge here the very excellent Ward Douglas, who bravely put an epidural in me in spite of platelets of 86 and dropping. Ward was a very smart man, tough but fair, flawed but who isn’t? Anyway it was a very gratefully received epidural, that worked terrifically well until the midwife let it wear off so I could push properly (now, where is that eye roll emoji when I need it?) Having John Tait hovering over me with the forceps in his hand was also a good incentive to push, and out they came, two minutes apart (one of them is convinced she’s been the victim of a baby swap, but I’m sorry, my dear – we were there, we have the photos! Might get her a DNA test for her birthday though, just to set her mind at rest).
I hope I don’t come across as heartless. I would definitely be upset if any daughter of mine was ashamed to talk to me about any distress she was having. But there’s a difference, surely? There are no princesses in this family.
*OK, full disclosure: it was Sally Alley, an intermediate run, but I told you I was rusty.