Sickie Wickets

We have a sick child in the house, and he's not even mine.

Anyway, first things first - I'm on holiday! Yeah! Woke up this morning and wondered for a nanosecond why the alarm had not gone off, but one nanosecond later my brain kicked in and told me it had not gone off because I had not set it. And I had not set it because I was not off to work today. So I cuddled a pillow and thought about a Monday morning not sitting in my office chair, not deleting all the weekend emails and not spending an hour browsing all the internet sites I can't be bothered with at weekends. Non-work Mondays are of course, the best kind.

In a moment of delusional madness and in a desperate attempt at finding something to do, I suggested to Lukas (and Danny) that as the weather was nice (if not brilliant) we could go and watch some cricket. I really do not know how those words even got into my head, as cricket is usually a game I've incredibly little time for, but I really wanted to find something I could do with Lukas, and I know whilst I don't think he's ever sat through a game in his life he played it last year at school for the first time last summer and really enjoyed himself. He even got selected for the school second XI on two occasions (sadly both times during heavy periods at work so I didn't get to see him), scoring eleven on the first occasion and a sad duck on the second. This was in "real" statistics as they now with kids (apparently) use some weird scoring system where you start (I think) on one hundred and then either score or lose runs depending on how your team does (I didn't have a hope of comprehension as I never even mastered basic calculus at school). Whatever - Cricket became Lukas's obsession for about three weeks (until that duck) then it waned as the weather got wetter and colder (as it generally does in the UK around every single bloody month of the year).

So, as I said, in a moment of madness I flicked on the internet to see what (if any) cricketing options were available. Discovered that Leicestershire were playing Nottinghamshire in a pre-season friendly at their ground, so our attendance at that was what I suggested to Lukas. He looked at me strangely for a moment then nodded and said yeah, that might be okay. Then the question of Danny (who I noticed was looking very pale with dark eyes, but then as he never looks very healthy anyway I didn't - regretfully - put two and two together) came up. So I asked Danny if he would care to join us. He shrugged and gave a tiny nod, which I took meant affirmative.

So we waited until about eleven and drove down to Grace Road. As it was somewhere we'd never been before, I of course got lost, and it took us much longer to get there than it ought to have done. We ended up going needlessly through the centre of Loughborough, but eventually got on the right road and found somewhere to park.

It was when we joined the admittedly meagre queue to get in when the first mishap occurred. Another guy standing with us suddenly yelled Whoa, man overboard! No idea what he meant until I saw Danny. My brain became befuddled for a moment - I thought at first someone had tipped a can of coke over him, but then as a spew of dark brown liquid volcanoed from his mouth I guessed he's been sick. All liquid though. The daft lad made no effort to run and vomit somewhere a little more convenient though, he just vomited where he stood. Fortunately he was projectiling enough for the sick to miss his clothes. Once he was done he just wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and acted as if nothing had happened. I asked if he was okay but he just said Yeah. I asked if he was still okay to attend the game, and again, he said Yeah. So in we went.

It was a mistake. Notts had amassed six thousand runs the previous day (this being a two-day game) and declared, leaving Leics to amassed a further six thousand runs before they got bored and called it a day. It was about as interesting as reading the precautions leaflet for a tube of superglue. We stuck it for two hours before Lukas suddenly announced Dad, this is f**king boring. I agreed and as Danny (just for a change) didn't say anything, I assumed we had his agreement as well. So we left.

And as we did so Mount Danny erupted for a second time. He'd stuck to water and diet coke during the game, and that was all that came out, and at least this time he made a half hearted attempt to get to a wall. After he hitched up a few times he smiled again at me with a ghostly face and dripping eyes. I nipped into a nearby Greggs and asked if I could have a paper bag. The lady at the counter shook her head, so I ended up buying a cheese-and-onion pastie just for the privilege of obtaining a makeshift vomit bag. I was very wary of driving Danny back but he insisted he felt better - of course once someone's sick in a car the car retains that sick smell eternally.

We drove back and Danny kept the sick monsters under wraps. I asked how he felt repeatedly but all he ever replied was Cold.

Got back and rang Danny's parents but got no reply. Around half seven Danny complained of feeling tired, so tried his folks again and again, no reply. Danny was asleep on the settee when I came back, so I carried him up to Lukas's room and slid him into bed. Finally got through to Danny's dad at half-nine and explained what had happened. Danny's dad asked if I wanted him to fetch his son but we decided between us to leave him be.

Tried Sarah twice last evening as well, but no reply.