The vomiting cavalier

Shortly after this photo was taken we packed up and set out to Oxenhope to catch the Santa special steam train - tickets for which were booked weeks ago at a cost of something rather exorbitant. The drive over the moor was perilous to say the least with driving rain and mist the like of which I haven't seen since the fell gathering days in Knock. Having traversed huge sheets of water pouring off the peat soaked land we were about five minutes away from the station when George was very very very sick, all over himself, his car seat and the seat in front. I knew something was up, he'd been quiet and still and didn't seem at all his usual self and there it was...all over the place. We then had to find somewhere to park and perform this ridiculous contortion trick taking off clothes and getting them into nappy bags so as to contain the sick, using handfuls of wet wipes to mop mop mop...child, car, seat....then we find that the usual spare clothing in the nappy bag has been plundered at some earlier time and all that is left is a pair of socks....great....thinking on my feet I see Jon has a stripey t-shirt on over his black long sleeve so I get him out of the car and he whips that off and we then line the seat with muslins, sit the naked to his nappy and shivering child back in, dress him in his Daddy's top which comes down to his ankles, and then I wrap my big scarf around him. Strapped in and with heater on full the now relatively clean, dry and warm George starts babbling and jiggling and smiling again and I feel something of a relief as we go battling back home over the worsening moor. Through Hebden and the rivers are high and the rain is a torrent, happy boy bounces and babbles, on to Tod and the sky is brighter, by the time we reach home the deluge is a drizzle. The t-shirt clad sick boy is carried in and upstairs and ten minutes later is in a lovely warm bubble bath, and now, as I type, the squeaky clean George is singing and giggling with his Daddy, polishing off a dish of spaghetti hoops on toast. Santa special it is not, but it's home and he's well and that's all that matters.