Vikings on Valium

OMG I feel as if my hair is standing vertically on end purely as a result of my current state of sheer hysteria. Life is getting beyond me. Tomorrow I am flying to Orkney; my non-British readers may have to reach for an atlas at this moment. Here’s a quick clue, small islands off the top right hand corner of Scotland. The reason for this flight to my Viking inspired roots, (my paternal grandmother was an Orcadian) is that I am taking Drama Queen No.3 to spend a week with my parents and they happen to be in Orkney this weekend before returning to home base of Edinburgh. The flight from Sydney to Orkney is an interesting one involving a number of changes and taking in total 33 hours so I have a suspicion that by the time we land in Kirkwall that I may be doing my own Viking invader imitation of the wild and woolly sort.

This trip has a number of serious implications for maternal sanity; a) DQ’s 1 and 2 feel they have been discriminated against and have taken to referring to DQ no.3 as ‘The Chosen One’ b) military planning has been required to ensure the mother taxi service operates in my absence and no teenager is left sitting in the gloaming as evening falls by an abandoned netball court and c) DQ no 3 will see this as a rare chance for 33 hours of my undivided attention and unlike most plane companions will not be deterred by earphones, eye shields, hard stares, blanket over the head and my pretending to read my book. The other slight problem is that she has a saxophone exam four days after we get back so guess which small and totally portable instrument (pause for sarcastic laughter if you can hear it over the screams of pain as I bark my shins on the wretched thing) we are dragging round Scotland and if anyone would like to open a book on how many times it actually gets played, I am cornering all the low numbers as after all I do need to recoup the cost of the fares.

If this wasn’t enough, Husband is in the midst of a major dental crisis and spent most of this morning in the dentist’s chair having eye-wateringly unpleasant things done to him at an equally eye-watering cost. Our lovely female dentist – I always choose dentists on the grounds of sex and physical size as I feel it is important for my personal sanity to know I can overpower them and get away if necessary, spotted that the term reluctant patient is a complete understatement in Husband’s case. Following a couple of preliminary meetings she ended up prescribing a large amount of valium to be taken beforehand in a bid to ensure he was sufficiently relaxed to drag himself to her front door – I had concerns that he might be so away with the fairies given the copious dose that I left him with a card to hand to the taxi driver with the dentist’s name and address on it, just in case he tried to do a runner or in a moment of drug induced insanity ordered the cab to go to the airport instead. I resisted the temptation to add a Paddington Bear inspired note to the effect “Please look after this man”.

When I went to pick him up, he had that slightly swaying glazed look of the punch drunk and it brought back my valium experience. When we lived in Hong Kong I had to have wisdom teeth removed and I confessed to my male dentist that I was not good at dentists, said with the kind of little laugh that made it quite clear to him he had a wall climber here. Note I had made an exception to the small and female dentist rule as he was, I thought, the most handsome man I had met in Hong Kong. He kindly organized a large injection of valium and I have to say it was a breeze having the teeth out. I have, however no memory of the next few hours, but some of my exploits obviously included giving the dentist my full and frank opinion of his physical charms as he blushed bright red when I went back for the check up and seemed very nervous of being left alone with me. I also seemed to have rather bizarrely made a new best friend of his previously snooty receptionist who greeted me with a kiss and shrieks of “Sweetie”. As for the unfortunate couple deputed to pick me up – Husband being absent overseas at the time, they were treated to me insisting they come into the flat and sit down, I then apparently whizzed into our bedroom and reappeared modeling my maternity nightie – possibly the least flattering outfit anyone in their right mind eg not bombed out of their skull on valium, would choose. In comparison Husband has shown no tendencies to model his underwear, and both dentist and receptionist still seem to be on good, but not overly friendly terms with him.

Such is the state of the packing and general lack of organization that had he any valium left I would be strongly tempted to swallow one – in the hope the so called ‘housewife’s friend’ might transform me – on the other hand I am not sure Sydney Departures lounge is ready for the maternity nightie experience.