Happy Cream

My cousin is in town again to see her PhD supervisor. It's Chinese New Year (still) and we went down to Oriental City hoping to catch some 'culture'.

We were just in time to see a couple of 'lions' walk past us. Son was thrilled.

The week before when a senior boy came to junior school to talk about Chinese New Year he listened attentively and was rewarded with a paper dragon for answering a question correctly. He wanted to get another of those dragons (made with honey-comb paper) for his best friend.

Unfortunately the bakery had run out of his favourite buns and he sat glumly playing with some wooden chopsticks while the rest of us pigged out. Then 'Ouch!'.

A splinter. Tears. More tears.

No First Aid post at the centre. We ate as quickly as we could. Shopped as quickly as we could, and headed home.

None of us could see the splinter but it was obviously causing him much pain. Our eyes were showing their age and we found it extremely difficult to locate the source of his pain.

The next morning, without my contact lenses or glasses I was finally able to see a tiny splinter. Removed it ... so I thought. But son insisted that it was still hurting.

So back to Plan A, which was to take him to A&E to have it seen to, to make sure it does not get infected.

Three hours wait was what the electronic signboard said we would have. But son was seen to by a Nurse Practitioner and we were out within 45 minutes. We were even only slightly late for church service.

Now son is happy showing off his bandaged hand. We need to apply magnesium sulphate to it for a few days to draw out the splinter (if indeed it is still there). Or the body defences would break down the splinter.

Most reassuring of all: it is not going to travel round the body as my mum used to tell me.

But something in the cream seemed to be making our son rather floaty. We've started calling it his 'happy cream'.