The Monkey House

Text from Spidermonkey says he came off his bike in the wet and 'apparently has a fractured hip'.  I tried to ring back but he is in a lecture!  (He also said he is OK, just needed the painkillers he took to uni with him - basic paracetamol and ibuprofen.)  Am not sure what to make of this. I know he's tough, but broken hip fixed with paracetamol and back to lectures the same day?!?!?!?

(We were with him until 5.30 yesterday so we can rule out the possibility that he spent the weekend having emergency surgery and only told me about it today.)

Waiting for him to call me back....

Update
It's not broken.  Phew! Even a fracture in the sense of a crack or chip to the hip bone is very much a worst case scenario - with any luck he's just bruised and grazed.

It seems cycling in Cambridge doesn't prepare you for cycling around a very hilly campus in the wet.  He took a bend (slowly - thank heavens) and the bike tipped over.  Sensibly, he went straight to the health centre where a doctor looked at it.  He's been told he can do whatever he likes, even cycling or climbing, as long as it doesn't hurt too much.  He was back on his bike straight afterwards and only 10 mins late for his lecture!  It happened on his way back from handing in his maths homework.  There is no justice!

I have, of course, sent hugs and sympathy and dire warnings not to fall on it again and risk breaking it properly, and to go back to the doctor if it's not getting better.  But I think they would have sent him to Brighton for an x-ray if they thought there was anything to worry about.

If you missed it on facebook, here's Squirrel's new look.  (With Spider GCSE art and primary school Pokemon plate in background.)

Another episode in the tragicomedy of Mr. Gove...

Squirrel has brought home a letter from Monkey Federation Academies TM.  That Maths GCSE he was going to take next month so he could get it over with and concentrate on Additional Maths?  Cancelled. Thanks to Gove's campaign to raise standards, 60 kids at MFA will now be learning less Maths rather than more.

Mr. Gove has ruled that only the first sitting of any subject GCSE can be counted towards a school's league table place.  So the school has decided not to risk early exams at all.  Better to wait until June, when they'll have had more Maths lessons, and bugger the Additional Maths since it's not a GCSE and doesn't get counted towards anything (apart from being massively helpful for Maths A Level next year).
Thing is, kids can sit GCSE as many times as they like and still keep the best result - it's just the school that has to stick with the first grade awarded. The conflict of interests is as obvious as it is unhelpful.  The school has made it clear they are pissed off but all they have to suggest is 'Write to your MP'.  Maths geek kids are talking about protests and lesson boycotts.  Maths geek parents have yet to react.  Personally, I'm planning to sigh a lot and have a hot bath.

Dear Mr. Gove,
Did you ever think that maybe the reason schools want multiple shots at the 'same' exam is because the marking and grading have become so erratic?  Might it help to make the system more predictable rather than less?  Maybe?  Or that it might be helpful to consult on new ideas for a minimum of 5 minutes before implementing them?  No, of course not.  Why would you?
Yours
PissedOffMonkeyMum

Remember when Spider won the Medical Research Art competition? If not, click the link to see the artwork and artist as they both looked in 2011, and an explanation of what it shows.

Today, we are taking the artwork back to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, who have finished moving into their snazzy new, chromosome-shaped building and now have a place to display it.  So I took some last photos of it here with him, both looking older, but only the art looks more battered.  That will improve when the LMB replace the original cardboard box with a see-through black perspex one, though I can only wish them luck trying to hold the polystyrene balls, fishing line, cocktail sticks, wire, Early Learning Centre poster paint, etc. together.  'Mixed media' with a vengeance.  I particularly like the balls that he sprayed with solvent because the instructions said not to so they'd get all eaten away and icky.


The artist with his work.  NB print by grannymonkey in the background - multigenerational art!  Note also T-shirt evolution from Metallica to Spinal Tap, though the 2011 Metallica T-shirt is still worn, and probably would have been again if he'd known there'd be photos.

New, better recording of squirrelmonkey's song, Years Don't Show, by Quantum Suicide.  You can hear the bass now.  Still with a stand-in drummer, but he knows the song this time.

What we planned to do today:
3 hours of Hobbit then lunch at Nando's.  Spider and his friends in one group on a bithday treat and the rest of us with grown up friends.  

What we are doing instead:
Lots of phone calls to cancel, followed by trip to the out-of-hours doctor who also thinks it may be appendicitis, but also isn't sure.  She gave him the option of going to Addenbrookes for a blood test or coming back home to see what happens next and promising to go straight to A&E or call an ambulance if it gets worse.  Since that is also what Addenbrookes would tell him to do if the test was negative, he's decided to come back and try to eat some lunch.  I just hope we don't end up in A&E with the late night festive drunks.

I liked the first plan better.  On the plus side, Picturehouse were great.  They refunded all the tickets and also the membership we paid for at the same time.   Yay Picturehouse!
(If anyone else is about to book, they also advised against seeing the Hobbit in 3D unless you can also see it at the faster frame rate.  They have 2D or 3D screenings, but at the traditional frame rate.)

Thanks to the 2nd antibiotics, I'm now recovered from both the kidney infection and the backlog of work that built up as a result.

So I can update you on my cats, and possibly even on my children...

Leicester is much perkier, indeed perky enough to be pretty fed up with his tiger cage.  He's taken to scritching the blankets into a pile and generally fidgeting around.  He still doesn't want to put weight on the bad leg, partly because it must be still sore, but mostly because the muscles are so wasted that it doesn't actually bear weight.  He has a full range of movement in it when he's just waving it in the air though, and he's allowed to come out of the cage as long as he sits on laps like a good kitty and doesn't try to run or jump, so we sit and do his leg excercises together.  Any day now the vet will give him the all clear to try a little very gentle standing and walking.

He and Humbug went through an odd spell where they would stand close together with all the body language saying 'We is friends' except that Humbug would hiss.  He'd still act friendly and Leicester wouldn't react, but Humbug would hiss quietly.  This has stopped now.  We think it was all about Humbug insisting that he gets to be Chief Cat now that he's doing all the work and Leicester is helpless.   Apparently Leicester agrees because he's started neatly burying his poo, something he wouldn't have been seen dead doing before: he always left it proudly on a mound of litter.  Sometimes Humbug would come and bury it for him.  But he says Humbug is only Acting Chief Cat.  It's a temporary arrangement.  Got that?

Spider is enjoying geeky A levels at Long Road and getting to work with real glass blowers for his Medical Research Council artwork.  (It's weird and complicated.).  He'll also be singing at West Road in the first part of this.  Come and listen if you think you're hard enough.  We'll all be there.

Squirrel has managed to get himself onto an extra GCSE course and also joined the band for the latest Monkey Federation Academies musical, Little Shop of Horrors.  He's the trumpet so you'll hear him. Even if you're not going to the show.