Daniel and Mathilde's Birthday Party
In the morning, as usual on a Saturday, Daniel had Football and Erik had a Cub Scout Den meeting and a football match. I had a Cub Scout leader meeting, after which I hurried back for lunch and to prepare for the Party in the Statoil compound.

Like last year, we used the tennis court for the children to run around and had a buffet by the pool. This year, however, we splashed out and booked two inflateables: a large bouncy octopus slide, which went into the pool and a smaller bouncy crocodile/castle for the smaller ones. We also had a DJ to play children's music.

Salako and Anthony had done a great job of preparing the food. Salako made the cake and Inger-Lise decorated it. I hung up the decorations around the pool area. There were about 30 children and they had a great time running riot.

When they had got rid of some energy and worked up an appetite, we gave them sausages and cut the cake (couldn't get the candles to light in the wind, though!). Mathilde was a little star, singing Happy Birthday with the microphone!


Unfortunately, this will be a birthday Daniel will never forget (or any of us for that matter). I was in the children's pool with Mathilde, when Joy brought Daniel to me, crying. I took one look at his arm and could see immediately that it was broken at the elbow; he had fallen 3 or 4 feet off a slide onto the tennis court. It must have been very painful for him. Earlier on, Daniel's friend Thomas had fallen down the stairs of the Octopus and got a concussion. What a day for accidents!

Everyone had an opinion about which was the best hospital to go to, but we took Daniel straight to the Reddington Hospital. We got there at 5pm in the afternoon. Fortunately, our friends held the fort and gave out the presents at the end of the party, but I don't think it lasted very long after Daniel left.




At Reddington, they took an X-ray and called the Orthopoedic surgeon, who told us that it was a complicated break because it was at the elbow and because the bone had moved quite a bit. He said that it might be possible to manoeuvre it into place, but probably it would require surgery. He'd hardly finished talking when I was dialing the travel agent in Norway to book him and Inger-Lise onto the next flight back to Norway. By now it was almost 6pm (when the transport convoy normally leaves for the airport). Fortunately, there was room on ther Lufthansa flight leaving at 11:50pm, and they had business class tickets to go back anyway.

The hospital put a temporary cast on Daniel, while Inger-Lise went upstairs to pay Thomas and Hilde a visit and then we went back to Base. Inger-Lise did a fantastic job of packing in half an hour, while Daniel said goodbye to Erik and Mathilde. I drove out to the airport with them and, thanks to light traffic and good driving, we arrived in time for the flight. As if that wasn't enough, I was woken at 3am the next morning by Mathilde crying. She had thrown up all over her bed - too many sweeties! What a day!

The following week, while Daniel was waiting to be admitted for his operation after taking lots of tests for infectious tropical diseases, Daniel's class very kindly made a book of drawings for Daniel and took a class photo to wish him "Get Well Soon!".

Jeremy