As the birth of our third child draws ever nearer, we’ve been attending more regular appointments than in previous months. Last week we were at a one of these and, as we’re having a home birth, I was asking a few more questions than I usually do. One of which was about who I should phone when Kate goes into labour. “Oh, just call emu” said our friendly midwife. I was perplexed. Obviously, it was an acronym, but am I going to let that get in the way of whimsy? Of course not!
We’d had a bad night with Xander waking us three times – well, it was a day ending in y – so, while one part of my sleep-deprived brain tried to attribute relevant words to the three letters, another part of it started finding more and more evidence that our baby is going to be delivered by a 1970s puppet that once assaulted Michael Parkinson. It would be a crime not to embed this video at this juncture.
So what of this evidence? Well, first things first, the emblem of the place we live in is a windmill. It appears on the signs on the town’s perimeter as well as on the badges of the primary school and football club. None of them are pink, but there is a large windmill in the town and I haven’t not seen an emu going in or out of it. So as far as I’m concerned it’s entirely possible.
Then there’s the song-and-dance routine that we witness in Dylan and Xander every time there’s somebody at our front door. Normally, it’s a delivery of some sort, but sometimes it’s a surrogate Grotbags in the form of a scary person who thinks that religious faith can be peddled on a door-to-door basis.
Finally, it’s my birthday and, naturally, there has been much speculation about whether the baby is going to be born today. On a side note, I hope she won’t be, purely because I called this months ago and forgot to stick a tenner on it happening. Anyway. We are, of course, having cake and the boys have asked for jelly too. Green jelly. Spooky!
I think that’s some pretty compelling evidence that the much-loved ghost of Rod Hull will be smiling on us soon.
The fact that ‘EMU’ also stands for ‘Eastbourne Maternity Unit’ is a mere coincidence…
