Ooh me leg
Part 2
“I’ll tell them,” he said reluctantly, “At least I can tell it my way!” “It all started .....” Durwood lived in a very busy household. He was one of three Durwood Chetsnuts, his parents had only been expecting one baby and so were rather surprised to have triplets. They had only thought of one name so instead of thinking of two more just decided all the boys could be the same!! Unfortunately the Chestnut parents were very disorganised and vague and hadn’t realised that the boys were growing quickly and still only had two beds between them. As usual Durwood was last and sadly ended up on the floor. ‘I must do something about this’ he thought as he finally fell asleep.
With that Durwood and Cameron fearlessly scrambled up the pile and Durwood settled himself comfortably in the bath. “Ah yes this is perfect, my brothers will be so jealous of this!” he exclaimed.
As always, Cameron wanted to be a bit of a dare devil and saw an opportunity for showing off. He was soon shinning up the shower pole and edging his way towards the shower head, dangling off in a most precarious fashion. “Ooh, do be careful,” warned Durwood as he shuffled to the end of the bath, “I don’t want you breaking my new bed-bath!”
He quickly scrambled down to help his friend, dislodging the bath in his haste.
Roland and Patricia heard the commotion coming their way and curiously exited the house to see what was going on. They hadn’t expected to see Durwood dragging a bath around or their own son propped up on a shower pole. What on earth could have happened?!
Patricia hurried over to her son to assess the damage while Roland interrogated Durwood about his son had received his injuries.
Patricia’s motherly flow of sympathy dried up when she heard that Cameron had not just been scrambling around a scrap heap but had had the stupidity to try and scale the shower pole. “You silly boy!” she exclaimed, “let that be a lesson to you. Now come into the house and we’ll clean you up.” Roland and Patricia hoisted Cameron off his feet and carted him into the house. By this time he was feeling very embarrassed and didn’t want to face any teasing from the other children. He twisted his head to peer over his shoulder at Durwood and pleaded “Please don’t tell anyone how I hurt my leg, it can be our lifelong secret.” Durwood nodded absent mindedly and turned to set off home with his bath!
Just then they coincidentally heard the rattle of cart wheels and then saw the Chestnuts coming their way in the pony and trap. Durwood had continued to be eccentric as he had grown up and passed on these traits to his family. The Moss’ smiled as they saw the familiar sight of Pansy driving the trap while was towed behind in his much loved bath!
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One evening the boys were happily playing when their mum called, “Time for bed boys.” The usual mad scramble followed as they all tried to gain a space.
The next morning he set off in a determined fashion for the scrap yard, surely there would be an old bed there. On his way he met his good friend Cameron Moss.
“Where are you off to?” enquired Cameron. “I am going to get a bed, would you like to help?” replied Durwood. “Sounds like fun, I’m always up for an adventure.” They arrived at the scrap heap and surveyed the pile of miscellaneous rubbish.
“Oh no, Durwood, there isn’t a bed. What are you going to do now?” “There might not be a bed, but look at that bath. It has loads of space, I’m going up to try it out.” In answer, Cameron gave one more foolish little wiggle and the next thing he knew he was tumbling down the scrap pile, his leg jarring painfully on a wardrobe on the way down before his fall was broken by a chair leg in his thigh.
“Ooh me leg!” he shrieked as Durwood peered over the side of the bath anxiously.
“Oh dear, Cameron, how on earth are we going to get you home?” he asked in dismay as he saw his friends leg was gashed and swelling.
“I think you’ll have to pull me in the bath.”Cameron suggested feebly. Durwood didn’t like the idea of anyone else being in his bath but he kindly lent Cameron the shower pole as a walking stick. With him pulling the bath and the Cameron slowly limping behind with occasional cries of “Ooh me leg” they slowly made their way back to Cameron’s house. By the time Cameron had finished the story with some prompting from his parents his children were laughing uncontrollably while Rowena shook her head in fond despair. She had always suspected that Cameron hadn’t come by his injury in the way he had said but even she couldn’t have imagined something quite so far-fetched.
The Chestnuts all scrambled out gathered around the bakery. Juniper curiously turned and said “Mr Durwood we’ve just been hearing about Dad’s leg injury and your bath. What did your mum say when you dragged that home!”
“Oh she thought I was really smart and showed great initiative, she hadn’t realised I’d been sleeping on the floor for weeks.
I still remember that first night in the bath, best night’s sleep I’d had in ages. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t have a bath-bed.”
Rowena invited the Chestnuts to stay for coffee and cake and asked Cameron to go and put the kettle on. He hopped off his chair and out of habit started saying “Ooh...”
“ME LEG!” the rest of his family chorused for him before once more collapsing in hysterics. Cameron sighed as he realised he would never be able to use his leg as an excuse to get out of work again! |