Yesterday morning, about two hours after I'd dropped Bridget at Stepping Stones, Mike picked up the phone and I heard a rather worried conversation going on consisting, on Mike's part, mainly of 'Right' and 'Hm', which wasn't very enlightening to me. When he finished talking, with the words 'OK - we'll be there very soon', he told me that Bridget was at casualty at the Okehampton Hospital because she'd got a cut on her head and it needed a stitch.

We raced off, hearts in mouths, to find a relatively cheerful Bridget sitting on Lorraine (her chief carer)'s lap, with blood trickling from a cut by her left eye. (Mike had very kindly not told me that Lorraine's first explanation was 'Bridget's cut her eye', so I'd assumed that it was a forehead cut or the like. She was very lucky not to damage her eye.) I took over the role of Bridget-holder while the nurse cleaned up the cut and put a butterfly stitch on it - Bridget was not amused with him at all.

Apparently, Bridget is in the habit of standing by the table in the baby room and sliding her arms along it. This time she slipped at the end and came down, catching the corner of the table as she did so. I doubt that it will teach her to be more careful in the future. Apart from the shouts while the cut was being dressed she has been completely unfazed by the whole incident, eating, playing and sleeping as much as normal.

The stitch can be taken off after five days, and in the meantime we have a great talking point with all the people we're going to see over the weekend. We'll try and remember to take a picture tomorrow, so that everyone can admire the beautiful black eye.

I meant to blog earlier in the week about this, but a horrible cold and other adventures (see the other entry for today) have overtaken us.

I try to take Bridget swimming as often as possible, because it's an activity that she loves. However, I've been wondering of late if she doesn't feel a bit restricted by being held by Mummy. The recent purchase of an inflatable ring helped to put some distance between us, but it doesn't hold her head above the water without help. So this week I got out the armbands, which had been despised at an earlier trial, and added them to the caboodle. The result, after a little hesitation on my part, was a free-floating Bridget. Not only that, but a few experiments showed her that she could propel herself towards a Mummy several feet away. We can now say that Bridget has taken her first strokes in swimming. She probably spent about a quarter of the time we were in the pool happily floating on her own and a suggestion that she might want 'to swim by herself' would immediately cause her hands to be pulled out of mine.

It's lovely to see her so confident in the water. I didn't learn to swim until I was nine, and I hope that Bridget will feel a good deal more at home in water than that.