More attention-seeking behaviour

Last Friday night, Eleni got to ride in an ambulance for the second time in Japan — except this time she was the one strapped into the little bed.

Friday was the last night of training in the school gym before the big beach volleyball tournament on Sunday. Eleni has been very diligent at attending the twice-weekly training sessions, even walking up the hill to school in the freezing cold rather than taking the car. She’d been working hard on her volleyball skills and was looking forward to doing her bit for the team at the tournament, until…

Literally five minutes before training was due to end, she crashed into a team-mate going for the ball and fell heavily to the ground, cracking her cheekbone in three places and also giving her jaw a knock for good measure. Before she knew what was happening the ambulance had come and whisked her off to the shiny new hospital in town (I wish Ruby had been sent here too but they don’t take kids which is why she ended up at the decrepit old hospital down at Onomichi).

I got there about half an hour later and it was like deja vu, another time, all over again, except that this time she didn’t need to stay overnight; they literally sent her home with some aspirin and told her to come back in the morning.

Anyway there doesn’t seem to have been any lasting damage, other than some rather excellent bruising around the eye that looks for all the world as if we’ve had a nasty domestic. I’m not sure whether I should be seen alongside her in public right at the moment…

On Sunday we went down to cheer the school team on and get lots of sympathy from the rest of the team. The tournament was a major event, held in a huge public facility with gymnasium, swimming pool, concert hall etc. There were hundreds of people there and it all looked like great fun. So near and yet so far… ah well, another thing to pencil in for next year.