Doing exactly the opposite of what I'm told

So a few months ago HF took a first aid course for work. He's been rather...irritating... about safety issues ever since and keeps importantly announcing things about elevating things and suchlike. He hasn't had an accident to deal with yet.

Until this afternoon.

We were talking about corned beef at work today (I have no idea why, I suspect I brought it up) and I said "The thing I hate about corned beef is that I am incapable of opening the tin without cutting myself."

(I know you can already see where this is going, but bear with me)

So when I went home tonight, I thought it might be quite nice to crack open the tin of corned beef I had at the back of the cupboard and tuck in to all that alleged horsemeat goodness. The tin had, as they inexplicably do for corned beef but no other tin that I can think of, a key which unwrapped the top of the tin. This never works. I tried it a few times, then the key fell off, so I got out the tin opener. Of course, the tin isn't round like normal tins. So once I had forced the opener all the way round the edge I had to wedge something under the partially opened lid to break the remaining seal.

As I did this, HF remarked, " You'd better not cut yourself".

I turned to him and said "Don't be ridiculous" and promptly nearly cut the top of my thumb off.

When I say nearly cut, I did slice it nastily, just not all the way through.

Calm first aider HF's first reaction, naturally, was to shout at me and tell me I was a prat. As I rushed to the sink his training switched in and he kept telling me to "elevate the wound" and warning me that a plaster wouldn't do - interspersing all these instructions with the words "you prat" (I think this was the most offensive thing he could bring himself to call me).

Anyway, I now have my thumb wrapped in, variously, a small piece of old t-shirt, clingfilm to hold it in place and a couple of plasters to put pressure on it. I don't know if this was recognised procedure, but hey, it was 10pm and I don't have much more in the house. I'm now sitting on the sofa feeling slightly guilty for having eaten all the biscuits in the house (loss of blood, potential faintness and all that). And my thumb still hurts. A lot. I'm seriously going to get the piss ripped out of me at work tomorrow.

It occurs to me that I haven't described my New Year's celebrations or detailed any resolutions for this year. If you want a rundown of the New Year's bardsfest, try Thursday or my mum.
I actually filmed the annual firework show (which lasted about 40 minutes this year, it gets longer and more dangerous every year) but after several attempts to upload the video on dial-up I gave up. Suffice to say, it was a good event - we ate, we drank, we openly cheated at the quiz (google on the mobile) and won but felt guilty and undeserving so returned the prize, we all put Sadam Hussein in for the hat game (again, see my mum's description).

Here's a picture of the bonfire, which only apparently took after one of the many men (possibly my sister's new fella) attacked it with an axe. I have no idea how this helped, but soon afterwards we were surrounded by a swirling dervish of polyester-fleece melting sparks, so it must have done something. That and all the flammable liquids I suspect were poured over it.


As for resolutions - not much this time. But I'd like to lose another two stone and make at least one definite decision about the wedding. And, of course, write more fiction as always.

Incidentally, I found the e-mail I sent my mum about my idea for the story which was just like Night At The Museum. Maybe they somehow hacked into it...in which case also look out for a story about an ancient murder on an archaeological dig and something about an asian girl going back on the tube after the London bombings.

More on that story later.