Blimey. In the topsy turvy world we’ve been pitched into, I found out today I’m in Manchester tomorrow and not not Birmingham. The Birmingham confounder was the Community Care Live gig last month. When I wrote and forgot about this post. About the expert witness report:

I received the epilepsy expert witness report this lunchtime, ahead of the pre-inquest review meeting next Tuesday. I was in the Speakers Lounge at the ICC (dunno what ICC stands for but something Conference related), Birmingham, at the Community Care Live event. It sounds pretty posh and not something I’ve sat in before. But it was just a space. A bit scruffy. With lukewarm tea, coffee and biscuits.

Various people I ‘know’ through twitter were around though. Which was kind of cool.

I vaguely grazed the report, half thinking about my talk, half listening to/joining in conversations around the table. The emotions involved in reading such a report are indescribable really. Deeply, sadly intense with no space to go. Certainly not at the ICC. In the Speakers Lounge.

On the train home, a few hours later, a woman was on the platform with her young daughter and a big case. She coached her daughter carefully and repeatedly about the steps they would take when the train arrived.

“You get on first and I’ll be right behind you because I want to make sure you’re safe”, she kept saying.

I got home this evening and read through the report again. Properly. With a flickering home movie stream in my mind. Constant moments of watching, coaching and doing the extreme safety parent thing. Interspersed with silent howls.

And bizarrely (or maybe not) I thought ‘Thank you for calling him by his name’.