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Just What the Doctor Ordered

Just What the Doctor Ordered

super hero window washers

The past week and a half have been chock full of grandma duty and other family fun. So much fun, blogging is on the back burner. Therefore, for the next few days Gravel Road will reprise popular posts from the past. Today’s post first appeared on July 20, 2012. Enjoy!

Yup, The Amazing Spiderman is making an appearance on this blog, even though superheros don’t get a lot of play along our gravel road. To be honest, the only reason Spiderman gets his due is because I was plumb out of stuff to write about.

I thought about writing an I-told-you-so post about how I predicted the drought of 2012 way back in January. But that seemed kind of evil, and I ditched the idea. My next thought was to gush about The Amazing Spiderman movie, which we went to with our daughter and son-in-law on Tuesday. The movie was good. Really, really good. But writing a review is hard work, and I wanted to keep the memory fun.

So I ditched that idea, too, and didn’t have a thing to write about until a Facebook friend of mine posted the above picture. It shows the window washers at Michael Hopkins’ Evelina Children’s Hospital in London.

I almost ditched that idea, too, since this blog is for fun stuff and DifferentDream.com is for kids with special needs stuff. But then I read the text accompanying the photo and decided it was fun enough for this blog:

Evelina Children’s Hospital was the first new children’s hospital to be built in London in more than a century. The hospital was designed with a goal of “making a hospital that didn’t feel like a hospital.” Accomplishing this required hospital designers and staff to create a patient experience that included touchpoints fostering a sense of inspiration and wonder – in addition to healing – for children throughout their stay.

Perhaps the most remarkable touch point of all comes from an unexpected source: the hospital window washers. As part of their contract, Evelina requires that hospital window washers dress up as superheroes while cleaning the hospital windows. Bedridden, sick children delight in seeing Superman, Spiderman and Batman dagling just beyond the glass. The window washers report the superhero visits to Evelina are the highlight of their week.

I thought maybe the window-washers-dressed-as-superheros was urban legend. But according to Hugh Pearman’s article first published in The Sunday Times, London, on November 27, 2005, the window washers are for real. The article, “Just What the Doctors Ordered” tells the story of the vision behind Evelina’s Children’s Hospital and mentions the superhero window washers.

I think the idea of window washers at a children’s hospital dressing like superheros is way cool. The perfect medicine for a nation full of hot and thirsty people worried about a drought they’re powerless to control.This story is just what the doctor ordered. Do you agree?

Just What the Doctor Ordered

Just What the Doctor Ordered

Yup, The Amazing Spiderman is making an appearance on this blog, even though superheros don’t get a lot of play along our gravel road. To be honest, the only reason Spiderman gets his due is because I was plumb out of stuff to write about.

I thought about writing an I-told-you-so post about how I predicted the drought of 2012 way back in January. But that seemed kind of evil, and I ditched the idea. My next thought was to gush about The Amazing Spiderman movie, which we went to with our daughter and son-in-law on Tuesday. The movie was good. Really, really good. But writing a review is hard work, and I wanted to keep the memory fun.

So I ditched that idea, too, and didn’t have a thing to write about until a Facebook friend of mine posted the above picture. It shows the window washers at Michael Hopkins’ Evelina Children’s Hospital in London.

I almost ditched that idea, too, since this blog is for fun stuff and DifferentDream.com is for kids with special needs stuff. But then I read the text accompanying the photo and decided it was fun enough for this blog:

Evelina Children’s Hospital was the first new children’s hospital to be built in London in more than a century. The hospital was designed with a goal of “making a hospital that didn’t feel like a hospital.” Accomplishing this required hospital designers and staff to create a patient experience that included touchpoints fostering a sense of inspiration and wonder – in addition to healing – for children throughout their stay.

Perhaps the most remarkable touch point of all comes from an unexpected source: the hospital window washers. As part of their contract, Evelina requires that hospital window washers dress up as superheroes while cleaning the hospital windows. Bedridden, sick children delight in seeing Superman, Spiderman and Batman dagling just beyond the glass. The window washers report the superhero visits to Evelina are the highlight of their week.

I thought maybe the window-washers-dressed-as-superheros was urban legend. But according to Hugh Pearman’s article first published in The Sunday Times, London, on November 27, 2005, the window washers are for real. The article, “Just What the Doctors Ordered” tells the story of the vision behind Evelina’s Children’s Hospital and mentions the superhero window washers.

I think the idea of window washers at a children’s hospital dressing like superheros is way cool. The perfect medicine for a nation full of hot and thirsty people worried about a drought they’re powerless to control.This story is just what the doctor ordered. Do you agree?

Three Mother-Daughter Thoughts for Thursday

Three Mother-Daughter Thoughts for Thursday

We’re having a delightful visit with our daughter and her husband this week – trying to cram a year’s worth of fun into two weeks and doing a pretty good job of it. No wonder this week’s three thoughts revolve around our daughter who made her initial appearance 24 years ago this week.

  1. Anne and I are in love with Jane Haddam, a mystery writer who’s been around for decades but is brand new to us. The daughter gets my kind of excited about a mystery series that’s well-written and thirty titles long. Heaven, we’re in heaven…
  2. The Amazing Spiderman in 2D was thrill enough for the daughter and me. To avoid motion sickness, we averted our eyes when that sassy nerd, Peter Parker, started swinging off sky scrapers. We were both smitten by the performances of Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Martin Sheen and Sally Fields. Though I was waiting for Sally to don her habit and take to the skies with her nephew.
  3. I was born during the drought of 1956. My daughter was born during the drought of 1988. I’ll become a grandma and the daughter will become an aunt during the drought of 2012. Based on such dry family history, we predict Baby Philo will be a girl!

How does your family predict the gender of new babies? What’s your favorite summer movie? Mystery writer? Leave a comment.