You Can Tell By The Way I Use My Walk

Despite the utter contempt for snow-worriers and ice-cowards exhibited in my previous post I must admit that conditions here in the UK are possibly a little worse than those I was so glibly making light of. There are talks nationally of fuel rationing and billions of pounds lost from the UK economy. Things are beginning to sound dire. Or rather, more dire. And even here in quiet old backwater Leamo we have the odd snow drift that occasionally reaches a height of 2 inches or more and the odd bush that has been felled by the sheer weight of snow upon it.

I’ve been trying to phone Ray Mears but he stopped taking my calls sometime before Christmas.

What is most noticeable though about this current instance of bad weather is the persistence of the white stuff. Over the last few years any snow that has fallen in these parts has disappeared again within 24 hours or so. Like it’s been a mere token gesture. A quick hello and then it’s gone.

Not so on this occasion. Three days later all the snow remains in full force and has slowly transformed itself into ice so hard and slippy I’m amazed I haven’t seen Dean dragging Torvill along the pavements by her frilly forearms.

Walking has suddenly become an extreme sport. It takes the utmost concentration to remain upright on one’s feet – let alone placing one foot in front of the other and perambulating normally.

Now, when I walk about town I am wont to plug myself into my MP3 player and lose myself in some bangin’ tunes, innit?

Because of the snow I find I am having to modify and adjust my normal playlist. Fast music, you see, makes me walk fast. It gets the old heart rate going and I end up scurrying around at supersonic speed.

Speed and ice do not mix. Not unless you can allow for a sudden and unexpected lowering of your eye-level to the pavement and a braking distance of 5 to 6 feet.

So I am having to select all the ballady, slower stuff so that my walking speed slips into a funereal march that ticks all the health and safety boxes for walking in hazardous conditions.

The droning tones of Leonard Cohen and David Sylvian have so far protected me from pratfalls and broken limbs of varying degrees of severity.

I ought to be grateful...

But the sublimated extreme sportsman in me is dying to load up a bit of Metallica and go for it.

I could probably take out half the population of Leamington if I pogoed properly.

The Miser’s Touch

I’m at odds with the world today. I don’t know what it or I have done but we’re not on good terms. The atmosphere is decidedly chilled.

I’m not sure who started it and I’m not sure when it will end but we’re heading for certain bloodshed.

It seemed to start when I got up this morning. The world was deliberately obtuse and uncooperative. Things wouldn’t open properly. Things would fall out of my hands. Things would spill. Other things, evil cupboardy things, would mysteriously open at malicious angles and crack me passing blows on the head.

I cottoned on pretty quickly. Let’s face it when a campaign is being waged against you it doesn’t take long for the signs to become self-evident.

For my part I have responded with rapid fire door slamming, aerial bombardments of stomping and carpet bombing with high explosive expletives. I have an everlasting supply of the latter so if this is to be a war of attrition, world, you’d better be in for the long haul.

Please don’t worry about me, people, I can hold my own. But it is, I admit, a lonely stance. My biggest enemy is my own paranoia. I am eyeing old friends with suspicion. Have they been converted? Brainwashed? Programmed against me? Sleeper agents waiting for the trigger word...? My computer, my mobile phone, even my MP3 player – their shiny buttons look like teeth this morning. I’m not sure I can trust their electrical impulses to remain loyal. The world is urging them to foul up. To lose or corrupt data. To crash.

Even the toaster is looking at me belligerently.

What have I done? What have I done?

I’ve gone over it all in my head but I can’t think of a damned thing. Was I too rough with the oven? Has the world taken the size of my carbon footprint personally?

Why are you picking on me and not Jeremy Clarkson?

The world is so unfair!

Well, enough is enough!

If it’s a fight you want, world, you can have one! Put ‘em up or shut up!

The Hokey Cokey

After spending much of the summer in hospital my grandfather was sent back home again about three weeks ago with a “home care package” put into place to look after him. Two healthcare visitors four times a day to get him up, clean him, feed him, put him back to bed, etc. Not ideal but as he has adamantly refused all suggestions of going into a nursing home (which I don’t blame him for) this was the only option.

The family had reservations over the proven effectiveness of this package but had to roll with it.

Some of you will be aware of the logistical nightmare that ensued just getting a hospital approved bed and a key safe installed into his home to make this package viable.

Over the last few weeks the carers and the hospital – for all they have my admiration for their hard work and dedication – have slowly driven me up the wall with their continually mounting requests for my grandfather.

I’ve had phone calls and found notes requesting a microwave, a washing machine, a new razor, new trousers and shirts, new underwear, drinks beakers with lids, plug extension cables, etc, etc...

I don’t begrudge any of these items. Plainly they are necessary to make looking after my grandfather easier and therefore to make his life more comfortable. What I do begrudge is the assumption that I can just drop everything instantly to get it all sorted out. But I shall let that go. In the bigger scheme of things it is not important.

On Wednesday I visited my grandfather at lunchtime as usual. He wasn’t right. I’ve noticed him slipping away mentally for a few months now but Wednesday was the worst I’d seen him. He was very confused and wasn’t even sure who I was when I first arrived. He also kept talking about a parade that we’d watched that very morning on a bench over the road. Well, I needn’t tell you that there is no bench over the road, there was no parade, I’d been at work all morning and my grandfather is 80% blind.

I felt a huge sadness settle over me.

Even without having worked in a nursing home for 10 years in my twenties I know this is the beginning of the end. My gran got this way just before she died 5 years ago... spending most of the time asleep the mind drifts in and out of memories and dreams and everything blurs into one long stream of semi-consciousness.

He is loosening his grip on the world one finger, one thought at a time.

I dropped off the purchases I’d made on his behalf, made a note of the new requests, made sure he was comfortable and, at the end of my lunchbreak, headed back to work. I left a note for the carers who were due to visit in a couple of hour’s time detailing my concerns at how confused he appeared to be.

At 5.45 that evening I had a call from one of the carers to say that they’d found him sprawled on the floor. In his confused state he’d tried to get up out of his chair – possibly forgetting that he can no longer walk very well – and had fallen onto the wooden surround of the fireplace and hit his head. He was now back in hospital once more. Thankfully not too badly injured – the cut to his head was very superficial. He’d been very lucky.

A flurry of contradictory phone calls then followed from the hospital and various family members. The hospital seems to be big on spreading misinformation. He was coming home. He has a urinary tract infection. He has a chest infection. He has a chest infection but the doctor isn’t aware of it. They were keeping him in. They were releasing him. They were keeping him in for observation due to irregularities in his heart scan. On and on. And around it all the hospital’s bizarre reluctance to go into too much detail or to give out too much specific information over the telephone.

What? In case Al-Qaeda are listening in and might be tempted to recruit my grandfather as a suicide bomber? He wouldn’t have the strength or the mental wherewithal to press the detonator let alone have the physical strength to walk anywhere with half a tonne of explosives weighing him down.

By Thursday morning, once the dust had settled, they were all finally singing from the same hymn sheet. They’d admitted him to a ward and are going to keep him in for “a few days”. They’re giving him antibiotics to combat his various infections (their records of which seems to be alarmingly ephemeral) and are doing their best to correct his very low potassium levels.

So he’s “safe” for a few days at least.

But to be honest I’m wondering if he’ll ever come home again. Even if his physical health ever allows it, mentally he is already in the next room.

First Hurt

Tom burnt his hand on Saturday. Thankfully not badly but enough to raise some nasty blisters on his fingertips.

I suppose like a lot of toddlers he has an innate fascination with the kitchen – that strange, mostly adult place where food magically appears and noisy white machines go about their daily business.

We’ve tried to instill some safety awareness in him by showing him things and telling him “Ow! Hot!” and by and large this has worked a treat. He gives cups of tea wide berths and no longer attempts to conceal toys in the washing machine.

The oven however has long been a sticking point and Tom is now at that age (18 months) when being steered / chased away from certain objects seems a fun game of defiance. So it was only a matter of time before, adult eyes turned away literally for a split second, he’d sneak up on the damned thing and press his palms to the hot grill door.

The poor thing didn’t half cry and I had to remove his hand from the oven for him. Not because it was stuck – thankfully the oven wasn’t that hot – but because I don’t think he’d quite connected the pain with where he’d placed his hand. It didn’t occur to him to pull it away.

Of course Karen and I feel awful. Me especially as he’d snuck under my radar while my attention was elsewhere. But as parents you feel worst most of all because all the hugs and kisses in the world can’t make that kind of pain go away.

He howled for a good hour. He was obviously deeply shocked. Certainly by the degree of pain but also, I suspect, by the realization that the world can hurt him. Something that I don’t think had occurred to him before. It’s like a loss of innocence I suppose. The world isn’t just full of fun and wonder. It also harbours bad things.

Within a short space of time the blisters came up. A large one on his thumb and a couple of his fingertips. He doesn’t seem to be too bothered by them. I guess they’re doing their job and helping to protect / heal his skin. There won’t be any permanent scarring.

But Sunday, rather than try and play a game of tig with the oven he went of his own volition and sat in his chair in the living room and waited for his dinner to be served well out of harm’s way...

Another one of life’s lessons, I guess: all injuries come with steep learning curves.

Mugged By Kindness

This is probably evidence – not that any is needed – that I am a true curmudgeon.

Picture this: I’m walking home. I need to cross a road. I pause at the kerb as I can see out of the corner of my right eye that as car is waiting to turn left across my field of progress.

Yes. I really do have a “field of progress”.

Now, rather sanely, I decide to halt forward momentum at this point. I don’t want to get into physical intimacy with a metallic object that is travelling at 20mph. Besides which he has a right of way.

The Green Cross Code Man and Tufty the squirrel would both be applauding me at this point. I’ve done the right thing, you see. All those road safety lessons as a child have paid off.

The driver however brings his vehicle to a halt and rather insistently waves me across.

I obey but instinctively feel aggrieved and annoyed. It isn’t right, you see.

The road was completely empty behind him so there was absolutely no reason for him to make a point of stopping on my account. Another two seconds and I could have crossed the road perfectly safely (if not more safely) without his flamboyant display of largesse.

He had the right of way. It’s perfectly clear: the Highway Code dictates that he should not have stopped but continued on his way.

Now, maybe I am just being ungrateful? After all, I would feel a darn sight more aggrieved if he’d mounted the pavement, motored his radiator grill right up my jacksy and then continued merrily on his way without stopping to shout even the briefest of apologies.

But I can’t get over the feeling that his gesture was more about power and superiority than kindness. I didn’t need him to stop. I felt almost bullied into crossing the road in front of him.

The danger with not following the expected codes of conduct of course is that your actions can be misinterpreted. What if his hand signal to cross the road was actually his attempt to dislodge an angry wasp from the breast pocket of his shirt? What if he was merely clearing the air after a particularly foul air biscuit (“fart” to you and me)?

The answer is obvious.

I’d be lying under the bonnet of his car in a non-KwikFit approved position, leaking claret all over the macadam and listening to him shouting at me that he had right of way and what the hell did I think I was doing trying to cross the road in front of him?

*sigh*

Maybe I need to get out more?

Or less?

Pushchair Paranoia

+++ PARENTING POST ALERT +++

This is my final day nursing Tom through his chickenpox before Karen takes over tomorrow and I have to say, as tiring as it's been, I have loved every minute of it. To spend so much quality time with a child is difficult for any parent these days but especially, I think, for a father. Tom has been great company - very affectionate and always ready for a giggle - and I shall really miss him when I return to work tomorrow.

One thing I have noticed during this period of close, sustained contact is how protective I am of him. I can recall one of my friends telling me years ago that it matters not if you're a shrinking violet - as soon as you have kids you become a lioness (or a lion in my case) on their behalf. And it's bloody true, I can tell you.

But while taking him out for walks in his pushchair over the last few days I've been amazed at the strength of my own reactions. I'm not entirely sure if they've been the result of fiercely proud lion-like protectiveness or just down and out paranoia.

I find myself constantly on the look-out for dangers.

When we pass one of Leamington's many meandering drunks I am instantly at the ready to whip the pushchair out of his reach and hoof his gonads to the other side of the road should he ever attempt to lay a single beer stained finger on my son. In fact just slurring the words "I fugin luv you, I do" would do it.

Idiots riding their bicycles on the pavement make my hackles rise. Especially when they pass so close you can barely fit an empty envelope between us. What if they mis-timed it? Had an accident? Careered into the pushchair? I think I'd kill them or at the very least park their bicycle some place so deep and moist a medical expert would have to be flown in from Europe to remove it.

And just for the sake of equality, people who cut us up with their mobility scooters also earn my wrath. Why are they allowed to travel at 20mph on a pavement when cyclists are quite rightly castigated? Those scooters are built like tanks these days and could do a lot of damage to a small body.

Scaffolding and ladders are other things to be avoided. At all costs. There was a story last year of a chunk of masonry falling off a building in Leamington and narrowly missing a mother and pram. I'm constantly alert to the dangers of falling objects. Can I get NASA on my mobile to warn me of potential meteor threats?

And as for cars... Geez. There's always that fleeting worry of someone fouling up their steering manoeuvre because they're (a) on their mobile phone, (b) on their partner's naughty bits or (c) on their way to hospital with an imminent cardiac arrest. You just can't trust them.

I'm currently mentally drafting a letter to the PM demanding that sirens be sounded 5 minutes before Tom and I leave the house in order that the streets can be cleared of all vehicles and pedestrians and the Star Wars defence system can be directed to monitor meteor incursions from space or rogue missile launches from the East.

If this inconveniences anybody I'm sorry. It's just tough.

Tom needs some chocolate buttons. It's important.

Or do you think I am over-reacting?

The Sheffield Samaritans

Let’s start with the facts:

My parents and youngest sister live in Sheffield.

By Monday morning the Midlands – where I live – was all but thawed of ice and snow, only a few discoloured remnants of obscene snowmen remained.

Sheffield however, like much of the North, was still flinching under a heavy gauntlet of snow. Not great travelling conditions by anybody’s standards.

On her way to work my sister slipped over on some ice in the middle of the main road and came crashing down heavily onto her back and hip.

And then lay there, gasping for breath, in dreadful pain, unable to move while the person walking directly behind her carried on walking as if nothing untoward had happened at all.

No offer of assistance, no polite enquiry as to her well-being, not even a jokey “ooh send us a postcard next time love.”

Just a kiss-my-arse cold shoulder and gone.

Thankfully a passer-by on the other side of the road crossed over and helped my sister up and walked her part of the way to work. She was very upset, very shaken and very much in pain.

5 days later she’s still in a lot of pain but is mostly hurt and confused as to why a fellow human being could just step over her and leave her – sprawled and helpless – in the middle of the High Street.

As indeed am I. Though I’m less hurt and confused about it as bloody furious.

How could anybody be this callous and uncaring? What does it cost to give someone a small helping hand – even a stranger?

I suppose I ought to be grateful that this person didn’t stick the boot in while she lay there and help himself to her purse and jewellery. Or just whip out his mobile phone and film her plight so he could shove it onto YouTube later and so boost his online kudos.

I know the chances of Mr Charming reading this are so slim as to be incalculable but if ever “what goes around comes around” needed to be a prayer and a curse it is today in my heart.

Back at yer, Mister. With nobs on.

To Grit Or Not To Grit?

Back in the good old days when men wore cloth caps, drank real ale by the cartload and went to bed in hobnailed slippers icy roads and footpaths were rarely the source of major moral dilemmas. They were certainly not problematic enough to put you off your woodbines.

I mean the solution is simple, in’t it? Yer just sling a bit o’grit or salt down and tell people to walk proper careful like... It’s bloody winter what do you expect?

And should passersby still go arse over tit in the slippy conditions well... it’s only a laugh in’t it? That’s just the way life is. And if you end up in th’ospital wi’ a broken ankle or two we’ll drink ter yer good ‘ealth in pub later... no ‘arm done, like.

All sounds very sensible and civilized to me.

But alas, the good old days are no more and instead we find ourselves mired neck-deep in the modern age of political correctness and litigious opportunism.

You see gritting the pathways these days is a can of worms or a hot potato that few are brave enough to handle and in dear old Leam (from which I hail) such moral dilemmas cause many a frilly knicker to be entwisted.

In the modern age it seems one (and by one I mean an individual or a corporation) can be successfully sued if one decides to grit an icy pavement but a passer-by still falls over upon it and splinters a rib or three on a frozen dog poo... whereas if you do nothing at all and they fall headlong into a storm drain and break their neck they can’t touch you for a single penny. You are not responsible.

Crazy but true.

And I have it on good authority that this bizarre state of affairs is just as applicable to home gritting / salting. If you grit your pathway and your friendly neighbourhood postman cracks open his knackers in a spectacular pratfall that sees a recorded delivery parcel inserted somewhere tight and moist he can sue your ass to kingdom come. But if you leave the pathway as nature intended and he still anally ingests your brown paper wrapped package from Holland well it’s just tough titty cos he can’t touch you for a rusty farthing.

As true as I’m sitting here at the foot of our stairs.

Now, am I the only person in this country to think that such a selfish, mealy mouthed, spiritually impoverished outlook is a national disgrace? Indeed, is it a national disgrace or is such jobsworthy (mis)conduct just a local (in)delicacy confined to the ice-covered streets of Leamington Spa?

Surely as a nation we are better than this? Surely to do something is always better than doing nothing? Don’t we have a responsibility to each other as well as to ourselves? Isn’t there such a thing as a communal duty of care?

Do we really want to see Mrs Scoggins from number 73 cracking her spine in half performing an ice skating move worthy of Torvill and Dean in their heyday as she takes a walk to the local post office to buy a second class stamp?

Ladies and gentlemen, your thoughts please.

The Fawke Off List

No.1) Dizzy whatever his name is talking to Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight yesterday evening attributing Obama’s recent Presidential success solely to the far reaching, world harmonizing effects of “hip-hop music”.

Yeah right, cos like it was his fly rappin’ what won the election for ‘im, innit?

Now, I don’t doubt that having a young, black role model has encouraged young Americans (black and white) to get off their backsides and vote – contributing to one of the best voting turn outs America has seen for a long time – but I don’t recall hip-hop having much of a role in this.

Personally I put it down to worthy policies, intelligent strategies, uplifting rhetoric and the promise of much needed change from the top down after the long stagnation of the Bush (mis)administration. Not a predilection for a lickle bit of drum and bass.

Besides which Obama looks more like a Nat King Cole man than Dr. Dre.

Paxman just looked bemused by Dizzy’s stuttering schoolyard outpourings and I couldn’t help thinking that the show’s producers had merely asked Dizzy to take part simply because he was black and had street cred and not because he had anything intelligent to say.

Sorry to dis you, old chap, but that’s just how it is.

No.2) Fireworks. I hate them.

Call me a killjoy. Accuse me of not being down with the kids (what’s wrong with a lickle bit of Nat King Cole, eh bruv?) but if ever I got into a position of power I would ensure the nationwide ban of all firework sales to individuals.

Now I’m not saying they should be banned altogether. Properly organized displays are fine. They’re safer. Less damaging to the environment. And less damaging to the social well-being of local citizens.

But in the hands of individuals they are lethal.

I’m sick to death of being woken by idiots detonating atomic explosions at 1, 2 and 3 in the morning. I’m sick to death of seeing teen Neanderthals launching fireworks down roads towards occupied vehicles coming the other way.

Most of all I’m sick to death of hearing every year of some poor kid or animal that has been badly burnt by (a) rogue fireworks that have detonated by mistake (b) mindless individuals who use fireworks as novelty weapons or (c) hospitalized by makeshift bonfires that haven’t been properly tended or constructed or have been tampered with by local yobs.

One injury is one injury too many. End of.

Selling fireworks is selling gunpowder without a license to people who, with the best will in the world, don’t always have a brain.

OK. The soapbox is now put away.

A Frank Spencer Moment

It’s never been my intention to have this blog evolve into a year long catalogue of my many accidents and near death experiences but all I seem to talk about lately are the many mishaps and scrapes that I seem to drop myself into. Maybe I should just post my medical records and have done with it?

Today’s bone crunching event, however, has been a real humdinger.

Picture this. An electrician turns up on site today to attend to the many electrical failures that the building has incurred over the recent weeks – blown light bulbs, that kind of thing. Picture three particularly troublesome bulbs that stretch out over a flat ceiling right above a run of very high steep stairs. Ladders are not an option as the walls around the stair case are all lined with plate glass windows at just the point where a ladder would ideally rest.

The furthest bulb is a good 12ft above the bottom step.

Now the sane, even the corporate thing to do would be to hire a stair tower (at extra cost) to access the bulbs safely.

Not this electrician. He’s confident he can climb up the wall – which remember has windows inset into it and hence ledges – and can reach the blown bulbs with the power of his inhuman sparky agility. I’m not so sure about this but the electrician is already hoisting himself up using the banister as his first foot-hold.

The first two bulbs are swapped out easily enough – and I’m impressed the guy can do this one-handed given that his other hand is pinching hold of a ledge while his legs straddle a 12ft drop. The third and final bulb requires a manoeuvre that even Peter Parker would baulk at but Mr Sparks manages it. He must be clinging on with his teeth at this point I swear.

Meanwhile I’m halfway up the stairs having kittens. And they ain’t purring.

But there’s no going back at this point and... oh my God.... he’s done it. Mission accomplished. Great! Cue cheesy smiles.

So. Bulbs all changed. Just the problem of how to get down. And I bet we’ve all done this. Taken what looks like a simple route up a cliff face, a mountain side, a sheer office wall and then when it’s come time to head down again the route suddenly isn’t as simple. Or just doesn’t present itself at all.

Cue much swearing and foul language all round. Which of course always helps.

In the end we decide on the traditional (and probably most unhelpful) solution. I will “guide” his foot back to the banister allowing for his “safe disembarkation”.

Yeah right. Like guiding someone’s foot somehow diminishes both distance and gravity. A gap of 5ft suddenly becomes a mere 2 just because I’m guiding someone’s foot down through it.

Not sure how it happened because it all happened so fast. I guess Mr Sparks could hang on no longer. Suddenly I had 15 stone of tooled up electrician collapsing onto my right shoulder... somehow my right arm ended up hooked between his legs in an attempt to stop him falling any further.

What should have happened at this point is this: my shoulder dislocates and my arm breaks and I fall face forwards onto the sharp end of the stairs. The electrician continues his descent and cracks his skull open on the metal runs of a chairlift that awaits the impact of the rest of his body at the foot of the stairs. Mr Sparks get a broken neck and several cracked ribs. I get a face full of metal edging and a pension.

What actually happens is that Mr Sparks emerges unscathed because he manages to get a foot onto the banister (see guiding did help) and thus prevents the full weight of his body from crushing my spine into chalk dust (that ball was in God-damn-it). My arm isn’t dislocated – although it feels like it – just bruised and benumbed by 15 stone of electrician’s arse collapsing onto it. Thankfully a bit of arm wind-milling seems to get it moving again and despite a continued soreness and an ache that just won’t stop I’m in pretty good nick all things considered.

Mr Sparks and me agree that we never do anything that stupid ever, ever again. Next time we hire the stair tower and save ourselves a rather large laundry bill.

Final irony: tomorrow afternoon I am attending a meeting at council HQ to discuss Health & Safety and the compiling of Risk Assessments.

You know, I just might keep my gob shut...

Another Slice Anyone?

In a fatigue-induced kitchen-based accident last night yours truly very nearly sliced off the top of his middle finger with a pair of scissors.

I say “very nearly” with a degree of exaggeration.

It’s not like I sliced down to the bone or spray painted the ceiling with a 30ft blood geyser.

But it was messy. And rather stupid.

How did I do it?

Well, I was doing my bit for recycling and was attempting to deconstruct a large cardboard box. As anybody knows a few swipes with the blade of a pair of scissors is great for parting glued or sellotaped edges.

However, not so great when you get your finger caught between the two blades one of which then jams in the cardboard and, the laws of physics being what they are, pulls its companion towards it.

Remarkably there was and still is no pain.

Just a slight numbness but this could be down to the tightness of the plaster expertly administered by my wife as I held my newly grooved digit over the washing up bowl.

Karen thinks there is the possibility that I have severed a nerve (possibly hers) but I fear this sounds far too glamorous to be true.

It’s just a cut.

Received in the battle to save our dying planet.

I’m a bloody hero, me.

Step On A Crack

Not sure how I’ve done it – it wasn’t through excessive physical labour, I can tell you – but I’ve woken up with a bad back this morning. Rather ironic given that the title of my last post was Slipped Discs. I’d almost laugh but it does, of course, hurt to do that.

So. Pain. It’s a weird thing. Hijacks your focus and concentration to the exclusion of all else. Burning sensations. Dull aches. Even duller throbs. My brain is like a dog with a bone. But do you think I can pinpoint it exactly? Lower back I say. Somewhere on the left side. No, my left.

Hmm. You’ll be glad to know that I’ve ruled out spinal injury of the life threatening kind. I’ve even ruled out kidney failure.

That just leaves the good ol’ fall-back position of generalized muscular damage. Probably of the minor variety. I’ve “pulled a muscle”. Or I’ve “slept funny”.

Nothing glamorous at all.

Which somehow makes all my vain attempts to walk around with a “brave face” this morning (furrowed brow, pursed lips, hound-dog eyes... the occasional wince as I walk) seem somehow incorrigibly ignoble.

But I don’t care.

I’m a man, you see. And we do this when we’re in pain.

Sympathy is our automatic due. And today I’m collecting.

Not Nice To Be Needed

I'm off sick from work again today due to the fact the infection has spread to my other eye: I woke up with my face glued literally to my pillow this morning. Thankfully we're separated now but it wasn't at all pleasant at the time and put me right off my cornflakes.

Another trip to the doctor before lunch resulted in a horrible orange luminous dye being dropped into my eyes so the doctor could check for damage to the cornea. Thankfully there is none. Phew. He's also given me the name of some different sorts of eye drops which I may purchase as and when I see fit as my current ones seems to be causing my eyes considerable pain and aggravation...

But not nearly as much as my place of work.

I've just had a very polite but effectively nagging phone call from one of my work colleagues asking me when I'm liable to return to duties as tomorrow would be a big help because we're expecting a really big delivery of something or other and it would be useful if you were around to help carry it up the stairs to the offices... although there's really no rush as we can easily reschedule the delivery for when you do return...

Sheesh. They're all heart. Waiting for little old me.

Sigh.

I've told them I'll be in tomorrow.

Let's just hope I don't fall up the stairs, break a bone or two and sue their heartless asses for every penny they've got, eh?

Tic Tac Toe

I have managed to acquire yet another noble injury (some of you may recall my previous dip into the murky world of foot injury at the end of 2006).

Skipping, as is my wont, round the house yesterday afternoon with nought on my feet but a good pair of woollen socks my foot erroneously came into contact with the corner of a book shelf.

One humungous snap crackle and pop later... and suddenly I had a beautifully purpled little toe that had ballooned to the size of a New World red grape.

Folks, it’s going to be one helluva vintage.

Though doubting the efficacy of the family doctor Karen nonetheless packed me off to the surgery this morning and he more or less fulfilled my every expectation.

Yes it’s probably broken / fractured but there is little that can be done. It needs to be strapped to the next toe and caressed with ice. It was also recommended that I swallow whatever pain relief product I desired and, most important of all, keep the foot elevated and rested as much as possible.

Fat chance.

I’ve already spent the first 90 minutes at work this morning chasing carpenters, electricians and painters around the building.

A nice warm Shiraz anyone?

Burn Your Money

Call me a misery guts but I hate bonfire night and would quite happily see the sale of fireworks nationally banned except for professionally organized displays.

As a nation we quite rightly worry about our kids carrying knives and guns but then are quite happy to let them purchase shedloads of gunpowder and explosives every year. Are we insane?

Yes, I’m sure most kids are sensible and trustworthy and mature enough to handle the responsibility of dealing with live explosives… but unfortunately there are always too many who patently aren’t. I’ve personally seen fireworks being thrown, had fireworks launched at me and know of people who’ve had lit fireworks stuffed through their letterboxes.

Every year – EVERY YEAR – people are injured by fireworks; usually children. It is never ever worth it.

And that’s before you tot up the financial costs involved. Fireworks cost a staggering fortune. Who has money to (literally) burn in this way? Plainly loads of us do. I had a friend who each year would spend over £200 on fireworks. I’d roll my eyes and make disparaging comments but at the end of the day he was right: it was his money to do with as he liked. My yearly offer to withdraw £200 from his bank account and burn it for him was always met with a stony silence. Can’t think why – I’d have saved him an entire evening of standing around in the freezing cold with a load of pewling, complaining infants. Cos at the end of the day, you see, he was doing all this for his kids.

Rubbish. What kid demands his parent forks out £200 on fireworks? The kind of kid that needs a huge kick up the backside and a reality check…

In my opinion, bonfire night has got out of hand. It’s big, big money and people feel pressurized to partake and to do it “even bigger than they did it last year”.

But look at the cost – and I’m not just talking about finances: polluted air for days, littered streets, terrified animals (my Nan had to practically anaesthetize her pet dog for the entire fortnight around bonfire night) and otherwise perfectly healthy people having to spend time in casualty with third degree burns or worse.

It just isn’t worth it.

Restricting the sale of fireworks to professional displays would mean a reduction in air pollution, costs that are spread between everyone who goes to watch such events (which would make the financial burden on everyone more manageable), the detonation of fireworks restricted to maybe one or two nights of the year instead of spread over the entire effing month and hopefully a large reduction in the number of fireworks related injuries.

Everybody’s happy.

Except of course for the people who make a fortune each year selling millions of pounds worth of fireworks to the easily manipulated…

But who gives a big sparkly shite about them? As far as I’m concerned they can all light their blue touch-papers and swivel…

Rough

Apologies for the delay in posting - for some reason Blogger has been experiencing one or two technical problems and as a result I've been unable to publish sweet FA since the weekend.

Below is the post that I've been trying to publish since Monday morning...

It’s been something of a rough few days.

Karen and I had to head over to the hospital Sunday evening as baby Tom was unusually quiet – enough to get us both quite worried. As soon as we arrived Karen was wired up to a scanning machine for 20 minutes and I’m relieved to say that all proved to be well. Not only that but there are early indications that Tom might try and pre-empt the date set for his Caesarean (9th October)...

We no sooner arrived back home than I found a telephone message from my mother reporting that my granddad had suffered a fall – a result of a high fever and an ulcerated leg – and had been admitted into the very hospital that Karen and I had just come back from! He had a comfortable night but unfortunately took a turn slightly for the worst yesterday. He's reacted against the anti-biotics they've pumped him full of and is now suffering from diarrhoea and an infection.

There was utterly no communication from Mr CM over the entire weekend. To tell you the truth it was no more than I expected and I’d had an email to him drafted up since Saturday morning informing him of my intention to take him to the Small Claims Court if I didn’t receive full payment in 7 days. I was then going to add the court costs onto the amount owing...

As it was, I received a telephone call from him yesterday at the 11th hour - a much more polite and "hey buddy" type of call than Friday's frosty dialogue - and he appeared to completely capitulate. He's asked me to divide the invoice into two separate ones and send a copy of one to himself and the other to his business partner (they're splitting the cost 50/50) and they'll see that I'm paid within the next 7 days.

Hmm. I'm not getting my hopes up too much but my instincts are that my strong stance on Friday may have moved the mountain... I'll wait and see. I've kept a copy of the draft email just in case. It may yet get an airing!

Talking of ignorant and annoying people – I never did hear anything more from the hack from the London Standard so can only assume that the piece I wrote about Nigella was either never used or was used but they couldn’t be arsed to tell me or send me a copy. Either way I’m pretty cheesed off though more disappointed with the lack of manners than the lack of publishing credit.

But as I’ve been feeling as rough as a badger’s arse for the last two days anyway I’ve consoled myself with a couple of sick days off work and have been recuperating by reading, watching TV and generally bumbling around the house in a warm and comfortable fugue… It’s actually been quite blissful.

Sling Yer Hook

I’ve been in the wars again.

Sadly nothing glamorous. No last stand against the howling hordes of evil. No fight to the death with a foe both despicable and admirable.

Tripping over my own feet after a midnight visit to the bathroom saw me earthing myself fingers first and then crunching down hard onto my right shoulder. For a few seconds I’d feared I’d broken some bones and experienced that awful pain that, rather than loosen your vocal chords, actually constricts them fully closed. Thus I was flapping about in silent agony like a freshly caught fish until the pain subsided.

Thankfully no broken bones (that I can tell) and my wife has sent me to work this morning with my arm expertly enfolded in the supporting embrace of a sling.

I’m striking as many heroic gestures as I can and learning to pee with one hand.

Though not at the same time obviously.

X-Ray Vision

Despite still being laid low with an awful dose of this year’s variant of the flu virus Karen very kindly gave me a lift to the local hospital yesterday afternoon so I could keep my appointment with the highly esteemed foot specialist... regular readers of this blog will know of my recent foot problems; irregular readers can bone up here.

Cue half an hour of being sent one way and then the other due to an IT breakdown which meant the receptionists were reduced to using paper and high-lighter pen to impose some sort of order on the hordes of injured and diseased that were clamouring for palliative attention in front of their desks.

Cue half an hour of sitting in a waiting room that positively howled with the décor of an Eastern Block abattoir...

...until I was finally called into a radiation proof room to have my sorry-looking feet X-rayed from a multitude of various angles and uncomfortable positions.

Then we had another half an hour wait while the specialist looked at the resultant images before I was eventually called in to see him.

And the final diagnosis?

Well, certainly I have hallux valgus but the condition (at the moment) doesn’t warrant an operation of any kind or intervention aside from decent shoes and insoles. The pain I was in, dear people, was actually caused by the fact I’d had two broken bones in my foot! Bones that now – thankfully and miraculously given that I’ve been walking on them for the last 2 months – have healed quite nicely and knitted together very healthily.

Amazing. Especially as I also underwent 4 weeks of fairly rigorous physiotherapy not long after the foot injury first occurred.

No wonder it bloody hurt so much!

Anyway Karen’s being really sweet and says she feels bad that I didn’t get all the sympathy that I deserved at the time so is now intent on giving it to me belatedly.

Me? I’m gonna put my feet up and milk it for all it’s worth!

I’m Never Gonna Dance Again

It’s official. I have abnormal feet.

Persistent pain in the foot I injured a few weeks ago - plus since Sunday new pain inexplicably in my other foot (making the original injury seem like light relief) - forced a return to the doctor’s this morning in an attempt to get to the root of the problem. I mean I’m hobbling about like an old man and am in constant pain. It’s getting ridiculous.

Anyway a brand new surgery meant a brand new doctor (I won’t bore you with the mundane details just accept that I’ve changed my doctor for utterly no controversial reasons at all) and this brand new doctor was certainly on the ball.

Of my foot, in fact.

It seems I’m suffering from hallux valgus resulting in metatarsalgia.

Basically my feet are foobarred.

To paraphrase my doc: the bio-mechanics of my feet are not right resulting in incorrect and ineffective load bearing capacity, bunions, calluses, a lot of pain and worst of all toes that are being pushed outwards and upwards causing cross-overs and yet another obstacle to walking correctly and without pain.

No chance of a quick fix then?

Nope. None at all. I have to see an Orthopaedic specialist at the local hospital (which could take up to 4 months to arrange), buy "orthaheel" insoles and ultimately will have to face surgery if I "still want to be active in 10 year’s time..." In the same breath my doc also warned me that foot operations are not to be entered into lightly as they are invariably very painful and the recovery time is both painful and long. However that option could be years away as yet.

Oh great. At least it won’t spoil Christmas then.

Sigh.

It seems my dancing days are over.

And my chances of winning the London marathon are much reduced...

And for those of you that bothered to follow the links above and read the resulting information: NO I DO NOT WEAR HIGH HEELS!

I've always preferred granny slippers...

My Left Foot

I’ve actually spent the last 5 days at home having been signed off by the doctor due to my pathetic bottom-rung ladder accident as reported here a couple of weeks ago. The doctor’s prognosis was “fore foot sprain” (as opposed to a “four foot sprain” which would have sounded far more impressive) and he prescribed some industrial strength painkillers to dull the agony and sagely recommended that I keep off my feet as much as possible for the next 7 days.

Which I have done as much as I have been able but a return visit yesterday resulted in me being signed off for another week and an appointment for physio made on my behalf via Warwick Hospital. All sounds rather grand and cool, doesn’t it? A workplace based injury. White coated experts fingering every nook and cranny (on my foot that is) and humming to themselves in concerned tones…

If only. The trouble is my injury isn’t cool at all. I stepped awkwardly of the bottom rung of a medium sized ladder for God’s sake! It wasn’t like I fell 150ft into a roiling vat of female pop singers. Worst of all, although the sprain is healing slowly my toes have gone into “spasm”… which means they’ve locked themselves into a position where they’re pointing upwards making me wonder if (pardon the un-PC-ness of this next outburst) “spasm” isn’t short for “spaz mode”. Anyway, the result of all this is that I am unable to walk properly or without pain and because my toes aren’t functioning properly my foot is beginning to turn inwards when I walk. Hence the physio.

I’ve been medically removed from the workplace due to the effects of toe spasm.

I mean really!

No jokes about foot jobs please.