Never a dull moment

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 18 February 2008 17:39:12

So, no blogging for a whole week - maybe I've been having a boring time of it? Oh no, my friends, if anything I've had so much going on that there hasn't been much time to update. But there is much to tell you of the last week (well, a bit, anyway)...

Let's start with the whole facebook fasting business - I haven't cracked yet, although towards the end of the week I was quite tempted. Having a fairly busy week helped - if you only have an hour or so between getting home from work and going somewhere, you tend to find it easier to prioritise what does and doesn't need doing. A quarter of the way through Lent, and all is well on that score.

Much of my busyness last week was down to the usual church stuff, cell groups (adult and youth) and so on, but I did get to go for a nice evening out on Thursday. One of my friends had come up with a rather nifty plan to get a huge crowd of us together - married, single and all points inbetween - and go out for a big all-inclusive meal on Valentine's night, so the couples hoping for a romantic evening at their local tapas restaurant were instead confronted by a table of twenty making a nuisance of themselves. This was my first ever experience of both tapas and paella (I've had a sheltered upbringing, I know), and while I rather enjoyed them at the time, I was less enamoured with the bloated feeling and (readers of a nervous disposition, look away now) foul-smelling flatulence that woke me up around 2.20 in the morning. Still, overall, extremely good times.

There then followed a fairly chilled weekend, part of which was spent hanging out with our visitors. My housemate Chez has two brothers who both came to visit, and one brought his boyfriend along. The only problem is, Chez, her brothers and the boyfriend are all well over six foot tall, leaving 5'9" me feeling somewhat lowly when everybody stood up. After they'd gone on Sunday, I headed out to the cinema with some friends and saw There Will Be Blood, which I really enjoyed (although it's not an easy watch, and is very intense and heavy at times), then headed to the pub for a pint with Me Mate Dave before coming home.

And then there's today. It started like any other Monday - a feeling of, "oh, here we go again", reluctantly forcing myself up and out of the house. And then, on the way to the train station, the adventure started. As I was near the top of a road, I saw my friend K walk past the end; figuring I could catch her up before the pedestrian crossing round the corner, I put a sprint on. And then, after about three steps, I fell flat on my face. I don't know if there was some ice around or if my ankle just gave way, but it was very painful and hard to walk on. I weighed up whether to go to the doctor straight away or struggle on into work and, rightly or wrongly, went for the second option. Having limped to the station, I got on the train, then started to feel like I was going to black out as we arrived in town. I quickly got myself off the train and into a conveniently-placed waiting room, stuck my head between my knees for a couple of minutes, and then limped on manfully up a flight of steps, up a hill, down a ramp and across a courtyard into my office, wherein I removed my shoe and sock to assess the damage. It was even more swollen than I'd expected; it appeared to be at least twice its usual size. And it was really really bloody agonising by now.

I was packed off into the office rest room (not the same as a "restroom" in the American sense, this is more like a basic kitchen with some space to sit and relax during breaks) with my foot up on a table and a plentiful supply of water and paracetamol being passed my way. A couple of minutes later, my manager arrived and immediately decided I should head off to our nearest hospital to have it checked out. A taxi was sent for, and within a few minutes I was hobbling into A&E.

Well, to cut an already overlong story short, after much looking over and four x-rays, they came to the conclusion it's a particularly nasty sprain. Ibuprofen, ice and elevation are the order of the day. I phoned my manager, who suggested I should go home and rest it; I agreed, and then wondered how I was going to get home from the other side of town (walking was probably out of the question). Thanks to a self-employed friend, I was soon hopping about in my own house, negotiating all the suddenly-much-more-complicated things like getting up the stairs to the loo, actually using the loo, getting back down the stairs after using the loo, etc etc.

Anyways, I'll be trying to get myself in and out of work on the bus tomorrow (two minutes' walk from my house compared with fifteen for the train, and no steps to contend with on the way either), and all being well I should be back to normal - well, as normal as I've ever been - in two or three weeks. In the meantime, if you're in the Birmingham area and suddenly hear a pained "AAAAAAARRGGH!!", it's probably just me putting a little too much weight on the offending ankle. Oh what fun...