Florida carpenter ant (Camponotus floridianus) Photo By Bob Peterson from North Palm Beach, Florida, , CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21785629

Dear Readers, ever since I fractured my tibia ten days ago, I’ve been wishing that there was a way to detach my leg, sort it out and then screw it back on once the problem was sorted. However, as this is impractical I’ve been turning my attention to the first aid procedures of other creatures, and in particular ants. Ants are amongst the few creatures that tend the injuries of their nestmates: the Matabele ant, for example, produces an antibacterial substance from a special gland. This species lives by raiding termite nests, a dangerous expedition as the termites fight back hard, and the ants are often injured – up to 22 percent of the ants on each raid end up with at least one limb missing. Damaged ants are carried back to the nest and treated by special ‘nurse’ ants, who lick the wounds clean and who often apply a special antibiotic from the gland on their back. 95% of the ants so treated survive, compared to only 5% of ants that are callously separated from their ‘nurses’ by the scientists studying them. Can the ants  tell that some wounds are infected, and some not?The jury is still out, but it appears that infection causes a change to the hydrocarbons in the exoskeleton of the ant, which might signal to the nurse ants. If this was to be the case, the ants would be the only animals other than humans who can specifically treat infected wounds.

Matabele ant (Megaponera major) running off with a termite (Photo by By ETF89 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52639002)

And then there’s the Florida Carpenter ant (pictured above). Scientist Dany Buffat was studying a captive colony of the species when she noticed an ant chewing off a nestmate’s injured leg. The injured ant put up no resistance, and on further observation it appeared that amputations were not unusual, but that they only occurred when the injury was to the ant’s upper leg. The mortality rate of amputees was 90 percent higher than that of ants with a similar injury but no amputation. In ants with a lower leg injury, there seemed to be no difference whether the leg was amputated or not, and in fact ants did not amputate a leg with an injury in this part of the leg.

The reason seems to be to do with the ants physiology – the muscles that pump blood (and infections) around the body of the ant are found in the upper leg, so amputating the leg prevents the infection from spreading. However, an injury in the lower leg doesn’t involve these muscles, and so amputating the leg at this point doesn’t stop the spread.

It appears that the ants are able to determine the best course of action depending on the location of the wound, just as the Matabele ants appear to be able to determine whether or not a wound is infected.

To me, this is mind-blowing stuff, and just makes me wonder what else we will find out about these extraordinary animals. And in a fractured leg update, I can announce that I made it both up and down stairs yesterday, so I could sleep in my own bed. It’s lovely to feel a gradual return to normality. Onwards and upwards!

Toadflax Brocade Caterpillar (Photo by L.Dolata)

Dear Readers, some of my fondest childhood memories are of hanging out with the caterpillars in our tiny back garden. We had cinnabar moth caterpillars, looking like tiny tubular rugby players in their ‘uniforms’ of yellow and black. They would denude the ragwort flowers until there was nothing left but a few stumps, before moving on to the next plant.

One year, I ‘rescued’ five caterpillars and fed them in a plastic box until they pupated. Then, I put the pupae in a big sweet jar, with twigs so that they could climb up and their wings could unfurl. We then checked the bottle (which was under the stairs along with the gas metre) every day. Alas! One day we looked, to find four perfectly pristine, newly-emerged green and red cinnabar moths, and one sad soul who had gotten stuck during emergence and died.

We released the survivors early next morning, but my brother and I decided to hold a funeral for the one who didn’t make it. The moth was interred in a matchbox, along with a ball of cottonwool, and we made a ‘tombstone’ out of a fragment of old kitchen tile. We wrote ‘Gone, but Not Forgotten’ on the tile in wax crayon, and proceeded to lower the matchbox into a pre-dug hole with all due ceremony.

It’s funny what you learn from such a seemingly trivial experience – that caring and preparing for things often isn’t enough, that things that you love die, the importance of ritual, and the indifference of the natural world. Strangely, I have always found that indifference somehow comforting – so much of what happens really isn’t personal. A virus, or a bacteria, doesn’t have it in for you, it’s just doing what it does. It doesn’t care if you’re famous, or rich, or a wonderful person. There is something about shrugging and getting on with it, about not getting ‘snagged’ on the unfairness of events, that is very liberating. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t many terrible things that can and should be prevented. Balance is all, in this as in so many other things.

Cinnabar moth caterpillar (PhotoI, Tony Wills, CC BY 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons)

My favourite caterpillars of all, though, were the woolly bears.

Two Garden Tiger Moth Caterpillars (Photo by Baykedevries, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons)

I used to handle them all the time, although the hairs are supposed to irritate the skin – I distinctly remember having two of them ‘race’ up my arms. They eat docks and nettles, and are the most bumbling, inoffensive of beasts. I learned a truly horrific lesson from a woolly bear that I was, again, rearing in a plastic box (Stork Margarine if I remember correctly). The caterpillar had stopped eating, and I was expecting it to pupate. Instead, as I watched, it literally burst, and what seemed like dozens of tiny maggots emerged. The poor caterpillar had clearly been parasitised by a wasp. It was all that I could do not to drop the box. Every kind of body horror ever dreamed up by a movie-maker has a parallel somewhere in the insect kingdom, I’m sure.

But generally, my lifelong interest in invertebrates was nurtured by my contact with caterpillars and slugs, spiders and flies. There is so much to learn, and so much to understand. And when people talk about ‘plants for pollinators’, we are increasingly thinking about not just feeding the adults with nectar and pollen, but feeding the larvae on docks and nettles, ragwort and grasses. My friend L sent me the photo of the lovely Toadflax Brocade caterpillar above, nibbling away on some toadflax, a most attractive plant. We could all do with leaving some ‘weeds’ in our gardens, especially as insect populations are under such pressure. I hate the thought of children no longer interacting with caterpillars, the most inoffensive and lovable of the many insects in our garden (though anyone trying to grow cabbages might not agree). Who knows what passion for the natural world might grow from such a humble beginning?

Toadflax Brocade Moth (Photo by Ilia Ustyantsev athttps://www.flickr.com/photos/155939562@N05/41055576322)

Leg Update: Still blooming painful, but waiting to hear from the GP about possible remedies. In the meantime, watching re-runs of Masterchef and Bake-Off -The Professionals. And will probably return to my bed on the first floor today, which will make everything feel a bit more normal. Fingers crossed I can get down again (joke – if I don’t think I can get down, I won’t go up 🙂 )

Meadow froghopper (Philanus spumarius) Photoby Charles J Sharp – Own work, from Sharp Photography, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38317620)

Dear Readers, as I was laying sadly on the sofa bed last night, waiting for my painkillers to kick in and wondering what position would be least painful for my leg, I felt a sudden ‘ping’, and a froghopper landed on my hand. What a surprise! I can only imagine that s/he came in when my husband brushed against the lavender in the front garden (which was full of cuckoo spit), or maybe from some laundry left briefly in the living room. But how s/he cheered me up! A bug for Bugwoman!

Two froghoppers on the back of a buddleia leaf (2023)

These insects really do look like tiny froglets – they start off green, as in the photo below, and gradually turn brown. They do little harm to plants, and are amongst the most impressive jumpers in the invertebrate world – a froghopper can jump up to 70cms, which considering it’s only half a centimetre long is a considerable feat.

Newly-emerged froghopper

Indeed, new research has shown that froghoppers are able to outperform insects that are much more famous jumpers, such as fleas -they can jump higher compared to body size, and can accelerate their heavy bodies four times faster. In fact, the force exerted during a froghopper jump is 414 times their bodyweight, compared to fleas (135 times), locusts (8 times) and humans (2-3 times). In short, what I had on my finger was a creature of Olympian abilities. I took the time to observe this most unlikely athlete, with its short legs and stubby body, for some minutes before it started to become restless, repositioning itself several times. I waited to see what would happen and indeed, it wasn’t long before ‘my’ froghopper decided to take themselves elsewhere. I felt the ‘ping’ as it catapulted itself across the vast, bleak plains of the duvet cover. I hope that it found the pot plants so that it had something to feed on!

The great thing about being interested in nature, and in particular in invertebrates, is that you’re pretty much never alone. There’s always a moth in the clothes cupboard, an ant appearing from between the floorboards, a spider in the window frame or a bumblebee bashing itself against the window. And every time, my curiosity is piqued, and I’m taken out of myself for a few minutes. Such occasions remind me that nature is always going on, doing its ‘stuff’ regardless of our personal situation, and that I’m part of a great interweaving of plants and animals, just one more organism amongst many. I find it strangely comforting.

So, in other news today we have put together a wheelchair, so soon I should be able to brave the pavements of East Finchley and go outside to see what’s been happening. As soon as it stops raining, that is…..

Pre and post operative X-rays showing intramedullary tibia nailing (not mine!)

Dear Readers, I have been hoping to get my mitts on the actual x-rays that have been taken off my poor old fractured leg, but in the absence thereof I thought I’d give you a rough idea of what’s been done. In the old days, the doctors would have tried to align the fractured ends of my bones ( a process called ‘traction’ which believe me you don’t want to experience too often) and would then have coated my leg from hip to ankle in thick plaster for six months, whilst keeping their fingers crossed. Not any more! These days you can insert a metal rod (titanium in my case) from below the kneecap right through the bone, tying in the broken ends of the fracture. Then you ‘nail’ the whole lot together horizontally. The procedure is known as intramedullary (i.e. inside the bone) nailing. The bone will grow around the internal scaffold of the pin, which shouldn’t need to be removed, and will hence send security men scuttling for their rubber gloves for the rest of my travelling career.

Well, the procedure is a miracle of modern science, but for the past few days my painkillers have only really worked for about two hours out of six, so I’ve had plenty of time to contemplate the dull ache in my bones. Eventually, this morning I realised exactly what the pain reminded me of.

“Growing pains!” I said to myself.

When I was about ten years old, and increasing in height by a couple of inches every few months (or so it seemed) I had persistent pains in my legs. The aches were really painful, to the point where they kept me awake and made me quite tearful and irritable (no difference there, then. My husband is a saint). I remember that Mum used to make me a hot water bottle, though I don’t remember any painkillers being involved – I don’t really remember being dosed with anything in the 1960s except for Rosehip Syrup and some rather tasty malt-flavoured paste called Virol.

What are growing pains, though? They’re still clearly a ‘thing’ now, described as being pain in the calves, knees or front of the thighs. They appear to be more common in very active children (being more of a bookish sort I doubt that this was the reason in my case). Strangely, the pains appear to have nothing to do with growth, which rather scuppers my theory – I was thinking that maybe the similarity of my current pain to that of my childhood days was due to the shin bone gently regenerating around my splendid titanium pin. As it is, it’s probably just my bruised and unhappy flesh accommodating itself to this unexpected new ‘visitor’.

And what else to fill the time, but to look for a poem? I found two. The first one, ‘Fracture Story’ by Nell Wright, describes some of the things that I’m currently feeling – the urge to ‘make things right’ when what I need is patience, the way that I see trip hazards and disaster everywhere, the feeling that, inside me, my body knows what to do, and is already doing it.

Fracture Story

By Nell Wright

It was a beautiful place, horizon on all sides
like diner mirrors. I sped
toward its limit and hit the asphalt hard. My arm

in the X-ray glowed like a jellyfish at night
and I wanted to slip into its ocean and go
totally numb. I wanted

to fix what I’d done, but the doctor said
Stay patient, massaging my plaster
with soap. On the radio they spoke

about a meteor shower, so we spread old
towels in the darkest back yard. While we waited
someone laid out an endless riddle

about albatrosses. Cannibalism was the answer.
Inside me, minerals were mending themselves,
sending collagen threads across

the bad chasm I’d made. From behind a wide cloud slid
stars like flecks of bone, old and glowing.
They held their breaths. When one dashed

across the black, I think I gasped
admiring the platonic plummet: it left
no fallen body. No broken heft.

In the morning I got up and walked
to the laundromat. Mountains ran
a cardiogram across the sky. Inside

two parts of me were reaching
toward each other—something I’d felt
before, but more in the mind. I started

to forgive myself. It
was a physical place. Hard
to be lonely carrying that slow embrace.

And then there’s this one, by Ellen Bass, an American poet who I admire greatly. This is about a different kind of fracture, between mother and child, but about a lot of other things besides. Since I’ve hurt my leg, I find myself thinking a lot about my mother, about how she always knew how to make things better, from growing pains to broken hearts. And about how she was in chronic pain for much of her later life, and how she still managed to make the best of it, and how much I can learn from that.  See what you think.

Fracture

Ellen Bass

When the grizzly cubs were caught, collared, and taken away—
relocated they call it—
their mother ran back and forth on the road screaming.
Brutal sound. Torn from her lungs. Her heart,
twisted knot, hot blood rivering
to the twenty-six pounding bones of her feet.
Just weeks before
I watched a bear and her cubs run down a mountain
in the twilight.
So buoyant, they seemed to be tumbling
to the meadow,
to the yarrow root they dug, rocking
to wrest it from the hard ground, fattening for winter.
They were breathing what looked like gladness.
But that other mother . . .
Her massive head raised, desperate to catch their scent.
Each footfall a fracture in the earth’s crust.

Dear Readers, while I was laying on the sofa with my leg suitably elevated I suddenly remembered that I had some bought yet more nature books, and that they were waiting at our local Post Office. So my extremely-helpful husband headed off and returned with this wonderful book about spiders, which has some of the best spider illustrations that I’ve ever seen. The book is full of hard-science and pretty pictures, and what more can you want (other than seeing the Tories booted out which is obviously a personal preference). Anyhow, I found myself intrigued with one species in particular.

Bagheera kiplingi, (male) the more or less vegetarian jumping spider (Photo By Maximilian Paradiz – https://www.flickr.com/photos/maxorz/4360611024/in/photolist-7DkgJG-7CdsDj/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47104533

This little chap is Bagheera kiplingi, a jumping spider found only in Mexico and Central America. The spider was named originally by entomologist couple George (1845 – 1914) and Elizabeth (1854-1940) Peckham, who specialised in the study of jumping spiders, and who discovered the spider in a trip to Guatemala. They named the species after Bagheera from The Jungle Book, and after Rudyard Kipling, but they didn’t stop there – other spider species were named for Akela the wolf, Naga the snake and Messua, a female character in the book. I’m not quite sure what the link between a tale about Indian wildlife and some spiders on the other side of the world was, but at least it makes the creatures easy to remember.

However, Bagheera kiplingi is unusual in another way – it is the only spider species so far discovered that is pretty much vegetarian. Furthermore, it is reliant not only on a particular group of plants (the Vachellia or thorntrees) but also on just one part of the tree. Some thorn trees produce globules of fat and nectar at the tips of their leaves, which are known as Beltian Bodies. These are produced purely to encourage the ferocious ants that protect the tree to stay put – the ants live in the thorns that the trees produce, feast on the Beltian bodies, and rush out in a frenzy if any passing antelope or monkey tries to eat the leaves.

Ants on the thorn of Vacellia – note the little yellow blob of the Beltian Body  on the leaves to the left (Photo By Ryan Somma – flickr image page, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9031797)

The jumping spider’s diet comprises 60 to 90 percent Beltian Bodies, but grabbing them obviously poses a problem – the ants would clearly kill something as small as a spider very easily. Fortunately, jumping spiders have both excellent eyesight and superb speed and jumping ability, so they can leap onto a leaf and munch a number of planty-nuggets before bouncing away again. They have been observed by scientists as they watch the flow of ants and judge their leap to fit into a gap in the traffic.

Bagheera kiplingi (Female) Photo Wayne Maddison, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Not only do the spiders avoid the ants, but they sometimes cheekily supplement their plant-based diet with an ant-larva snatched from the jaws of a worker carrying it to a new location.

Of all the 40,000 species of spider, this is the only one that relies for most of its diet on plants. However, there is so much competition in the rainforest that finding a reliable niche seems to pay off for Bagheera kiplingi. The Beltian Bodies are produced all year round, so there’s no lack of food, and except when feeding the spiders hang out in the drier parts of the plant which aren’t protected by the ants. It all seems like a pretty halcyon existence to me, unless you mistime a jump and get pulled to pieces by angry insects, and presumably the risk pays off. Nature is endlessly surprising and adaptable!

Bagheera kiplingi eating a Beltian Body (Photo from https://spooder.fandom.com/wiki/Bagheera_kiplingi

Hippo on the run (Photo Jozef020, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons)

Dear Readers, just because I am pretty much immobile (apart from the challenge of getting to the toilet on crutches) doesn’t mean that I’m not intrigued with animal locomotion. And so it was that yesterday I read this interesting piece about the hippopotamus. It seems to imply that at some point, when sufficiently motivated, a hippo can get airborne – i.e., all four of its legs are off the ground at the same time. This is quite a feat for such a heavy animal, and something that elephants aren’t able to do, though rhinos are apparently more gymnastic than hippos – maybe they have longer legs? At any rate, this all got me thinking about the things that we take for granted, and how animals are a constant source of wonder.

Back in the day, people used to think that horses got airborne, but got it completely wrong as to when.

Horse Race (Public Domain)

It took the photographs of Eadward Muybridge to capture the moment when a horse is actually airborne – at this point, all four legs are bent, rather than straight out like a rocking horse. You can see this clearly in the two central photos of the top row.

Scientists at the Royal Veterinary College in Hertfordshire studied captive hippos at Flamingo Land in North Yorkshire – a student was dispatched to video the hippos moving out of their night quarters and chasing one another around their paddock. When it was analysed, the film showed that the hippos really only have two gaits, the walk and the trot, but that they could get airborne at a fast trot, which happened up to 15% of the time.

Why study hippo locomotion, though? For one thing, it could give us insights into how those other giant land animals, the dinosaurs, moved. For another, understanding the biomechanics of movement can help with the medical needs of captive animals, and animals in sanctuaries. Furthermore, these are difficult animals to study – hippos are responsible for more deaths in Africa than any other large mammal, they are most active at night, and they spend the majority of their daytime hours in the water. Which brings us to another point. Hippos may seem ungainly on land, but in the water they are as graceful as a ballerina, even though they can’t actually ‘swim’ – their bodies are too dense for them to float, and so they either run along the bottom of a lake or river, or jump upwards to breathe. If you have six minutes to spare, I recommend this short BBC film on the hippos of the Okavango Delta. You won’t be disappointed!

Hippos of the Okavango

And finally, a quick medical update – still in some pain, still taking my painkillers, still sleeping downstairs, but things are definitely improving all the same. This won’t be a quick fix, so I’ll have to be patient, but everything is moving in the right direction!

Dear Readers, my cat, Willow, has been most peeved since the disruption to her usual surroundings. As I’m sleeping in the living room at the moment she sees this as an opportunity to visit during the night, just to make sure that I’m still breathing (even though it’s now my husband who feeds her). For preference, she will drape herself across my poorly leg, and look most perturbed when I dislodge her, sometimes without due ceremony.

Still, it’s nice to have some company during the night when the pain kicks in but it’s till two hours till my next painkillers. I am still reading ‘Cold Kitchen’ by Caroline Eden, about the author’s kitchen in Edinburgh, and the dishes that she cooks there that remind her of her travels. Last night her dog, a Beagle named Darwin, died, and I howled so much that the cat had to come over again to express her concern. Who says that they don’t care?

Anyhow, after Darwin’s demise we were off to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, where Eden lives through a revolution following the downfall of the government. What a brave woman she is! I recognise that urge to globe-trot and to find out about other people and other ways of living, but she definitely takes it to another extreme. I am thoroughly enjoying the book, which is so much more than just another cookery manual.

And thank you to everyone who has commented, shared their experiences and thoughts on pain management and looking after my fracture. I will get back to you all at some point, but at the moment I’m a bit low on energy. I have read every single comment, here and on Facebook though, and I am so appreciative of your love and concern. The last few days have been quite the adventure, and I hope to stay curious and learn as much as I can as I go through it.

I have had some really lovely cards, but this one is probably the most ingenious so far. Did I tell you all that my favourite animal is (probably) the giraffe, largely because I was such a tall, gangly child that I was nicknamed ‘giraffe’. See what you think of the card.

The Cover of the Card

So lovely, and such a surprise!

Just in case it wasn’t clear which leg needs operated on….

Dear Readers, so I’m back at home and trying to get my head around the past few days. So much has happened! But at least I’m on the mend. Last night I decided to sleep downstairs – our Victorian staircase felt like too big a mountain to climb when my leg was so sore. But I’m getting up and moving about as much as feels sensible, and I have watched endless episodes of ‘Bake Off – The Professionals’. Cherish Finden, one of the presenters, is my new style icon. Anyone else out there watching it?

I have had a few thoughts on the experiences of the past few days, so here are a few…

• Don’t wait until you absolutely have to have a bedpan to ask for a bedpan. Seriously.
• How exactly does one judge if one has 50% of one’s bodyweight on one leg? I’m currently using the pain threshold – if I can’t bear the pain, it’s too much
• Keep track of when you’ve taken your medication and stick a reminder in your phone for when you can have the next one. Although at the moment I know to the minute when I can have my next painkillers, and the minutes definitely slow own just before they’re due.
• I’m having to learn how to inject myself with an anti-coagulant for the next fourteen days. The nurse showed me how, and said ‘oh it’s only a little needle’. She’s right, it’s as thin as a hair, but it’s also about a centimetre long. I’ll master it, I’m sure, because it’s important. It makes me feel sorry for all those kitties that I’ve injected with fluids in the scruff of their necks over the years. Sorry kitties!
• When the original plaster cast was put on, it actually heated up on my leg! This is due to an exothermic reaction with the plaster, and it was as if I had an electric blanket wrapped around my leg, very pleasant.
• When I was sent home, I was so delighted to be getting back to my own house that I forgot to ask such basic questions as ‘how much should I be using this leg’ and ‘are there any specific exercises I should be doing?’ so I’m playing it by ear, though on second thoughts I might just ring and see if I can get a physio to have a word. I’m back in two weeks for a ‘wound inspection’ but I suspect that a lot of the good work can be done in the early days.

And that’s it for now! Tomorrow I’m having a wheelchair delivered, so that I can get out until I’m strong enough to use the crutches for a longer period, so I should at least be able to get to Coffee Bank (our local coffee shop on East Finchley High Road) and have a change of scene. Will keep you posted!

Well Readers, it’s been an interesting couple of days. When I left you last, I was in the Whittington Hospital waiting for an operation on my leg. I’ve never been in a hospital overnight, I’ve never had a general anaesthetic and I’ve certainly never had a titanium rod inserted into tibia, so there’s been a lot to process.

First up, I cannot praise the hospital staff, from the handsome orthopaedic consultant to the cheery porters, highly enough. The Whittington is like the United Nations, there’s someone from everywhere, and many people have been there for years – the staff nurse had been working at the hospital for nearly two decades. They worked together so well – in the X-Ray section there was an A team of young women in hijabs who were expert at placing limbs and manipulating an x-ray machine that hung from the ceiling and looked like something from Star Wars. My ward had two patients suffering from dementia, and the nurses and orderlies couldn’t have been kinder or more patient and tactful. I honestly think we should all pay a chunk more tax to fund this astonishing institution. How lucky we all are.

The orthopaedic team were clearly very into bones – one of the more junior staff showed me my fracture when I asked, and very dramatic it was too. And when they had to use a bit of traction to get the bones to line up (probably the most painful 30 seconds I’ve had in my life) they were efficient and matter-of-fact, which is just what you need when you think your leg is going to come off.

And then there was the operation. I can’t tell you much about it, except that one minute I was mentally trying to calculate my height in centimetres to save the anaesthetist from having to look up Dr Google, and then next someone was shouting my name and telling me that it was all over. What a strange experience it is! I wonder if my body remembers all the drilling and pulling about, even if my brain hasn’t registered it. Anyhow, the result is the aforementioned titanium rod and a few bolts in the ankle to keep it in place, like a kind of reverse Frankenstein.

The immediate effect of the general anaesthetic though was to make me nauseous for about eight hours. A pair of jolly physiotherapists bounced in to see if they could get me used to my crutches and all I could say is ‘sorry, I’m going to chuck up now’ so they bounced out again. The photo at the top is the result of me trying to choose my lunch while in this state. I have ordered a salad with a side salad, a yoghurt, and a plate of custard with nothing in it. Go figure.

Actually, the food and the selection was pretty good, though I’m glad I was around too long to enjoy it.

And after a painful night I was discharged this morning (now I’m ‘crutch-trained’, which means I can use crutches to make sure that I only put fifty percent of my bodyweight on my right leg). I have to inject myself with an anti-coagulant daily for the next fortnight and I have a fine array of pain-killers. More importantly, I have lots of knitting to do, and a fine pile of books to read, plus my poor husband is at my beck and call for the next two weeks till he goes back to work. it’s not quite the holiday I was intending, but I plan to make the most of it.

However, I will probably also take a bit of time to be sad, and to let all that shock and disappointment catch up with me. I’ve just been putting one foot in front of the other (see what I did there :-)) but I am sorry about my Austria holiday, and I am still a bit rattled. It reminds me (as if I needed to be reminded) that things can change in a split second, and not always for the better. Still, I have been so moved by people’s kindness over the past few days, from Chantelle, the Station Master at East Finchley who looked after me until the ambulance men came, to the lovely Eritrean taxi driver who just brought us back from the hospital. It reminds me that however independent we think we are, we are all ultimately reliant on the kindness of strangers, even if it’s just to bring us a bedpan in the middle of the night.

Well Readers, today I was meant to be in Obergurgl, but our Easyjet flight to Innsbruck was cancelled. Then I managed to fall down the stairs at East Finchley Station and fractuted my leg in 2 places.

Well.it just goes to show that you never know.

I’m writing this on Saturday, and am expecting to be in surgery on Sunday, so by the time you read this I should be on the mend. I’ll keep you posted, but don’t worry if I miss a day now and again! I’m in good spirits and feeling pretty good all things considered.