Last week I had a little accident. I wasn't going to mention it but thought that readers might be asking themselves why, at the beginning of April, I wasn't jabbering on about growing and getting to grips with my allotment all the time. I cut my hand whilst out dog-walking on Tuesday of last week; only a little cut, mind, but it did look like it might need a stitch or two to help it heal. The local minor injuries unit steri-stripped it instead of stitching, bandaged it up and sent me home, saying I must keep it raised and rested for 24 hours. So no washing up (I said). You musn't get it wet (they said). What about dog walking (me)? Absolutely not until it heals (them). Si' leaves for work quite early in the morning, so the dog walking has fallen to Lucy, who has been an absolute star about it. Within half an hour of being home I wanted to scream. How could one little cut - that didn't even hurt - prevent me from doing so many everyday and necessary things? Si' will tell you that he christened me, 'Mrs Impatient Patient', as I grumped around for a good hour, getting on the nerves of my only-too-happy-to-help family! I fretted about the washing up. My family create dirty cups in the same way that a conjuror pulls rabbits out of a hat - frequently and as if by magic! Then I worried about the washing and got agitated over the allotment, whilst constantly chastising myself for my carelessness. "What about my blog?", I screamed inwardly, as by now everyone else had left me to grouse on my own, in the hope that the storm would soon blow over. Then I thought, "what about my blog?" No washing up, no dog walking, no serious housework; I could see my day unfolding with all these things taken care of and leaving me lots of time for about the only thing I was still allowed to do. And so we arrive at that silver lining moment, where adversity is turned on it's head to become almost a blessing. Even in our downshifted state, time is not an endless resource, as you replace a lot of things you would formerly have paid for with your own labour. So to have a few days of virtually uninterrupted time was a novelty, to say the least.
Twenty four hours later, I had my dressing changed, and while I still had to keep it dry, and not do anything too strenuous, I no longer had to hold my arm in the air to prevent my hand swelling up! It was at this point last week, that I wrote about looking for the photograph of my sister and myself. Here we are, pictured above, on Christmas Day 1967. This followed on from my rant of the previous day about home-made jam. On Friday, I was able to accompany my sister's card with a nice long letter, and a photocopy of the Rayburn instructions. By Saturday, Lucy was on holiday and we were able to make a team effort with the blueberry muffins, to be repeated on Monday with a blackberry version, which were equally delicious! At this point, I remembered that we had a large pair of rubber gloves in the cupboard under the sink and, held on with a rubber band over my bandaged left hand, with a normal small glove on the other, I was able to help wash up. In the meantime, I had plenty of time for pootling about, catching up on all those niggly little jobs that somehow I'm always too busy doing other things to get round to.
By yesterday, I was indulging in a veritable flurry of activity again, in the belief that they would be relieving me of my bandage later that day and that I would be good as new. I cleaned the cooker, juiced and cut up the peel of sweet oranges for marmalade (no mean feat wearing rubber gloves), washed all the dogs fleeces and baked a lemon cake. At six o'clock, we trotted back to the minor injuries department, where they cut off my dressing and pronounced me ......not quite healed and in need of another dressing (though not, thankfully, a bandage) for a few days more. And, by the way, I musn't get it wet. Grrrrrrrr!
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