AN INTERESTING START TO THE WEEK

I’m not sure what I was going to write about in my blog when I got up this morning. I’m sure there was something, but first I had to put the kettle on, get the rubbish out and oh, yes, there was cardboard in the garage that had to go out to be recycled.

Having flattened the cardboard and feeling pretty good about my green start to the day, I forgot to look where I was going. The searing pain in my foot as I speared myself on a garden fork that had fallen – and I have no one to blame but myself for this – near the door, dealt with that quick smart.

Beneath the cardboard I couldn’t see my foot and I thought I’d just knocked it. I winced and carried on as you do. Except that after two steps it was obvious that my foot was sloshing about inside my shoe. I tend not to make a fuss and since it was seven in the morning there was no one about to rush to my aid even if I had. But the cardboard was abandoned while I squelched my way into the kitchen, grabbed a tea towel to catch the blood and applied pressure.

Have you ever tried to apply pressure to the top of your foot? At full stretch. Bearing in mind I am not built like a ballerina. At all.

I grabbed a box of plasters and here’s a thing. Whenever I cut my finger I can only find plasters the size of my hand. Today, when I wanted something big, I could only find the kind you stick on fingers. But there’s something in the plaster pad that helps stop bleeding so I stuck away, replacing rapidly as necessary, then propped my foot up. I think it was the propping up that did it, to be honest.

I now have a garden fork tine shaped hole in my right foot, a small bruise and some swelling. Not much to show for the drama - or the pain..

The foot is sore and I have the joy of a tetanus booster to look forward to tomorrow - and I am reminded of an incident in the best beloved's distance past when he was hit on the chin with a shovel by an irate labourer on site he was managing.  The doc insisted on giving him a tetanus jab.  The bb resisted, explaining that it was a very clean shovel.  The doctor, without batting an eyelid, merely inquired whether it had been sterilised.

So I'm writing this with my foot up on a dining chair, feeling a bit limp, but honestly I look around at what else is happening in the world and, on the scale of 1 – 10, I reckon my little accident doesn’t even register.

And the good news is that I’m excused gardening for the rest of the week.