Don't be a softy Crofty

I'm not generally a wimp; but this last couple of weeks my ankle has been really sore and I've been back in work; consequently I have rested when possible, meaning a respite from physio exercises - in any case Easter Monday meant I missed a session. The pain was so bad at the end of last week I went to my GP anxious that the surgery was failing. He doubled my pain killers and told me to ask the physios for their opinion on Monday.

Limping into the Physiotherapy Department on Monday morning I anticipated sympathy, foot massage and maybe a reflexology session (perhaps from the cute physio with the auburn hair). What I got was Phil the Physio - who in his spare time, is the physio for Oldham Rugby League Club:

"Ahhh, you've just got a touch of tendonitis, it's sore but you've just got to stretch through it" Said Phil in that sort of masculine tone that says 'you won't mind a bit of character building pain now will you' and I, of course, being a man at home with my personality, self worth and not subject to gender stereotypes, acquiesced and toughed it out whilst secretly wincing inside.

So, passers by my office have been intrigued by the hourly groans of pain and relief from behind my office door as I stretch my calf and tendons five times each hour. And do you know what? It actually works: when the pain is bad, you s-t-r-e-t-c-h and get that delicious combination of pain and ecstasy - like when you have cramp: on the one hand the stretch is agony, but on the other it is blessed relief.

New Schuhs

I'm starting to get a little nervous. On Tuesday I return to work for the first time since 28th December. Last week I went into Manchester to buy a new pair of shoes. Knowing exactly what I wanted - a pair of black, smooth top Doc Marten gibsons - I headed straight for the Doc Marten shop in the trendy Triangle centre. The man in the sports shop that used to be the Doc Marten shop told me that there hadn't been a Doc Marten shop there for years, he shook his head in a gentle, sad sort of way at my shopping innocence - he recognised a shopping yokel abroad. Directed up Market St, by the kind young man, I found Schuh: a revelation. Trendy, with shoes so outré that, twenty years ago, I would have killed to wear them. The music was brilliant - Oasis, Blur et al - and I felt right at home forgetting that my youthful vigour is retained only in the (numerically decreasing) neurons of my brain. I was, in the eyes of the assistants, a middle aged man buying boring shoes and trying to look trendy by singing along to the songs: I stopped singing and stuck to conversation with the assistant instead.
"The last pair of these shoes I had lasted eighteen years" I said, enthusing about the quality and comfort of Doc Martens. She gave me a withering look and only afterwards did I realise that, in all likelihood, her job depended on people buying shoes far more often that every eighteen years or so. I paid and left hastily but happy, wistfully wishing I could wear these for work instead:

I've graduated!

Yesterday was a big day for me; those of you who have been following my path from surgery to recovery will have noted that I haven't mentioned Frankenstein's boot for a while - this was the inflatable, rigid foot device that replaced my plaster cast and enabled me to commence physiotherapy. It is in physio that I have graduated.

For former athletes like me, it does not come easily to be ranked among the weak and afflicted and when I met Phil, my physio, I could not resist telling him how many miles a week I used to run, or how often I used to swim. Only later did I reflect on how lame this must have sounded: the truth is that we are only good for what we do now (unless, of course you used to be a premiership footballer). I resolved simply to be good at whatever Phil asked me to do. So I balanced on the wobble board, traversed the foam balancing beam, cycled 2 virtual miles on the cycle and generally tried to be vigorous.

Last week the man-who-cut-off-my-heel-only-to-fasten-it-firmly-back-with-a-titanium-screw said that I could remove the boot and start to walk around unaided. Yesterday Phil reviewed my progress and gave me the good news: from next Monday I graduate into an exercise class: Advanced Ankle.

I know you will all share the joy.

My left foot: update

The plaster cast is off my foot and my peacock post was every bit as justified as I thought it might be. More of that shortly, but first a musing on my insistence on being right.

Getting around with the plaster cast on my foot was pretty impossible; the process of moving anywhere on one leg using crutches is surprisingly exhausting. When we arrived at hospital V. remembered that an x-ray was necessary before my appointment; she also remembered that we were told to go there first. I remembered differently and because I'm Right, insisted that we book in at Out Patients reception first. We walked the 100 metres along the corridor to Out Patients, passing X-Ray Reception on the way.

I explained to the Out Patient receptionist that I had to have an x-ray before my appointment. She did very well not to say "What are you doing here then?" but couldn't resist one of those sisterly looks with V. that said "Men!" as V. failed to resist the temptation to say "Told you". In total my insistence on being right added an additional 200 unnecessary metres to my walk - I felt every step.

I found the x-rays fascinating, you could clearly see the gap where my heel has been removed and reattached; reassuringly the gap is filling with new bone, though there is a way to go yet. Even more clearly you could see the 6 cm screw up the centre of my foot that is currently holding my heel in place - it looks like any old screw from the tin in my garage! But of course there are non in my tin made of titanium.

The plaster was cut from my foot using one of my favourite hospital tools: the oscillating saw. The blade looks nasty, but, rather than revolving, actually oscillates back and forth, thus it never cuts the flesh. The foot exposed beneath was not mine, but rather the foot of an alien: lizard-like, puffy and showering powdery skin scales. Despite my distaste at its appearance, my surgeon was pleased with it and announced that I could start putting some weight on it.

Having not stepped on my foot for eight weeks, and never having stood on it with the heel in the place it ought to be, I am finding myself reacquainted with an aspect of the surgical process that I had forgotten: pain.

I now have to wear an Aircast for four weeks whenever I am out of bed. This does the same job as a plaster cast but you can remove it; and importantly, you can take it off while submerging the limb in hot soapy water: bliss!

I've noticed on some of the better blogs that it's de rigeur to share favourite products, here are my new faves:





This is my brand new Aircast, the photograph doesn't really do it justice; it is huge: like Frankenstein's boot!








This is one of my crutches, still in use until I am more confident at walking with Frankenstein's boot; and walking with less of a wince.





Boots BPC Aqueous Cream: contains no natural ingredients, (unless you count water), no essential oils, no SPF thingies, no pro-retinol wrinkle removers: but it feels absolutely fabulous smoothed into the reddened scales of my foot; and it's really cheap - £2.25 for this huge tub.

My inner peacock

Peacocks are beautiful but haughty. St Epiphanius knew this when he told his peacock fable. His fables were published in 1588 in Antwerp by Christopher Plantin in the catchily titled Sancti Patris Nostri Epiphanii, Episcopi Constantiae Cypri, ad Physiologum. Eiusdem in die festo Palmarum sermo, or stories about St Epiphanius for short. The fable tells how the Peacock lets out a cry of horror when he catches sight of his appallingly ugly feet.

Tomorrow I go to hospital to have the plaster cast removed from my left leg. I have not seen my foot for six weeks, nor has it been washed, nor has the natural process of skin shedding and regeneration been allowed to take place. I have glanced with trepidation (and a torch) beneath the plaster on my foot - what I have seen is scaly, reptilian even.

I am not known for having a particular pride in my appearance but if, on Thursday, you are driving along Rochdale Rd, Oldham near to the hospital and hear a scream shortly after 14.15h do not be alarmed; it might just be me getting in touch with my inner peacock.

My left foot on tour

When I wrote the post 'Saturday a game of two halves: second half' I hadn't downloaded the photograph. Here is my foot on tour:

Saturday, a day of two halves: second half

Seeing how fed-up I was of being stuck inside V. staged a logistical coup - on top of all the other things she is doing in the house, because I can't do my share - she got me, the dog, and a folding stool ( with a green plastic seat) in the car and out into the beautiful afternoon.

A ten minute drive, north up the A62, left behind suburban Oldham for the Pennine countryside; the cultivated green meadows soon giving way to bracken-brown, and olive hues of moor grass and heather. We drove through the carved 'V' in the sandstone Standedge cutting, beneath which the engineering miracles of the rail tunnel and canal tunnel join Lancashire and Yorkshire. Constructed during the industrial revolution, the building of the canal tunnel brought V's ancestors across the Pennines from Hull; they arrived as labourers and after the tunnel was completed in 1811 settled in the Saddleworth area.

At Marsden we turned and climbed back over the Pennines to park up at the Castleshaw reservoir. I perched on a picnic bench with my leg on the stool while V. and Max walked down to the reservoir. The afternoon was crisp and crystal clear, both refreshing and relaxing. I was happy just to be out with my binoculars; not even the sound of off -road motorcycles from somewhere on the other side of the valley could spoil the moment. Simply by being still I was visited by a Robin, Wren and Dunnock who were completely oblivious to my presence. I reflected on a metaphor of the moment: that we see more if we take time to be still.

I was too far from the actual water to see many birds in detail, but made out a Coot, a Great Crested Grebe and Little Grebe together with a flock of mixed gulls.

Before the reservoir existed this site had it's place in history: the remains of a Roman fort still exist, it was an important staging post for Roman traders on route between York and Mancunia (Manchester). Although it was a beautiful afternoon I couldn't help thinking that it is a bleak and desolate place to live - especially if you have to wear a toga. There is a local story of a ghostly Roman centurion who still rides the area; looking down at one of the few houses in the valley, I wonder whether there are other hauntings, the date stone on the house marked 1713.

This morning on one of the other blogs I like, Urban Cowgirl, I read an account of a fabulous wilderness trip she took in New Zealand around the volcanic scenery that Howard Shaw used for Lord of the Rings. I don't think her stunning adventure could have made me any happier than my own Castleshaw expedition.

Take a look at the Urban Cowgirl site if you get chance, there are some fabulous photographs.

Saturday, a day of two halves: First half

I'm getting tired of being stuck inside: there are three more weeks before I have the plaster cast taken off my leg. Saturday morning was beautiful: cold, crisp and sunny. I sat with the patio doors open watching garden birds. The photograph - as if it's not obvious - is from summer.

I love being outside, especially in the countryside. I love wildlife, particularly birds, so - at the risk of being dramatic - am becoming a bit like a caged animal (told you it was dramatic!).

Already the change from winter (albeit it's not been much of one) to spring is taking place, many birds are pairing away from their winter flocks and appear very much as couples on our feeding stations. Blue Tits and Great Tits are investigating the nest box high in the crab apple tree and magpies are to be seen carrying long twigs - almost as long as themselves - these will form the foundations of their substantial nests.

Because the morning was cold, the small birds were particularly active on our seed feeders and fat balls - when it's cold like this, small birds have to eat almost their own body weight in food.

This morning I watched:

• Blue Tits (one pair)
• Great Tits (one pair)
• Greenfinches (flock of seven)
• Chaffinches (one pair)
• Blackbirds (three males having a territorial battle and one oblivious female feeding)
• Dunnocks (resident pair)
• Robin (singing from points on the boundaries of its territory)
• Wren
• Goldfinches (three)
• Redwing (landed at the top of one of two alder trees that are popular with the birds, came from the south - left towards the north, going home? Redwings (illustrated) are a winter visiting flock bird, this one may have been ill or injured and become separated from the flock as they started the return flight to Scandinavia)
• Magpies (one pair)
• Wood Pigeons (one pair Hoovering up seed from one of the bird tables)

I enjoyed the first half of my Saturday, but I'd rather have been out. More on the second half tomorrow.

Purple Pain, Purple Pain

It dawned on me today that, during all my talk of surgery, I hadn't mentioned pain. The explanation is that, boringly, pain wasn't much of an issue. That said, pain relief was quite interesting.

I've never really been in to drugs; as a teenager I was too scared to experiment - a justified stance as some of my more adventurous peers fell by the wayside with various chemical accidents - and I was quite happy to follow the Guinness route to enlightenment. Looking back, that failure to be adventurous perhaps explains my lack of imagination; I find it really difficult to imagine things in any detail. This is a typical conversation about the décor in our house:

"Can't you just imagine how cool the burnt aubergine is going to look on that wall?"

"Hmm, yes it'll look great (I hope)"

I've been in communication workshops where exercises have involved imagining things in myriad colours; while colleagues enthuse about their rainbow-worlds, all I can manage is an insipid watercolour version.

Now safely in middle age, I was quite looking forward to some controlled, legitimate use of opiates in hospital. My nurse training taught me that analgesia doesn't really make you high if you are in pain. Sure enough my pain was marvellously well controlled by the morphine syringe-driver ; the only other effect seemed to be drowsiness - until the night time.

I found myself in a cinema - at least that was what it appeared to be - the corridor leading from a cinema foyer down to the screens, with wall to ceiling carpet giving the place that muffled feeling, where anything you say seems to be swallowed up six inches from your mouth - a bit like sound-proofed audiology rooms. I could see a number of doors leading, presumably, to the screens, I could smell a fusty carpet smell, I could feel the plush carpet beneath my feet, hear the lack of echo and everything was vividly coloured purple and green.

At some level of consciousness I understood the significance of my dreaming in colour and decided that if the corridor was so vivid the actual screens must, surely, have even better experiences waiting for me. I tried desperately to get through the doors; but each time I reached for the door handle I woke up; having woken I found I could slip back into this corridor-dream at will, but with the same disappointing failure to progress each time.

Perhaps, at heart, I'm that same reluctant teenager; and my subconscious just won't let me take that extra experiential step through the cinema doors.
Feel free to leave comments with amateur dream interpretation theories.

A Grand Day Out

This coming Monday, January 22nd is, according to experts with calculators, the most miserable day of the year. A whole host of factors combine to create a day that's fit only for staying home, shutting the door and eating chocolate/drinking wineand or watching old films; or maybe, we could have a day out together. Regular readers will know that I have been stuck indoors for a while so let's share a day out in London without leaving our computer chairs.

First, we'll visit the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, we'll spend a good hour taking in our favourite painters or group of painters. We can take a look at the impressionists, for example, or read more about the one pictured, the Wilton Diptych. But best of all, we'll wander round the collection learning, without the need to put on one of those funny Walkman things that give a guided tour; then next time we go in person we can show-off: talking knowledgeably about the paintings we have learnt on our day out.

After the National Gallery we'll have a cup of tea or coffee and imagine we are in the tea room at Fortnum and Mason. Lets pretend that our cup of Fair Trade tea is actually Fortnum's reasonably priced Irish Breakfast Tea at £6.95 a tin. Their website really is posh, it has a very tastefully animated home page, but the best bit is that they deliver, just like Tesco.

The next bit of our day out is to take the tube to St Pancras (not to be confused with St Pancreas the patron saint of diabetics) and while we are travelling we can enjoy one of my favourite bits on our jaunt, Poems on the Underground. This scheme has been running for twenty years and is responsible for the brilliant posters on the underground of famous poems. They also produce an anthology of the poems that, in my view, is worth every penny; but for today we'll have a look at some of the current posters by clicking here. This is the website of the London Underground where you can click on the 'random poem' feature or just learn more about the scheme.

OK, next it's the British Library; we're only going to look at a couple of things here to give us plenty of time, there is far too much to see otherwise. The British Library is pretty much like your local library except you get into an awful lot more trouble if you don't take your books back - in fact you'd get into an awful lot of trouble if you tried to take books out in the first place.

The link will take you straight to the on-line gallery; here you can see some real page-turners, no joke, you can actually turn the pages of some of the world's rarest books: including William Blake's notebook, the Lindisfarne Gospels, Mozart's musical diary (with audio excerpts) and, thoughtfully, there's even an exhibition of London's historic maps in case we get lost. That's only just scratched the surface of this site, you'll see time disappear!

(note: you may need to download Macromedia Shockwave to do the page turning thing but it's worth it)

Finally, as our day out draws to its close you have a choice, we're going to split our group into two because there's only time to do one more visit and I know that there will be arguments. Half the group can go off on a tour of Buckingham Palace and the rest can come with me for a much more interesting tour of Highgate Cemetery.

The Buckingham Palace link will take you to the official website of the British monarchy and you can actually visit other royal residences while you are there too. The Highgate Cemetery link takes you to the Sexton's Tales site where you can learn heaps about the people buried there, this one is another site where you can lose significant chunks of time. Incidentally did you know that the murdered Russian ex-agent Alexander Litvinenko is buried there in a lead-lined coffin?

Well that's it, all back to Euston Station for the train home, tired, happy and skint. Hope you enjoyed your day and are feeling much more cheery than at the start.

By the way our day out is a good way for web-virgins to get an idea of how to navigate round a website (mum!), so pass it on if you know any (it's probably not a good idea to enter 'web-virgins' as a search term in Google though).

Yoga and post-sugical recovery

I recently read a review a book called Gardener's Yoga, subtitled Bend and Stretch, Dig and Grow it's by Seattle yoga instructor and gardener Veronica D'Orazio and espouses the virtues of yoga to gardeners complaining of aches and pains who have, up till now, relied on the relaxing properties of a Radox bath. The review was by the type of gardener I would call a trendy gardener. You know the sort, undoubtedly an excellent horticulturalist; but more likely to be found sipping Chardonnay among the prize-winners at Chelsea Flower Show than messing with his spuds down the local allotment.

Trying to reconcile the suggestions in this, it has to be said, lovely looking book with the reality of gardening here in the cold damp north-west of the UK, I had amusing visions of flat-capped men warming up for a session of double-digging with the bridge pose, or more correctly: Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Illustrated from the book).
I also wondered whether there was any benefit to be had in yoga for my own post-surgical recovery, in fact was there a market for a similar book for recovering patients in general.
Already I have established that there are tasks to be done in the home of the recovering patient that would benefit from the additional extension of muscles and sinews that yoga gives. Here are some of the tasks that I might feature in the book:

• Bathing with a leg wrapped in a bright yellow hospital hazardous-waste bag teetering on the side of a bath
• Climbing the stairs on your bottom, bad leg extended in front, when feeling, after a glass of wine or two, less confident on crutches
• Maintaining your balance whilst competing with the dog to answer the door
• One-legged onion chopping
• Emptying the dishwasher on one leg; just how do you hold the plates and your crutches at the same time?

Perhaps there is something in the spiritual aspect of yoga too, all that enlivening of the chi could perhaps benefit recovering patients and also encourage vegetables to grow. Maybe the local tai chi class - I believe that tai chi is good for the chi too- could carry out fresh-air sessions down the allotment to encourage the plants, whilst allowing the gardeners to concentrate on the more practical aspects of crop production.

I have to say, I'm all in favour of allotment gardening, albeit at the moment by other people; the parsnips we are getting from my father in law's allotment are fantastic. I think, though, that our vegetables have more to gain from Carol Klein's Grow Your Own Veg on BBC 2 on Friday evening than from mystical practices; although Prince Charles is a self confessed plant-whisperer - I wonder now that he has a large organic farm, whether he has to employ a team of people to talk to the crops? Carol Klein's programme is not only stuffed with down to earth gardening know-how, but is attractive to watch and has excellent music too. Yes, you can't beat watching other people doing back breaking work against the beautiful back drop of the Derbyshire countryside.

I do see the sense in stretching and warming up certain muscle groups before strenuous gardening, but yoga? it doesn't seem to fit here among the mud and compost. If you do want more information about the yoga of Veronica D'Orazio click here to go to the website of the Seattle centre at which she teaches. There you can view a video of the Samadhi Yogini Dance Group (don't ask because I didn't bother; but if you do, let me know what you think, I can always go back for a look!).

On the other hand if after bending and stretching a bit in your old clothes and cloth cap you fancy some vegetable gardening click here to visit the BBC pages that go with Carol Klein's show.