I’ve been walking on crutches quite a lot this week. I am up to 50 lengths of the hall today, plus I walked down to the bottom of the drive and back. This is more of an achievement than it sounds, as it is 72m long and on a steepish hill. This time last week […]

A 5kg barbell or Amber? Actually we think she is heavier than it is. I wanted to give her the name Blump (from black lump), but Rory wouldn’t hear of it. Also it may be racist and get me reported to the Thought Police.

Nice day today, so I went outside walking on my crutches to sit on the patio with R for half an hour – it was 24 degrees in the sun and both of the cats went off to hide in the shade. I’d no difficulty walking up and down the steps. I do have a […]

This is the best time of year for bats. We have many bats around here – I think they are pipistrelles and they roost in a large house just over the river from us. At twilight and dusk you can see them largely from the front of the house flitting around looking for insects. R […]

I was a bit wobbly walking when I first started weight bearing on the crutches, but I am getting a lot better now. Although I am still using the wheelchair for doing my general chores around the house, I am doing two or three walks up and down the hall each day now. I started […]

There can’t be many people who wake up to a view like this. My temporary bed in my office faces french windows which look out over Beinn Bheula. At this time of year, dawn breaks very early and lying awake on my fevered bed of pain (this is a joke btw – I’m not in […]

My Mum is 85 years old today. R and I went to see her – I am now hobbling along on crutches, trying my best not to put more than 50% weight on my healing foot. I managed the three steps up to her front door with no problems. We had wild mushroom soup, luxury […]

This morning R went to put seeds out for the wildlife and discovered that a squirrel had managed to get itself locked into the shed. He opened the window and it exited rapidly. Lucky was lurking outside and made a play for it – but it was too fast for him and got away into […]

I saw the nurse at Ross Hall today and had my stiches removed. There was what seemed like yards of gauze soaked in dried on blood around my foot, but once she had peeled everything off it was fine, with the wounds themselves largely healed. My ankle and foot seem a great deal straighter than […]

R had to go away for a conference overnight last night.  The dates have really worked out very badly with my operation because he had all this booked in advance.  But because we were just presented with a fait accompli for the operation dates, not only did I have to cope with the pre-op and […]