Sunday, December 26, 2010

So simple and so revolutionary

It occurred to me the other day that I could get around mum's house on the chair from the study. What a revelation.

Suddenly, I can move about easily. Brought it back home and I Can Do Things. It's brilliant. I started the dishwasher and brushed the small child's teeth for the first time in nearly a month (this does not mean that they hadn't been done, just that Himself had been getting her to do it and not to my entire satisfaction). I cooked dinner. It doesn't worry me when the small child wants something because I can do it, and easily. I can get drunk because piloting a chair is easier than crutches.  I don't have sore legs and I can get everywhere quickly. It has transformed life.

Yes, that IS a bloody large G&T on the table!

The small child has discovered the concept of "Chocolatey Hungry". I'm quite impressed that she asks about it "Mum, I'm a bit chocolately hungry". At her age, I wouldn't have asked, I'd have just eaten. And quickly. But she doesn't like strawberry milk. This is brilliant.  A treat, ie pink milk, a la Charlie & Lola, and she doesn't like it. So she doesn't have a sweet tooth. For this, may the Good Lord make me truly grateful.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Cast #4

So I've got the 4th cast so far in the illustrious career of bobthekelpie's right achilles tendon. It's the first full cast, and hopefully the last one I get. I am so seriously never, ever going to do this again.

George Michael's "Last Christmas" on the TV. How well I remember when that came out, 26 years ago, and every 13 year old girl in the western world was telling George that he could have her heart. OF course, at that point, we didn't realise that it was the fella's hearts he was really after!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

MacBook Air - Love at First Sight

Yes, I am a Mac lover, and I'm loving this MacBook Air.

It is small. It is compact. It is light. It does everything that I want it to do.

Which makes it a bit different to the small child. At the moment, I hear her whooping it up in her bedroom. She will in all probability have a large assortment of her furry friends on the bed, and will be inventing elaborate games to play in the dark with them. The other night, she had her doctors set in bed with her. How she got to sleep among all the various assorted bits of hard plastic I will never know.

Still, at least it's her own bed.

This, if nothing else, is something to be profoundly grateful for.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

And then there was Toast.

The Small Child is finally re-naming some of her dolls. Up till now, she has been fairly unadventurous in the naming stakes, going for endless variations of baby, babby, bubby etc with multiple dolls having the same name.

Today, we got something different. One doll has been renamed Toast, another Roast and the third has had a torrid time being variously Toosa, Toosla and now Toaster Roaster. No, I don't know where this has come from either. Just as she was going to bed, she decided that they were three baby Jesuses, recalling her show stopper at the creche Christmas show where she played "Jesus's mummy". I must say she did look rather adorable in the blue cape as shown in the mobile video Himself took of the event, myself being laid up with these wretched crutches.

Himself is somewhat perturbed by this infantile religious feeling. Growing up in Ireland, I suppose he has seen how the church gets a hold on children. I, on the other hand, have no fears, having grown up with my strongly atheist family. Given that the majority of his family is now leaning, at the very least to agnosticism also, I can't see that there is much to worry about.

She now want to know if she can sleep in the bathroom, having taken a scunner to her bedroom. For preference she would sleep with us, but this is not on. I have to get nookie sometimes and I'm not doing it with an audience.

Friday, December 17, 2010

I'm sick of these crutches.

REALLY sick of them. And the buggers have only been on for 2 weeks. Another 4 to go. Not a lot of Christmas joy here this year. But at least I now have a lifetime supply of panadeine forte. Gotta love that stuff.

On the positive side, I actually got to go in to see Charlie & Lola today, thanks to the staff at the Opera House, who not only provided a free wheelchair but also a different seat so that I wouldn't have to exhibit my undoubted inefficiency with said crutches. It has made my week. which my week needed.

Small child has been going overboard on the hair twirling and I am starting to wonder if I will have any left by the new year. Hair, that is. I should have the small child. I have now watched Dora's Christmas extravaganza a good half dozen times over the last 36 hours. I'm a little over it. Yes, this is an understatement.

Himself received a yodelling goat at the work Christmas Party. He thought it was great. Mind you he hasn't had to listen to Dora in one ear and a plush goat singing "High on a hill lived a lonely goatherd" in the other, as the small child quickly learnt to manipulate its mouth.

I wonder if the knowledge that the song is from The Sound of Music will diminish his ardour. Must find out. He is turning out to be like his father in ways I never knew. Much as I love Buzz, this nascient love of musical toys is disturbing.....

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Because background can be important.... here's where it all started

6 December 2010 - And the Twit of the Year 2010 goes to............... BOBTHEKELPEEEEEEEEEE!
Yes. Because I was at my work Christmas party on Saturday night. Having a bit of a boogie with my mates. I was outside a decent dinner, a reasonable amount of champagne and a less amount of G&T. Good fun was being had. The very high shoes I was wearing weren't hurting as much as I thought they would, and I hadn't tripped and sprained my ankle. All was well.

Until........

I was dancing. Barefoot. Sedately. I'd already shown all the younger kids my killer moves from 1992, to riotous applause, and I'd acquitted myself well during Nutbush City Limits.

Then disaster struck. I heard a crack, and suddenly realised I couldn't walk. This was not good, not good at all. A friend grabbed some ice, another grabbed a medicinal G&T and a third rescued my shoes and offered to drive me home. It occurred to me that A&E might be a more appropriate place to go. So there we went.

I was quite thankful that Mona Vale is not a happening place at night, as I got seen quickly, and the A&E did not have the rivers of blood and riotous drunks I had been lead to expect. The doctor diagnosed that I'd done something to my achilles tendon and put my leg in a cast.  I hobbled back to the car with some antiquated crutches and spent all Sunday in bed, because crutches and me don't go together too well. Today I spent most of the day back at the hospital, getting x-rays and ultrasound to confirm what I already knew. I also got another cast put on.

Of course, it was my right leg, so I can't drive. On the positive side, at least Paul and my mum can cover getting Gemma to and from daycare. But the new cast is not nearly so comfortable as the old cast, and Paul has already practiced rudimentary doctoring by cutting away a chunk of the top so I can bend my leg.

I can't get up the stairs at the front of the house, so I'm effectively housebound. When I got home today, I had to go round the back of the house, assisted by Paul and our 86 year old neighbour. And to top it all off, Paul is at the pub with his cousin, and I'm trying, unsuccessfully, to get Gemma to sleep.

I tell you, Santa had bloody well better get me that MacBook Air I want from Christmas this year!!!


10 December 2010 Being the further adventures of bobthekelpie's achilles tendon....
So I spent the afternoon at the Fracture Clinic of Mona Vale Hospital, sitting in a wheelchair and looking enviously at those who appear to know what to do with crutches. I was in a wheelchair, courtesy of A&E.

And it turns out that I had two options:

a) get surgery and have a cast for 6 weeks or

b) not get surgery, be in a cast for 8 weeks, and have a weakened tendon to which the same accident could occur again.

It does not take any great depth of intelligence to realise that I went for option a.

So I will be having surgery tomorrow morning, hopefully going home tomorrow afternoon, although they could keep me in overnight. If they do keep me in overnight, I sincerely hope that there will be no dementia pensioners trying to gets their keks off in the middle of the ward, while simultaneously taking on the security guards, as happened at my last fun filled stay in Mona Vale when I got cellulitis following an appendectomy. I also hope that I get one of the wards with the beautiful views over Mona Vale Beach and the Pacific, rather than the ones that face the somewhat less alluring prospect of 6 lanes of Pittwater Road. However, only time will tell.

And the MacBook Air will most definitely be arriving as an early present from Santa.

I have gently suggested that a bottle of gin would be an appropriate accompaniment.....