The invalide's first week

Soon after I last posted my knee started really bothering me. I was concerned that it has not seen a doctor yet and convinced Roy to accompany me to the Accident & Emergency Hospital not too far from the flat. It was a £3 taxi fare both ways, so it wasn't going to break the bank, so we got going.  The last time I was there was over 3 years ago when I fell down the stairs.  The experience I had then was fairly positive: I was seen quickly, efficiently and the diagnosis was quick too, so I had no fears. The hospital repeated its last performance, even though the lobby was full of people in various states of distress. Dr. Vegh was an absolute sweetie, treated me like an equal (very rare nowadays), quickly and with good humour engaged me in conversation and told me what's what. The X-ray showed no cracks and/or breaks, although it was very puffed up all round. He told me to ice it as much as I can and that I could walk on it to the limit of pain - whatever that meant. I also had to buy a knee brace, which even on the National Health cost £20, but he said it was important.

The A&E Hospital

At home we discovered that I got the wrong type of brace, so we had to go back to get another one, but that is now fine. It wasn't until a couple of days later that the most horrible black and blue marks started appearing around my knee, but more about that later.

The swelling and the start of the bruises

We had to cancel our dental appointments on Wednesday, which is a pain, but we rescheduled them for mid-September, hopefully nothing will hurt until then. Early evening Zsuzsi appeared with her pendrive and copied the photos from the last three hikes/holidays we had together. And then just after 7pm our Belgian friends, Erik and Eva arrived. I always liked Erik, but it didn't take too long to grow fond of his girlfriend, Eva either. Lovely couple, so nice, interesting and chatty, they were a delight. We had thrown a salad tea together in the evening, so that we could stay in.  I didn't feel like going anywhere with my gammy leg.

The following day Eva and Erik went to Eger by train, as they were not only on holiday, but on a wine tour of their own making. When they got back in the evening, they reported that Eger was lovely, they went to the thermal baths, walked about in town and found a winery or two as well.

One of my new roses in full bloom on our arrival home

It was on this day that a few nasty looking dark marks have appeared around my knee, but I didn't take much notice of them. They didn't look too bad on the first day, but later on the week they started looking pretty frightening.  They covered an enormous area around my right knee and went from pale blue to dark blue and then black. The knee didn't hurt any more than before, but it was worrying. I started suspecting that my blood thinner medicine might be the cause of its large extent and ever increasing volume. A friend on FB, who seemed quite knowledgeable about these things, suggested that perhaps I could temporarily half my blood thinner dosage, but I wasn't going to do it without a doctor agreeing to that.  I tried to ring my cardiologist, but he was apparently on holiday, so we just carried on.

On Friday Eva and Erik have departed for the Island Festival and we left for Ber. We did some shopping en route and arrived in good time. The roses were in glorious full bloom in the yard and the rest of the garden looked totally covered by fallen plums, as we managed to be away the 10 days they were almost all due to fall off. In some places the grass had grown quite a lot, so extracting half rotten plums from overgrown grass was not exactly easy and/or enjoyable.  Still, we set ourselves the target this year to pick absolutely everything possible in the garden, so we should not have to buy any fruit for the first time ever. I am happy to report that our target was achieved, although that happened a good few days later.

Picking plums sitting on the ground

I also had a moving cache to place at the Mill, which I brought from the Orseg and which finally was done on Saturday by placing it under the same rock where I put another moving cache some months ago. This one has the theme of mills, so the placing is totally justified. Saturday also had a lovely, if not too long, Skype call from my two little Hassocks monsters. Elian and Xander were playing on the floor, trying to put together a puzzle. They are seriously cute, as always, and I even love Xander's lisp. It multiplies his cute factor 10fold.

Roy mashing the cefre

On Sunday morning I had a telephone call from a cacher asking for help in finding the box up at Viragos, which is the third part of my multi around the village and Viragos. I was up there a few months ago replacing the top of the box, which was broken and it was then that I found the interesting and somewhat puzzling fact that my box was not where I originaly placed it.  What was really puzzling that not only the place has changed, but so have been the co-ordinates. I couldn't understand how, but since then I realised that whoever it was must have been a member of the leadership of the club, because the executive has unfettered access to the entire website, even cache pages and personal pages. Anyway, I thought, that if the box is gone I might as well replace it and find another hide for it, so Roy and I jumped into the car and drove up there to see what's what.  Thus we met a nice couple, with whom we tried to find the old box, but it was obviously gone.  The tree trunk it was in seemed to have fallen apart, only bits of it were left, so the box must have been taken as well.  Together we found a new place for it and let us hope this one lasts a bit longer than a few months, otherwise this cache will end up being rather expensive in replacement boxes.

Xander the cutipie

The couple didn't know about the moving cache, so I told them about it and they went back to get that as well.  Since then there have been quite a few people at the Mill, looking for and finding the permanent cache, but none of them looked for and/or found the moving one.  That makes me think that I am not the only silly twit forgetting to check for nearby moving caches when I go geocaching in the countryside.

Cheeky little Elian

We also had a quick, but lovely Skype call from Toronto on Sunday afternoon as well  This Sunday Callum turned 7 and he was on his way to a smashing party at the Aquarium with 11 friends. That must have been a bit of a job for the adults, but judging by the photos on FB they had an amazing time.

Callum the birthday boy

And then yesterday was yet again an eventful day. The black bruises were taking over the entire leg, so I got a bit worried. I decided to get back into town and try to see the A&E doctor, whom otherwise I was only due to see the following Monday.  This time we had to go to the other side of the hospital, which is like an outpatient clinic and there the waits are always hideously long. Still, as I knew that, I took a book and happily read it for about a couple of hours before I was seen. He was just as lovely as last week, assured me that there is no need to worry about the bruises, they are fairly common and that I was right in suspecting that my blood thinner is reponsible for their extent and slow disappearance. He was of the opinion, that while halving the blood thinner dose would help them go sooner, the risk that would represent to me was not worth taking.  So, I am going to have these horrible marks on me for weeks, possible months, which is not fun. Still, as long as they are not harmful, I don't care.

Once we finished in the hospital we quickly got back to the car where we found a parking ticket on the windscreen. Bloody annoying when we both looked everywhere for any signs for the need to pay, either in the form of a traffic sign, mark on the tarmac or the existence of machines where to buy the permit.  We found nothing, so we assumed it was free.  There went another £10, but Roy said it was only about £4, because the taxi would have cost £6, so there was no need to get annoyed. I have long ago given up getting worked up about stuff like this or fighting my case about it, as life is too short to ruin your day because of stupid people or systems.

My brand new Boscobak pear tree

We hurried back to Ber, as in the late afternoon we were expecting the chief mapper of my orienteering club, as he is doing a lot of mapping work close to us in readiness for an event in October. We offered him the Kottage, so that he doesn't have to go home every night, which is a round trip of about 125 miles. He rang that he was running late, so he'll come this morning which he did with his brother who is helping him. We are also expecting another visitor, Felicia, this afternoon, who is Austrian and whom I met at a conference last summer. She is coming over for a few days, I hope she won't mind that I am not too mobile.

Roy is still picking plums as they are still dropping off the trees, but in much smaller numbers now. The four big cefre barrels are full, so we won't have to buy any fruit, but the few that are dropping now will still fit in. Currently he is mowing the grass around me, which is rather noisy, but provides me with company. You may have deduced from this that I am in the garden. The laptop is on the table in the pavilion which is just close enough to the house for the WiFi to reach this far. Why didn't I think of this sooner I'll never know.

A heavily laden plum tree

Bye to you all for now, my next post will probably wing its way to you this time next week,