An Update

Life improves, and - although I am so behind with everything that it's hard to tell - things are clearly much easier than they were six months ago. Husband's leg is very much better. He is walking (albeit still with a limp), and continuing to make gradual progress. The small boy has started at his sisters' school, which has had a very positive effect on all our lives. I have work coming out of my ears (which is a very good thing, and I am not complaining...).

I am heading to Scotland next month for a chunk of respite care in the arms of my beloved mountains - I wasn't planning to take the laptop, but am tempted to try writing something; I have not written a word since January, which saddens me, as my head is bursting with stories of many kinds. I am struggling a bit with my OU course (it always comes bottom of the list), but loving it when I can settle to a few hours of linear recurrence series and the like ;o) On the flip side, the smaller girl has broken her arm (less said about that the better!), and I injured my eye last week - but we are both healing well!

Looking forward to a better year :o)

Where was I?

He phoned just before 4pm.
"I've crashed, " he said.

Being married to a man who loves his sports cars (not to mention the motorbikes) means that I've been expecting this call for nearly seventeen years. When it finally came, I was grateful he'd phoned me himself, having hung up on the emergency services lest they get to me first.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"I'm fine," he replied, "but I think I've hurt my foot."
I had a little panic then: this is a man who could slice off his finger and mention only a small cut.
"What sort of hurt-your-foot," I asked.
"It hurts when I move it, and I'm stuck."
Poor lamb. He was stuck in the wreckage for over an hour while they searched for him (he didn't know exactly where he was, and his satnav had been flung out by the force of the impact). Eventually, he was spotted by a kindly farmer, bumbling along on his tractor, who noticed something unusual sticking out of the hedge...

Altogether, he broke three bones; one of them in four places, and the 'hurt foot' required a major reconstruction of his lower left leg. Three months, and three operations later (so far), it remains encased in a steel frame (with all kinds of exciting bits to twiddle). He doesn't get much pain now, he says, and has stopped swearing at his leg, but I can tell you he swears a lot at his crutches instead.

Now he's past the seriously-injured stage (sleeps well, can stay awake all day, isn't popping pills every hour), he's reached the frustration stage. He thinks he's better (which is laughable), and being a man, he's trying to get on with Normal Life. Only he can't. Not even nearly. Hence the swearing. This is at least as hard to live with as having a fragile, bed-bound, smashed-up invalid in the house.

He's getting better. Not day-to-day, or even week-to-week, but if we look back a month, he's much better than he was. Eighteen months, the consultant said, and we've done two of them already.

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These people have made it all possible: the Brighton Orthopaedic Trauma Team, who are talented and lovely with it; Queenie, who thinks she's neglected me, but has just been wonderful; Jane and Angie who have picked up so many pieces I've lost count; my dad, who paid for a cleaning fairy; and my kids, who stepped up to the mark when I needed them to.

Is it Me, or the Rest of the World?

I am less grumpy now, but it's taken a while. I don't believe in writing things down during a serious grump, because then the grump's there forever, and it looks like you're a grumpy person. And I'm not. Much.

I've forgotten the more trivial things now, which is good, but others still stick in my side:

• The teenage staff in the Ptarmigan Restaurant who were rude and surly - when they work in one of the most beautiful places on the planet. I might be getting old, but when I make a justified remark (politely) about the disappearance of the children's play area, I don't expect the staff member to say, "Well it's not my fault." And then turn to his (teenage) colleague, and say, "It's not my fault, is it?" And snigger.

• The woman who told me on the phone, "Oh yes, our climbing tower is suitable for little ones. My 18-month nephew goes on it all the time." So, we went, having spent considerable time and effort locating a climbing venue that would let the Smaller Girl (three and a half) have a go. And when I got there? They said the Smaller Girl was too young, the helmet wouldn't fit (it did), she would be scared (she wasn't), she wouldn't be able to reach (she could). After a fight (I was cross), they let her go, and she waved delightedly to me from ten feet up. She loved it.

• The People's Friend, that last bastion of old-fashioned values, has stopped sending out complimentary copies to authors, citing "rising postal costs and the current difficult economic conditions." Sure, I can see that 81p, is really hard to find when you have a circulation of three hundred thousand. In addition, they didn't tell me my story (published on the 21st August) was out until the 23rd (at which time I was in remotest Scotland, with no newsagents to hand), and by the time I returned to civilisation (on the 25th), the next issue (dated the 28th) had replaced mine.

• Some yobbo threw a rock at my windscreen (mercifully not breaking it), and yet it would have been wrong for me to take a hiking pole and beat him round the head. The police came. Looked bored. Was I wasting their time? Should rock-throwing fuckwits go unreported?

And there is one other thing I'm grumpy about: the fear that I'm getting old and grumpy. I'm not a luddite. I can change. I embrace change; but I'm tired of falling standards, and seeing good services - that cost nothing - replaced with bad services, or none at all. Above all else, I'm tired of lethargy and rudeness, and grumpiness.

Reasons to Lounge About on the Sofa, no.32

As I lie here, on my sofa, cup of tea in hand, laptop on lap, sun shining through the window, and the smaller girl playing happily beside me, you'd think life couldn't get much better. Then you might notice the long metal things beside me... So, Leigh, exactly why are you lying around on a Monday morning, when your house craves attention? Eh?

Ahem. Quick change of subject.

Walking in the mountains is potentially dangerous: a slip could mean death - not because of cliff edges, necessarily, or anything dramatic like that - but because a twisted ankle will leave you lying around, cold and probably wet, for a long time waiting to be rescued, or even to summon help. People die of hypothermia in the Scottish mountains in June. Now, I've been mocked for all the kit I carry - enough to survive immobility for 24h in freezing conditions (i.e. all year round in the Cairngorms) - but I carry it nonetheless. Peace of mind, and all that.

So, it's comical (not to mention embarrassing) that it was a two-foot high bank in the garden that proved my downfall. Thirty seconds after warning the smaller girl to take care in the frost I slipped, and one God-almighty crack later, down I went. And not a Kendal Mint Cake in sight.

Nothing broken though, just ligament damage, and I hope to be off the crutches within a couple of weeks.

Have you ever done anything as dumb?

The Gold Star Award goes to the Smaller Girl (who'll be three tomorrow) who fetched: the telephone to summon help; hiking poles to get me into the house; frozen sweetcorn to put on the swelling; iPod for going to hospital; and unlocked the door when help arrived. She stopped several times to have a little wail, and point out interesting aeroplanes, but I'd have been lost without her.