Escape

I am becoming at one with The History Channel. It is the only place where the inveterate (should that be invertebrate) sofa dweller can always find something to watch that at least isn't full of hysterical D-list celebrities. It is also a useful tool when it comes to frightening away children. Nothing shifts a chattering 10-year old girl faster than the prospect of being stuck in a room with a documentary about tank tactics in Normandy. Which is why I had it on yesterday, and was enjoying a film about the true life 'great escape'. Highly appropriate, as yesterday afternoon was the first time I had got away from the house in three months, other than a trip to the hospital, and a weekend at William's hospice.

Hurrah for my friends, who realise that a large part of the healing process is remembering what it is to widen your frame of reference beyond the daytime television schedule and the far reaches of the Ebay universe. And I was just beginning to really settle in!

A top evening. I remembered why I love my job, and my colleagues. And I was pleased to note that the gossip had failed to move on at all in my absence - merely grown in intensity. I was proud of myself for hobbling 500yds to the tram stop. I managed to cope with the ignominy of the Croydon shopping community failing to disguise their staring at my leg. I was very good. I had two early Guinesses (Guini?), then I drank Coke. I shared my chocolate. I was insanely polite to the random drunk punter in the pub who wanted to know what had happened to me, then used this as a pretext to bore us all with some of the most laboured humour I'e ever endured. Then we left the pub, I slipped on the wet pavement, and fell on my arse. Very painful - quite scary, and generally extremely embarrassing. Is somebody trying to tell me something, I wonder? The last time I left a pub, look what happened. I got away with it. I did have to make an early escape in a cab, and my leg's still sore, but not sore enough to suggest I've done myself any significant damage. And it was worth it. Even, believe it or not, for a night out in Croydon.