Advent

Sarah has put up the Christmas tree, because it is the beginning of December. I can no longer avoid the fact that the festive season is upon us, as it is has been displayed in glorious technicolour only six feet away from the sofa – my one-time refuge. I had avoided the impending goodwill until now, principally as it is difficult to admire decorations whilst your eyes are glued to the floor so as to avoid plonking a crutch foot on an empty crisp packet or a dog poo. It is now, however, looming with the inevitability of a Sunday morning hangover. I hope I managed to feign enough interest in whether the baubles were pink or blue. I’m not sure I pulled it off though.

Sarah’s daughters decided to put on a Christmas show for us this afternoon. They had, at least, managed to programme a time that didn’t clash with my few glorious moments enjoying a reunion with the sofa and remote control in order to watch Salisbury play Forest in the FA cup. (If you’re desperate enough, anything will do…) In fact, they put on a pretty slick performance. That the show ended in a fair amount of recrimination and tears only added to the overall sense of professionalism. However, my favourite moment was still William’s brief intervention, when he waded in, hurled the baby doll over his shoulder, and declared, ‘Bye bye Jesus!’ That’s my boy. He is fast becoming my hero.

Apologies for the bah and humbug. I am generally quite a fan of Christmas, but it is a time of year that always seems to provide a natural target for hopes and ambitions. I had hoped that I would be walking again by the New Year, if only so that I could practice the all-important drunken stagger, but it is now clearly an unlikely aim. In fact, it is looking increasingly shaky that I will be able to manage the Gubbay Madam Butterfly that begins in February, as I am still likely to be pretty crutch dependent. All very frustrating. I’m putting the miles in, but the pain in my leg is holding me up, and reminding me that Mother nature will have her say. My one crutch technique – crutch down, heel, wince, toe – I’m sure isn’t quite how it appears in the textbooks. On top of which, I made the mistake of asking my physiotherapist if I could see my last set of X-rays. My assumption was that an improving leg would look less like a scattered jigsaw puzzle, and at least resemble a set of bones in straight lines. How wrong I was. It still looks like snapped celery – it’s just that there are slightly more cloudy bits in-between. I now look forward to my consultant’s appointment in a couple of week’s time. He has a much better line in placatory bullshit. In fact, the last time I saw him, he basically admitted that this was his technique. It does for me.

Enough moaning though. On the positive side, I tried an escalator the other day. Getting on it was a bit of a quiz. Getting off was not, but I did spend the whole upward journey fretting about whether or not I was going to be able to make it. More worrying was the piece of logic that I had managed to conjure up, suggesting that it was sensible to have my first attempt on a short escalator. It took me until some hours afterwards to realise just how bizarre a piece of logic this was. Perhaps a bit of boozy festive celebration is the answer. I think I have a few flabby grey cells to purge.