where's tha' bin?

 Where's tha bin?

Scotland, mate!

No, where's tha wheelie bin?

I wheelie bin to Scotland, mate!

We had a pretty good week last week......

Went to a village called Crossmichael on the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomond Ken.

Lock Ken does not have such a romantic sounding name as the other lochs, like Ness, Lomond, Fyne.....  Nope, Ken is kinda like the third member of that popular pop music combo Bros.

Anyway.....

We stayed in a lovely house called Waterfall, which you can view/book here, and i'd highly recommend it..... it was vastly under-priced in my opinion, and the luxurious welcome hamper was gratefully received, and promptly scoffed.  The delightful owners, Anna and Eric, live just across the lane and were a pleasure to deal with.

Walking is still quite difficult and challenging..... i mean i can walk, but it's the distances and the uneven terrain, hell, even a dropped kerb on a pavement is quite tricky for my weak foot and ankle.  We did, however, manage to get into a couple of lochs for a swim.... in fact we swam four days out of the seven.  Swimming was good, the water was cool, the sky was blue..... and dragging a weak leg around would be akin to trying to carry a dead body out into the middle of the ocean for disposal..... speaking entirely not from experience of course!

Anyway....

Here's a photo of a loch.... Ken, in this instance..... pissing about with the dog (or "dug" if you come fae Scotland, pal) after we'd just swum here.

it could be so fine

 So here we are on day one of our vacances....

No clues yet as to where we are or for he burglars reading this, how long we're away for..... let's work with the premise that i'll be home within the hour?

We arrived through torrential rain on the motorway..... 

Lovely place, out in the sticks, where you can get one bar of mobile reception if you stand on your head in the bath and wrap tin foil round your toes.

Not much to report, other than we fricking love this place!!  The house we've rented is a converted watermill and it's bloody lovely.... the owners are lovely.... the welcome basket is lovely..... the whisky with tasting notes, the glass decanter with hallmarked silver fittings is lovely......

We're staying.... possession is nine tenths of the law.... they'll have to prize me out of here!!

The dog likes it too:

paws

 They say it never rains, but it pours.

I guess this is synonymous with the concept of waiting for a bus and two arriving at the same time.

We can't just have, i don't know, a bit of rain here and there.... we have to have the whole year's rain chucked on top of us in the space of two days?

It is, as i write this, undeniably raining.  While i can't physically see the rain falling from the sky from my platform here at base camp (the sofa) from whence i've launched multiple sorties to the kitchen and beyond over the last three-and-a-half-months.  There is water everywhere......

I can see the window panes festooned with aqueous globules that conglomerate and streak, in their headlong race to meet the sill.

I can hear the road outside.... it makes a different noise when wet, as the traffic hisses along, slushy white noise, rising and falling with each passing tyre.

I can hear the odd tippy-tappy of rain drops dripping from bushes, gutters, shed rooves.

In the distance i can hear the metallic ringing of rain drops falling on the cowl atop the extractor fan vent in the bathroom.

To say it's wet, is a mild understatement.

To say this is the first time that local reservoir levels have risen since January, is a fact!

I guess there is a god, and i guess my prayer was answered..... Dear god, please let it rain on Donald Trump's parade!

Well, here's a photo of a sodden looking view from the crow's nest here at base camp.

fug it!

 My bad.....

Attention span.... wait, a shiny penny...... raining again...... wonder if the chickens are in or out...... ooh, Pikachu...... 

The random thoughts that pass through my head as i type the first line of a new blog entry..... mostly about my wandering mind.

To couple with my wandering mind, i seem to have, for the moment at least, one and a half wandering legs, too!

I'm sort of mobile.... i've managed to walk around the "block" without the aid of crutches, and i spend a good portion of the day (against doctor's orders) without the knee brace clamped around my withering leg.

Surprisingly, the majority of pain and restriction i feel when trying to be ambulant, comes from the foot and ankle of the damaged leg.  I imagine this is purely from the lack of exercise those muscles, bones, joints have experienced over the last..... yes, fourteen weeks!!

I have three physio exercises to undertake, every other day..... and although they might seem gentle, like standing on tippy-toes.... i can assure you that they are indeed challenging.... and accompanied with much crunching and grinding in my now arthritic knee joint, make for a decent mountain to summit.

Apart from that....

I've been fishing for a couple of days..... which was great.... to be outdoors...... relaxing.....  meditation.

My birthday week next week, and we've a trip organised to Loch Ken, where i will, hopefully, spend some time in water.... either a loch or the sea, i care not which..... but it will be a test of my boundaries.  Swimming is good for the leg i presume?

In other news.... when someone knocks at the front door, i can now get there before they are a hundred yards down the road, thinking there's nobody home!

This morning i found a mushroom/fungus on the lawn that i will endeavour to identify..... i suspect the membrane on top has disappeared, hence the strange appearance (looks upside down with gills on top), but let's see..... anyways, here it is:

Possibly a Pleated Inkcap and quite a rarity..... how lovely!!

full time job

 I always tell people, it's a full time job being me, and lately it very much feels like it.....  i don't know how i ever fit(ted) work into my days.....

I've lost count of the number of television-free days that i have clocked up, through no particular effort on my part, other than the fact that i seem to be busy.... which of course means, i am the master of procrastination.

I can make minutes become hours, days, months......  and of course my propensity for occupying myself with a raft of mundane mind gymnastics, is probably how i've kept myself sane for the last.... oh, what is it now?  Yes, thirteen weeks..... just two days short of, but i've been nursing my leg/knee for almost an unlucky number of weeks.

Yesterday, a milestone, of sorts.... physio at the hospital......  i decided to brave it with the use of only one crutch to help me limp along the maze of corridors at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, or HRI to give it the colloquial nomenclature.

It's served us well over the years, and i've been there for births, deaths, and everything inbetween......  There are new bits of it, old, tired bits, a bustling cafe area, a pharmacy, and the always-busy accident and emergency.....

So, i met Richard, in room three..... we talked a bit..... he looked at my leg..... noted how far it bends..... what i can and can't do.... made some notes..... showed me a few exercises.... printed me a sheet out..... and before you know it, i was back home.....

My leg was a bit tired yesterday 'cos presumably we'd hit the limits of what i'd dare do to it without supervision.....  it strikes me the physio is as much about giving you the confidence to bend, stretch, push, pull, as much as you need to in order to reach the next phase, stage, level.

I've done the exercises today, and the legs does actually feel better for it.  I'm not saying it bends more today than it did yesterday, or more importantly hyperextends more than the day before, but it feels more.... no it feels "less" fragile and immobile....

That's a fair summary.

Big step for a bloke, baby step for a fox.

This is my dog relaxing on the sofa, knowing that i only stood up five seconds ago, and her response is "well, you weren't using it so....."

snoozin'

 I'm still here.... hobbling round.... sometimes with sticks, sometimes without.....

Often up, occasionally down.... but always, around!

Just busy with a myriad of games that i am playing and they are really helping to pass the time..... i am managing to go..... days.... and days.... without even turning the telly on.

First session of physio at the hospital tomorrow... let's see what happens....

Here's a video of my dog, dreaming.....she even does one of them things where you fall down a step or off a kerb in your dream....