The education aspects of injury. And carthorse-ankles.

This has been an educational week.

Now, I'm not pleading for sympathy or anything, but this was the week of the Injured Ankle.

Exhibit one

It's not even that bad, just some kind of tendon thingie, not broken, not sprained, just painful to walk on.  And yes, that is my very own foot there, in that fetching support bandage, I did not employ a stunt-foot just for the photo-shoot.

And why, I hear you cry, as you rush about trying to send me consoling boxes of chocolates and soothing ice packs, was this educational?  Well, my little hootaninnies, the educational aspect came in the way that an injury slows you down and makes you consider how lucky you are to be able of body and sound in wind and limb.  That latter statement generally applies to horses, but could, of course, be used to describe a tree, I suppose. Anyway. Generally I am very sound in wind (often a kind of trumpeting, but let us pass swiftly by that topic) and my limbs bear up very well under the duress of having to lug my carcass at speed around the countryside and I tend to consider this state of affairs to be ongoing and normal.

But this foot problem has acted upon me much as, I imagine, would stapling me to the floor.

 And don't think people haven't tried, I get uneasy at the sound of the wall stapler in action at work...

I can't run. I can't hop either, but since hopping isn't something I am called upon to do on a daily basis (thank goodness I didn't take that job at the Hop Skip and Jump centre all those years ago...), it's mostly the ability to move at speed that I am missing.

Now, in my current WIP, entitled 'Crush' if we are being formal about it, or 'the one with the bloke with the birds of prey, and the teashop' if we're not, my main character, Amy, lives with her grandmother.  Her grandmother is...eccentric, shall we say.  Not zany-eccentric, matchmaking her with blatantly unsuitable males or talking loudly about her sex-life at inopportune moments, as tends woefully to be the way of the elderly in many forms of fiction. No, this grandmother mostly just accuses Amy of having visitors in the house when she's out (the grandmother, not Amy, it would be hard to have visitors when you weren't actually present), and messing about with the teaspoons. But she is also physically restricted in her movements, because of being nearly eighty.

My injured ankle has given me a valuable insight into what it's like to REALLY not be able to climb stairs at speed, and to take most of the best part of an afternoon to get from one end of a corridor to another.  Honestly, whilst walking to the far end of the garden I've had to have a sit down and tea and biscuits to give me the energy!  And also a knowledge of the frustration involved in knowing that you can't do those things you should be able to do without a five minute preparation time and a run-up.  Also having to wear a sincerely and deeply unflattering leg-sock, which gives me the ankle of a carthorse.

Compare and contrast...