So, here we are: another new year and another attempt at blogging. I don’t know why I feel I never have time to keep up either this or my photoblog, but it seems that the more time I have the less time I feel I have to write. A strange conundrum.
Take this past 7 weeks. I had corrective surgery on my foot. I say ‘corrective surgery’ as it sounds somewhat less mundane than ‘I had surgery to sort out my bunion’. It’s like there is some sort of stigma attached to having a bunion. Plus, people tend to think ‘Oh is that all’, whereas in fact it is quite a big deal. Ok, it was done under local anaesthetic, but I have a 4 inch scar and a chunk of bone was cut out of my foot and the bones pinned and re-set. So after having that done I had to rest with my foot up a lot of the time. I should have had hours and hours on my hands. I had planned to read all sorts of things, play games on the Wii, watch films, and I had a major photographic project to scan my old negatives and slides. And, of course, I could have blogged about it. But in the end I did hardly any of that. I think part of the reason was that I found I was not happy just sitting about and being waited on, so I tried to do as much as possible for myself as soon as possible. And although I couldn’t walk the dogs (or, in fact, walk anywhere much at all) it was not long before I was back to doing the cooking and cleaning so that at least all that poor Chris had to do was walk the dogs numerous times per day (since Jez was on her normal walks whilst Max was on 3 short lead walks only) and occasionally nip to the shops for things like bread, milk and orange juice (I had previously stacked the freezer with leftover meals, chips and vegetables, and had a mountain of tinned and dried goods in the garage). In between all of this housework- type stuff I tackled the photo project, which took absolutely hours – far longer than I had ever imagined. I am still nowhere near finished, but I have made a good start, sufficient, in fact, to be able to give my Dad a couple of CDs of old photos for Christmas.
The other advantage of being laid up for the end of November and the first half of December was that I missed out on all the snow and ice. I couldn’t really go out at all for the first snowfall at the beginning of December as I still had to wear my orthopaedic sandal all the time, and no way was I going out in deep snow in an open-toed sandal. That said, of course, one of my appointments with the nurse was on 2nd December when it first snowed, and we had to go down into Poole, so I had no choice. I managed to avoid getting too wet my pretty much walking on my heel with my toes stuck in the air – not very elegant, but effective.
Initially, the snow itself was beautiful: crisp and even, if not deep. I can’t remember seeing it piled on the branches or leaves so much as it seemed to be this year. The black bamboo behind the pond was completely bent down, draping on the ice with the weight of the snow. The dogs loved it, although Max struggled as it turned to ice and kept falling over. I, meanwhile, was treated to silent movie displays of pure comedy as I watched Jez and Max racing down our ice-covered drive with Chris desperately clinging onto their leads, feet skidding around as he tried to stay upright whilst running to keep up with them and to keep upright.
The second batch of snow hung around for a lot longer, and it was this that provided the really icy paths. I went to Broadstone on Christmas Eve to pick up the meat from the butchers, and even though they had tried to grit the paths, the grit was lying on solid ice, and so it was still difficult to walk. It also meant that, although it didn’t snow on Christmas day, we had a white Christmas. I can’t remember the last time that happened.
Dad and Pat came over Christmas day. I cooked a small turkey crown and a large rib of pork on the bone for dinner. I thought it was going to be a disaster as I was following a Jamie Oliver recipe for slow-cooked pork which requires roasting for 6 hours, and after 5 hours my joint looked in danger of being well overcooked. So at that point I took it out of the oven and let it rest. Meanwhile I had only just put the turkey joint in! In the end all was well though, and everyone said it was the best Christmas dinner they could remember, which was gratifying.
So now it’s the New Year: I am back to walking the dogs most days and am full time of all other chores such as shopping, cooking, cleaning etc. The photo project is on hold for the time being, although I will need to pick it up again soon as I have all of the photos out of the loft and they are now cluttering up our guest room. And I feel I want to write. What I would actually like to do is write a book (quite a few people tell me I should having read my blogs), but if truth be told, much as I would like to I do not actually believe I am good enough. So my latest idea is that rather than dive in on any thoughts of a novel, I could set myself the task of regular blog writing, with a view to getting into the habit again, plus of trying to improve my writing skills, particularly in respect of descriptive prose. Time will tell how serious I really am about this, or the extent to which I will succeed.
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