Tuesday 10th March, 2015                  1900

Yesterday was supposed to be a simple trip to town for breakfast with Ollivier but on noticing the currency exchange rate for yuan against the euro, Coco decided she wanted to carry out a transaction at the Bank of China. She has an online shop which doubtless makes six times the profit that I earn as my salary and I believe their ultimate aim in life is to perhaps open a physical shop in France where they can spend the rest of their days eating garlic, cheese and crusty bread, washed down with vin rouge. I am guessing monies were being deposited in a French account to that end.

So it ended with me being dropped off at McDonald’s while they went to the bank and I enjoyed a solitary meal and over an hour of my own company. After the previous day’s exertions I really didn’t want to do anything strenuous so when they came back, apart from Coco taking another 400y to the vet (the prison bill is now up to date until Sunday) we came back but stopped off at the local barber where I had a much needed number one. My pies arrived and so in the evening Anna and I had one apiece for dinner. The kidney beans arrived today. Mulan also very kindly changed my bedding so I had a nice clean bunk to climb into.

I had absolutely no intention of doing anything today, preferring instead to rest my limb in readiness for the arduous ordeal starting with first class tomorrow. No alarm set, I was quite ready to sleep as long as I could.

My leg on the other hand had different ideas. I scarcely managed four hours before the pain forced me to get up before seven. I simply could not find any position which was comfortable. This depressed me somewhat as tomorrow it will have been three weeks and still there is precious little evidence I am getting better. I started reading up on the internet about my type of injury. Yes I know it can be a dangerous thing to do but I like to think I can usually separate the wheat from the chaff and the overriding impression I got was that this bloody thing may well take months to heal. Perversely, it cheered me up slightly, it is not an aberration and quite possibly the pain in the morning was all part of the process. Just as long as there is no repeat tonight.

I did indeed spend a quiet day although Joan came at five to help cook. I came up with the bright idea of getting the electric hob put on a chair in the bedroom so I could cook while she did the chopping, fetching and carrying. It worked a treat, for we ate royally on chilli mince and potatoes and I am now set up for tomorrow’s mountaineering. And I have eaten proper food.

I could have taken a nap this afternoon but didn’t so will probably retire early this evening. Thanks to iPlayer I have three hours of Wallander if I so desire along with a couple of films I can watch.

In theory my cast should come off a week from tomorrow, something I will do myself, but having inspected my toes and finding them still black and blue and having a calf twice the size of the other, if nothing changes it may not be the most prudent thing to do. We shall see. Even if I do remove it the main problem will still be there, the only difference would be that I can have a shoe and sock on the left as well as the right.