Blonde Moments..

I cancelled my hair appointment today.
I can feel the reverberations of concern as I write. You are beginning to worry that this amateurish diarist, self-styled blogger is scooping the detritus (Gotcha! you thought I was going to say poop..) of daily drearisome detail.
Well, no. This is indeed a Significant Moment.
Not because  my nicely-healing bunion wound has suddenly developed stigmata.
But rather that I have almost decided to go blonde. Can you believe it?
No? Well, I do understand I am dropping a blonde bombshell here.

You alone are privy to my intent, so this is indeed headline news. So Mum's the word and all that.
You're asking me, naturally, why the cancelled appointment?
Cold feet, darlings ( that not even these glorious sheepskin mules can warm). Bit nervous.

Just supposing Dearest, in the somewhat unlikely event, decided to do the same thing? (Spooky or what? Bear with...) And he didn't give me any warning.. Turns up one day wearing that nice tartan scarf I bought him for Christmas (yes, and the rest of his normal clothes, I didn't mean he was just wearing the tartan scarf.. Really, you are sticklers for detail.) and bright blond, looking a dead ringer for Rod Stewart. He's never recovered from being told by his school choirmaster that he had a voice like "crackling cornflakes" so blow me down, he'd be the real deal. Where would that leave me?
Well, I'd be flabbergasted that's what.  But we all know, this is purely unfettered imagination, and it is not what's holding me back.
I have for a while been contemplating going red, or brunette as we  used to say back in the day
(when some of us also referred to kitchenettes) but think that emergent grey roots would be a tiresome distraction now that I am retired and have time enough to be bothered by such close attention to detail.
So blonde it has to be... like Boris or Donald? Isn't it fascinating that Boris Johnson, Mayor of London or Donald Trump campaigning for the Republican nomination are both sporting unabashed dyed blonde hair? No, don't try telling me it's natural- in either case.
Supposing I ended up looking like Boris or Donald? Not a good look. I have to confess it's slowing me down.
I want to be bold, try something different (my lovely late mother is whispering in my ear: how about Italian lessons?). It will be a sociological experiment at best : will I get served faster at the bar because I am blonde? I would, of course, have to start going to pubs to try this one out. Or would it be, at worst, a temporary, easily remediable (expensive) fiasco?
My fear is that when I sit down in two weeks time and speak to my Colour technician in the salon mirror, I will say,
"A pint of the usual brown, Jodie", and my hair will remain its ultra natural colour of brown ale with leetle gold highlights...

Tiptoeing through the Tulips (Footnote 2)

Still Life?

The evenings are getting longer.
Spring is in the air. Lambs are gambolling and I stood on tip toes today. And nothing happened, except I was one and a half inches taller. Naturally, I did not remain on tip toes all day trying to convince people that I had lost 7lbs in weight, applying the I-am-not-overweight-merely-undertall rule. But it did excite me, nevertheless.
Having discovered I could do it earlier on my own, I later paraded my most recently acquired skill in front of Dearest who bless him, lowered the newspaper when I said,
"Look at me, look at me.."
and with what seemed to be a long suffering sigh returned to the paper, saying,
"Thank God, normality at last."
This has troubled me all day. Was it the look at me bit? A return to the exhibitionism he knows and presumably loves? Or was it that he actually thinks that Darcy Bussell on pointes in her size 40 teal coloured Hotter trainers for even hotter trotters is normal?
What have I been doing or not doing for the past six weeks that has not been normal?
I am possibly over-thinking this, but I wanted to share with you the moment as I have shared may other landmark moments regarding Bunion Business.
As you will have deduced, everything is healing very nicely. A little minor set back last week when I had to take antibiotics for a slight infection of one of the internal stitches, but that is history.

The aforementioned trainers are reasonably comfortable, and innocuous. I do not want ostentatious trainers. But I have to tell any passing Bunion visitors who may this very day look in on this post,
(It does worry me this... will serious Bunion hunters know to scroll back 40  odd posts to the beginning to get the genuine Bunion low-down?) that the most delicious addition to my footwear is a pair of Men's sheepskin mules from Marks and Spencer's.

I have never been a slipper person. Shoes or bare feet me. But now I feel the need to protect these feet and these are the last word in elegance. No, they are not, but they are supremely comfortable and cosy, and as they are several sizes too big for me I have offered them to Dearest when I've done with them.

You should have seen his face. So I said that these were actually bloke's slippers, like I wasn't offering him a pair of Ugg's for example, which might have looked a tad girly on him..

But it was Ugg that I read in his eyes.

There's No Smoke...

Back in the old days (pause for younger readers to yawn) you did not fragrance away odours, you opened a window.
"Were they keeping bloody goats in here?" my father said thirty six years ago, the morning we moved into this house.
No, the previous owners had kept dogs, one of which had been incontinent. So the first thing my father did was to open the kitchen window.
The window had been painted over, but my dear old dad, still complaining loudly about the malodorous cloud the vendors had left in their wake, gave it a good shove. The whole rotten window frame fell out and crashed into the garden.
The kitchen thus pushed itself up to the top of the list of our many renovations.

We bought an Aga because it suited the aesthetic and age of the house, not because I had the remotest intention of ever baking bread in it. Style over substance. In some ways.
It actually served us loyally. For thirty years it was the hub of the house: we did not have central heating because with low ceilings the whole house was warmed by this glorious chrome and enamel range. It was always a bit chilly between bedroom and bathroom but we were young enough to run like hell.
People gravitated towards the Aga as a source of comfort, and it even cooked food. A wonderful place to dry off children's dripping art work til it crumpled like seersucker, and a great place to   festoon with drying underwear. I can almost feel nostalgia for the rusty-orange scorch marks on socks after they'd competed with saucepans on the hotplate.

We also had an open fire. At least we did in the early days. That was until the thrill of being a log-carrier, fire-layer, and cinder-gatherer wore thin. And eventually the smoke, no matter how often the chimney was swept, habitually enveloped us, reducing us to kippers. With young children's lungs to protect we then invested in one of the first gas-fired Veri-flames, an authentic-looking coal fire.
We have never looked back.

Well, we did a few years ago when wood-burning stoves became all the rage. The smell of woodsmoke is a powerful draw, and such a stove would have looked champion in our hearth. However, memory served me well and saved me from a return to intensive fire-maintenance.

So Tuesday's paper vindicated my decision, but from an ecological  point of view. According to the Royal College of Physicians almost a tenth of London's winter air pollution is attributable to wood burning stoves. Obviously rising traffic is also an issue but so are gas cookers and air fresheners.
Air fresheners? I do hope they mean those nasty little plug in ones they warned us about years ago that can cause asthma...
And surely not the fragrance diffusers like True Grace's Library which simulates to perfection the smell of a log-burning fire ?

Bugger it. I'm going to live dangerously.
Or I might just open a window.

Marital Harmony

There was none of the usual arm-wrestling this morning.

That is usually how we start the day in this house. Coffee is spilt, expletives and baleful looks exchanged. It's our morning ritual. Not over who gets the main section of The Times. That is a given. I conceded that one a long time ago. No it is over the fact that Dearest becomes so immersed in the front page that I have to snatch it off him to remove the central section.

Not so this morning. The new delivery girl produced, in error, a His and Hers copy of The Times. Bliss is made of this.

And  what a lovely picture of our dear Betty Windsor on the front page. Celebrating the creation of her own line, the Elizabeth Line. 

In a beautiful shade of purple so that it fully co-ordinated with the new logo of Crossrail. Co-ordinated or matching? You tell me. Is this quirky coincidence, or part of a regal policy which streamlines the royal rig-out with the occasion? Of course, she's always done it: think kilt at Highland Games.

Missed a trick, here, however.  A little contrast would have been more effective. She should have worn orange , but then she would have blended in with the engineers and workers who've done all the donkey work.

The choice of her attire made me think of  the Jenny Joseph poem, Warning :"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple". 

I could lend the Queen a red hat and together we could run our  sticks along the public railings, and learn to spit.

An excellent start to the day. And a lovely thought.

Shooting a Breeze with the Daffodils

As spring approaches there are daffodils and wedding invitations on the mantlepiece..

As Dearest and I did not live together before marriage, there were a number of issues which had remained blissfully unapparent until we'd shared a roof together, for a week.

My advice to anyone embarking on matrimony is to do a "Tidiness-tolerance" check list before you sign that register.
I think that this is a base-line for compatibility, quite frankly.

I have one brother  and all the tidy genes went one way. Mostly up his rectum. I am trying to be polite here. But even he, were he ever to eat quiche and read blogs, would be the first to agree.
Many years ago, he got into my car and saw the newspaper on the floor which had virtually shredded because it had been there so long, and asked me if I was now keeping pigeons?
If he visits and comments on how well organised everything is looking (a pre-arranged visit means I can do a deep de-clutter prior to arrival) I glow with the pathetic gratitude of a labrador that has just been patted on the head.
Then he'll say, "Ah, but I bet it's all piled high at the top of the stairs..."
And then that docile labrador just wants to take a deep chunk out of his ankle because, dammit, he's right.

When the children were little, I would often keep the Hoover out so that if anyone called on the hop, I would give the impression that they had just interrupted some incipient but transformative housekeeping chore.
So from this you will gather that if I were still subject to a school Report Card, it would read,"Does her best but could try harder".

Thankfully, I married a man who bears no resemblance to my brother whatsoever.
Dearest is as bad as I am but, I have to confess, edges ahead, in that he never sees anything that is not in its rightful place. He is not  troubled by the need to take things upstairs, or by the grey blanket of newspapers after  he has read them spread-eagled across the living room floor, or the re-cycling that he has to circumnavigate in the porch, as he staggers in with a pile of files.
And dear readers, I have spoilt him. It is all my fault.
And I will continue to spoil him until he stops working like a ding-bat while I swan around shifting the box of wine that arrived and carrying upstairs a weekend of discarded clothing (aha! got your attention now? Yes, it's the Dance of the Seven Veils twice nightly here, with matinees on a Sunday in this house.
Put this definitely on the list of marital pre-requisites.)

Now that I have found my feet, so to speak, I feel a fervent desire to tackle the pile at the top of the stairs.
I am sure after a cup of tea, the feeling will pass.

When Saying Less is More...

We all have a secret list of things that we have least enjoyed.
I found my own Graduation ceremony monumentally dull.
My children's, apart from an enduring glow of pride at their deserved success, arm-gnawingly tedious. I just don't enjoy hours of happy-clappy self-congratulation. Cruel, cruel mother.

So you would need to strap me to an armchair with an intravenous drip of unadulterated Hendricks to get me to watch the BAFTAs show on television.
Although I have been involved in TV all my working life, firstly as an assistant floor manager  and latterly combining teaching with film extra work, I nevertheless find the whole process of a Luvvie-Love-in faintly nauseous.
However, at least one good story comes out it each year and very often it has nothing to do with the artistry it celebrates.
We all remember Gywneth Paltrow's toe-curling acceptance speech in the Oscars?
Dear girl selflessly lay down the blue-print of how not to do it for every generation to come.
Well, this isn't the Oscars and so we had to rely on our dear old Stephen Fry to throw us a juicy tid-bit.
Before we even heard about what he had said, news was made (on the BBC, of course) that he had resigned/withdrawn/foresworn Twitter (what is the technical term for becoming an ex-tweeter?).
Ah yes, Closed his Twitter account.
Well, blow me down, news indeed. The Trolls were out in force. Again. And Stephen, sensitive soul, had had enough. Again.
I like the public persona of Stephen Fry. Mildly. Do I feel the need either to lambaste him or applaud him? Neither really.
However, I have been ruminating ( in the way that retirement allows you chew cud) over what he said and its context.
In case you busy chaps missed out on this petit brouhaha...Jenny Beaven, a costume designer won recognition for Mad Max Fury Road.
Stephen Fry who turns out to be a good friend of hers, said,
"Only one of the great cinematic costume designers would come to the awards dressed like a bag lady."
This gave great offence not to Bag Ladies everywhere. Although you can imagine them rising up with huge indignity saying that they would not be seen dead wearing a smart black leather jacket like that, black jeans, comfortable shoes and wasn't that a tasteful taupe cashmere scarf?
No, it gave rise to huge indignation from Twitter trolls who said that yet again women were being judged by what they wore...
This makes me laugh.
Here we have a woman who  is supremely comfortable  in her own skin, who has the self-belief and the strength of character not to follow the frock flock by subscribing to the dress code of an event that spends an obscene amount of money on dressing up for the evening. She did her own thing. This was her statement.
I think that is something to be applauded. That was precisely what Stephen Fry was doing.
His hyperbolic accolade was drowned by the hyperbollux of internet voices.
The redoutable Jenny Beaven when asked further about the incident which she had laughed off said,
"I don't want to talk any further because I will just create more fuss."

I raise my glass to a very sensible woman.

From Whiners to Winers and Diners...

Health guidance. Who needs it?

Well, seemingly we cannot be trusted to make sensible decisions about our health and safety.
As intelligent, and for the most part, rational human beings, we manage to steer our way through the obstacle race of life without staggering drunk down an unmarked pothole, yet, the papers almost daily proffer research with conflicting advice about alcohol.
The latest is that red wine and champagne substantially lower the risk of Alzheimer's - not together, you understand, but a glass and a half of either every day. (Doesn't that extra half glass just give you a rosé glow? A glass definitely half-full situation, n'est-ce pas?)
A cause for celebration, I feel. No moaning about this one.

Also, apparently, learning a foreign language can  delay the onset of Alzheimer's as the discipline builds up a 'buffer of cognitive reserve'.
Surely we all need a little extra in the cognitive reserve department?
If they're dishing it out, put me down for a big extra. (Hmm. I used to be one of those. But that's for another time.)

Seemingly, healthy retired people on the Isle of Sky took an intensive course in Gaelic for a week (no walk in the park that one.. although maybe by living in the locality they had a head start?) and when they did cognitive tests (Doesn't that send a shiver down your spine? can you imagine Non-verbal reasoning tests? All those boxes, dots and sequences? My brain is shorting at the very prospect) they did significantly better than their peers.
Can you imagine, those poor buggers who'd not been near a test since their 11+, or 'O' Levels being subjected to brain-straining puzzles without any of the benefits of the brain-training of their neighbours?

Dearest and I have just returned from a weekend of celebrating my unbooting.
I would like to say it was a celebration of my returning mobility but unfortunately angry pinkness returned to the site.  I found walking beyond room to restaurant impossible. No, really.
So it has been a bit of an Eatathon weekend.
Not a Drinkathon, I hasten to add, because after one large glass we were almost asleep.
So as the cram in the calories competition rolled to a close, Dearest and I decided that upon our return we would start to eat sensibly and drink wisely (I thought we did that already, so wiselier) until I read this cheering piece about alcohol in the news today.
Dearest has just said, "Fancy a little glass of red?"
Strangely, he hasn't even read the news today.
Slainte mhath, say I (Gaelic for "Your very good health")

I already feel a small vibration in my glass of El Cognitas Reserva ..

The Problem with Statistics...

I always thought that the Brits had a world-wide reputation for taking things on the manly chin.
I thought we were more likely criticised for our mannerly desire to queue, and quietly wait our turn whether it was to see Winston Churchill lying in state, or getting our turkey at 7.30am on Christmas Eve.
We historically, have swallowed hard when we have received bad-service and taken the path of least resistance.
But all that has changed, it would seem. We have majorly taken  up Moaning-as-a-National-Sport, according to research done by The Ombudsman Service which has calculated that for every adult in Britain there were 1.1 complaints made. That's 52 million across the country, if you want to know.

Don't you just love statistics?
If you know me at all by now, you will know that numbers are not my friend. But as a self declared innumerate, I am intrigued.
What I want to know is what actually constitutes .1 of a complaint? Is it a cough? A splutter? A hairy eyeball? (You know, when you furrow your brow and glower, I mean really glower. The potency of one of mine could freeze an off-spring either in mid-sentence at the table, or across a crowded room. Diminished efficacy when used on adult children, of course.)
I was going to complain about the late delivery of my newspaper, but I gave the frozen wee lad on his bike a Hairy eyeball instead? He'll not be doing that again.

The unsatisfactory statistic reminded me of the way in which I struggled with "Problems" in my year 6 Maths class, aged 10.
I faced a question about men digging a hole in the road. In those days it was all about men digging holes; now it would be all about men filling potholes. Or not.

I was given the appropriate data, and asked how many men it would take to dig the hole. My answer was: 3 1/2. men.
I knew it didn't make sense, but I put it down anyway.
Mr. O' Hare didn't mark it wrong either; however, he did ask, "Which half?"

A load of Boules...

I never could see beyond Bunion in terms of Plans for Retirement.
I am singularly lacking in aspirations or intent.
A few wafty ideas about picking up piano lessons where I left off four years ago when a Classical piano teacher tried painfully to turn me into a classical pianist, when all I wanted was to be able to thump out a few party pieces at opportuneless moments.

So this morning an old friend who must surely be in her eighties, rang me, ostensibly, to find out how the operation had gone. She had had both feet done 15 years ago and had spent her time bed-resting for two weeks until her stitches were removed. (Different times, eh?)
I can't wait for our next Show and Tell session. Coffee next week a must.

Anyway, Doreen asked me how I felt about Boules. She has been playing, as a devoted team member for many years. To my flame-cheeked shame I laughed uproariously, then hastily put her right as to why I was laughing.
I have devoted a life-time to avoiding physical jerks (PE to the rest of the world).
I am not proud of this but I was the one in school who chose the most over-subscribed sporting activity (Badmington, if you're curious) so that I could sit in a long queue along the wooden laddered walls of the Gym with my Greek vocabulary book discretely in my lap.

"After you," I'd say as I got nearer to the the front, and I'd quietly and innocuously wind my way to the back of the queue.
It worked. Mainly.
So it was only in later life when I was working as a Literacy support teacher in a secondary school that I have come to realise that PE in its general and particular sense, has benefits for heart, soul and mind in ways that obviously never occurred to me in my youth.

The reason for my hysteria at Doreen's kind and thoughtful suggestion (not totally altrustic, as I'm sure they need young blood- ha!) is my total lack of hand-eye co-ordination.
She had evidently never seen me, years ago, embarrass my young children on a Bowling outing as my balls habitually took the side channel route. (I have grappled with that sentence and failed to improve. Sorry.)
I suspect that  Boules, played on grass, requires similar hand-eye co-ordination and also assume that there is none of the smoking and anise-swilling that goes on during French Boules. (More alluring. Said with French accent.)
However, instead of laughing like a hyena, I should have paused for thought as I looked at this lythe, lively octogenarian and said to myself,
"I'll have what she's having".

Foot note 1

Have you ever left a big family party?
Takes you at least an hour to extract yourself.
Lots of hugs, kisses and we must not leave it so longs; you drive off and then two minutes, round the block, you're back because you've left your phone on  the mantlepiece.
You feel such a chump.  You re-kiss VIPs and hastily depart while remaining guests breathe a sigh of relief and nervously scan for other left-behind objects...

So here I am again with follow up to doctor's appointment and to let you know my Hotter shoes have arrived. How could I possibly have left you with all these imponderables hanging in the air?

Foot first. Doctor scraped off remaining scab gently (sounds disgusting, but I made no sound and closed my eyes) to reveal smooth shiny pink skin. Photos as evidence. He thought it a little too pink in places but said it was likely that I had been overdoing it (Dearest stifles chortle when given Killer-Look) or else it's a sign of infection from an internal stitch.  It has cooled down overnight so I will not, I trust, need to cash in prescription for anti-biotics. X ray indicated that all the internal nuts and bolts are securely in place.
He said I had been healing very well indeed; had I been eating a lot of kale, by any chance?
Sorry, made that bit up.

So I walked out of the hospital for the first time with even-footed gait, limping only a little, with only minor discomfort.

On the shoe front (and this is the sort of information that really needs to be out there) I have been berated for my sneeriness over Hotter Trotters.
The trainer type shoe could do with being a whole size bigger than that which I normally take, but it does seem comfortable and supportive.
I tried my beloved Birkenstocks on today and they feel comfortable. Three cheers for that.
This leaves me with the debate over whether to keep the Hotter sandals. They possibly would give additional support during these early days.
When I remarked to a friend that I still had a problem with them being Granny shoes (oblivious to the obviousness that I am one of this clan) she told me that she had a pair of them at home.
So really, I have not lost the art of putting my foot in it.
It's just that I now have a choice as to which one I use.

The Grande Finale

From the title of this blog, The Great British Bunion to my latest post The Grande Finale you will be aware that hyperbole is my middle name.

But today's the day I see my surgeon for the Big Sign-off. Here I go again: it will in reality be a little sign-off for a diminutive bunion.

I think, if you have remained with me 'til now, that you deserve a few pictures. You will see my foot in its varying stages of metamorphosis. As I have said previously there are finer specimens out there, but these are the ones to which I am attached...

Recovery Photos
Pre-Op	Boot
Bandage	Whole Foot
Close Up

 

So this is where I leave my Bunion-hungry readers to go in search of safe surgeons and ready meals, and thank you again, universally ( list now includes readers in Romania, Mexico and Italy; but in terms of numbers: 2 in each, so world-wide domination a far cry) for keeping me company as I have made a daily diary of my progress.

I will continue to write under the same title, as I am suffering from an enduring complication that I have actually become a Great British Bunion, a severe case of dysmorphia if ever there were one.
Apart from passing references to the auld fellah (By which I mean ex-Bunion, not Dearest who will hopefully remain a firm fixture when, or more likely, if he ever stops to read this stuff) I will continue to write about what ever grabs my fancy.

Perhaps not daily. Who knows?
If you care to join me, you will be very welcome indeed.

Retirement plan..

Bunions are the first thing that women in retirement tackle. 

I have been reliably informed of this by a friend in Gerrards Cross so she must be right. 

Whilst I could endeavour to find the source of this fascinating fact, my instinct tells me that there must be some truth in it. 

Generally speaking, we put up with a lot of habitual aches and pains in our lives, but usually we endure them with fortitude. 

So I would suggest that when it comes to feet most of us blithely accept that a softer, wider pair of shoes is the answer when we first notice the Emergent Bunion. (Emergent = Not Urgent)

We know about the recuperation time of surgery and cannot reconcile it with letting people down at work.
And so it comes to pass that for many new retirees Project Bunion assumes pole position in the Must-Dos. 

My own retirement took place as the result of new Regime and internal re-structuring. 

It was a parting of the ways that I had not anticipated six months earlier.

It has enabled me, however, to experience severance of a totally different kind. In most ways, a far less painful one.

I'm extremely glad that I made the decision to retire my bunion. 

A Listicle is a little list but Mine's a Big One...

I promised you a while back a Listicle of  vital stuff if thinking about or preparing for a Bunion operation.

So as we are nearing the end of the daily chronicling of Bunion's Progress, it seems an appropriate time to be constructive and practical.
So in no particular order....

1. Just do it. After two weeks, if you have a sedentary job, you can contemplate returning if you can cope with the elevation factor. You will feel knackered, and should go gently. Only be a hero if you are being paid sack loads of cash or people's lives depend on it.

2. Do it while you are young enough to make a good recovery and feel a strong incentive to get back on two feet again. Don't leave it until you have hip and knee problems or you will feel overwhelmed by the complexity of it all.

3. Help at home is a luxury, but frankly, if all goes well, and the layout of your domestic arrangements allows, you can actually do enough to keep yourself watered and fed throughout the day.

4. Think through your sleeping arrangements. Access to a bathroom and a front door is ideal. A chiming grandfather clock is ill-advised. However, access to a bathroom initially is more important than anything else, in the first week.

5. Plan ahead. Put your foot in a bucket to restrict mobility, (just to simulate medi-boot)and imagine what you will need in your immediate vicinity. (Hairdryer, face creams, unguents, potions, phone charger, backscratcher, poker, poker?)
You only need limited clothes that can be bunged in wash and dried overnight. Set up convenient underwear drawer. Borrow or steal man's large sock for everyday wear after bandages removed.

6. Accept offers of ready meals from all sources.

7. Buy some waterproof foot covering and follow the instructions, so you can shower with Impunity. (Who he?)

8. Check your First aid kit. Mine was parlous. Had to stick  gauze on with Micky mouse plasters.. Decorative but useless. You only need it for a couple of days after bandages removed, but put Gauze and Micropore tape on the list.
Ibuprofen by the hundred weight. Good for reducing swelling/inflamation.
Put E45 or Bio Oil on shopping list to rub into wound. (Not as ouchy as it sounds, and it helps to make skin supple as it heals.)

9. Make your own ice-pack using petits pois before anyone deems an large bag of Birdseye peas meets your needs.

10. Make sure you have a supply of stamps and birthday cards for dates that occur during convalescence, and address book.

11. Stack up with books and mags but accept that your attention span will have shrunk to gnat-size. (And that all your grand intentions of reading "War and Peace" in the original will be oot ra windy (as they say in Glasgow; or out of the window, as we say in the South).

12. Be prepared for a plethora of foot jokes and smile as though they are all original.

13. Do not write Bunion blog as it is an over-subscribed market and you will have nothing new to add. I have learnt this and pass on my wisdom to you.

14. However, if you fancy the distraction, it is a brilliant way of occupying an idling mind.

Blessings...

I have just got a new iron.
I want you to know that I can hear some of my readers glazing over at that very statement. There are, however, a select few who belong to a happy band of Domestic Goddesses who will stir with anticipation.
I am no D.G. I am more of a Domestos Drone ( see my U-bends gleam).

For those of you who care to read on, I have finally succumbed to one of those big super steam jobs which do not need filling every five minutes because they have a very large tank.
No hissing and spitting or a steam facial like with the previous ordinary one, but one which tackles crisp white cotton sheets as if they were polyester. Oh drool. What's not to love?

It got me thinking about my grandmother, Eileen, who used a flat iron to iron my grandfather's shirts.
The irons were used in pairs and heated in front of an open fire, alternated, as one cooled down the other was picked up.
I remember her telling me that my Grandfather once suggested that she just ironed the bits of the shirt that showed, but added,
"But remember this, Eileen, my shirt is a reflection on you..."
It made me think about how she suffered with her bunions, heroically, and suffered her husband's bright suggestions without braining him with a flat iron.

As I stood and did half an hour's ironing without any pain whatsoever either from my foot or the challenge of my laundry basket, I reflected on my good fortune.

Blokes and Blogs...

Fish fingers. Who'd have thought it?

Many posts back, I referred to the delight with which Dearest meets the suggestion of:
"Fish fingers tonight?"
If I really want to see a gleam in the poor lad's eye, I say,
"With Baked beans and chips?"
You see, I know how to spoil a man. And my younger readers, be glad I am sharing this nugget with you.
Wait up.
There was an article in the Daily Mail ( brought to my attention by the delightful Carol Midgely in The Times) which dared to suggest that it was the serving of Fish fingers that had significantly contributed to the demise of the 19 year long marriage between one Peter Morgan (Hollywood scriptwriter. Had to be Hollywood otherwise we'd never have been party to this tantalising tidbit.) and his missus, Lila Schwarzenberg.

Apparently, he took Fish fingers to be an example of culinary neglect and told her that he was neither 5 years old or a heffing  penguin.

Well, now. Wouldn't have lasted five minutes in this house. Ungrateful swine.

Is there such a thing as Man-food? It got me wondering.

We all know about Quiche, don't we? Real men claim not to like Quiche and we've long since given up pondering over the lack of logic in this. Now offer a chap a PIE, and you can almost extract a He-man grunt of anticipation. Preface it with Charlie Big Uns aka Charlie Bighams and even the Fish fingers are history.

Whilst on the subject of men and their peccadilloes, I ask myself what is it about men and Blogs?

As we all know Dearest is happily letting me prattle on with absolutely no curiosity as to  content.

(Say nothing; think plenty.)  Fair enough. Don't need any censorship.

But yesterday my brother came to see how I was getting on.

When I first embarked on this venture I sent him a link to my Blog and left it at that.

He hasn't mentioned it and neither have I.

Yesterday, however, I summoned the courage to ask if he had looked at my Bunion Blog.

I don't know which of the two words were responsible, Bunion or Blog but he winced like his sister had just offered him a double vasectomy on the dining room table.

I then offered him a large slice of Quiche.

Home Improvements

When you are invalided out of the main action for a month you have the opportunity to review, if not life and the universe ( far too broad) but more precisely, hearth and home. 

We have lived in this house which is at least 250 years old for thirty six of its years. And for all that time we have stepped down about 9" from the porch into the living area. 

We have brought babies in prams down into our house, negotiated large pieces of furniture through our ancient doorway and shoved teetering grannies back up the step and on their way ( whether it was time to leave or not) with not so much as a passing thought as to  how awkward a manoeuvre this has been for us all.

It took a gammy leg ( bunion-side) to realise that stepping down into our house was an unnecessarily painful process. 

A dear friend of ours, a talented artist and restorer of furniture has made us a new step. Beautifully. Out of old oak, it looks as though it's been here as long as the ancient parquet itself.

Like any modification it requires some readjustment. So I have put up  a 'Step Alert ' sign as a warning to unwary guests and harassed husband. 

Polished and gleaming, it is a subtle enhancement to our lives and a metaphor made flesh in terms of a new step forward. 

Excuse me while I apply my ice pack to Dearest's stubbed toe whilst picking up his scattered files and making supper. 

Normality is in the air.  Which is a curious shade of blue.

If the Shoe Fits..

Well, patently (not the black shiny kind) the shoe doesn't.
Fit the left foot, that is.
A little experiment today to see if a Birkenstock on it's fattest fitting hole would accommodate fat foot.  It didn't.
So I have spent a couple of hours poring over computer in search of appropriate footwear when Das Boote is given de boot on Tuesday when I get the go ahead from my surgeon.

Dispiriting search for old lady-shoes. Velcro (groan).
Hotter shoes it looks like for me. And with all due respect to all the happy Hotter shoe wearers out there... Hot they are not. If they are Hotter, then the pedant in me wants to know "Hotter than What?"

Trainers have been recommended. But frankly this would not suit me at all. In days of yore it always took me twenty minutes to struggle into my trainers when I had a gym membership, so the thought of squeezing bruised and wounded foot into firm white leather makes me nervous. Apart from which I am not sure that trainers have ever been my look.

The other thing is that you are advised to get a pair that is larger than your normal pair. At least Hotter give you a chart where I can see that the increased girth of my left foot warrants an Extra- Extra wide fitting and in order to achieve this I will have to go to 6.5.
I tell you a double Extra in anything size-related does not do wonders for a girl. I think they should re-name it.

Dearest says I should also buy a similar but normal size pair so that I can have one of each. I think this is enormously generous of him to suggest this.
My worries are:
Will I feel as though I have clowns' shoes on if I am in shoes that are one and a half sizes bigger than usual?
How do I keep the right foot shoe on? Three pairs of socks? A large elastic band? (nice)?
Will I look even dafter if I have one of each? Look, Honey, I've shrunk my foot!
A decision has to be made soon or else I will not graduate on Tuesday.
So to console myself I ate the green gloop - heated and smothered with Parmesan and then had a bloody big mince pie. (Well, you've got to give those pesky fat-bustin' sirtuins something to get their teeth into...)

Come Back Cabbage Soup

You have been quiet.
I know it's because you haven't penetrated the technical mysteries of the inner sanctum of my Blog.
This leaves me to guess what you are thinking. Or else free-reign to continue rambling in the illusory belief that I am giving you  what you want to hear.
So let's dispense with the  foot. Foot fine. Thanks for asking. You see, I even attribute you with good manners.

I have been conspicuously silent on what happened next with the Nutri Ninja Flying Juicer.
I am going to be brutally frank here.
I have only just OPENED THE BOX.
Because, as you know, once the apparatus is removed we all know that you need to rent an aero dynamicist to reassemble the parts in such a way that they go back in the box ready to be returned to the shop for a refund. You can smell my doubt in the air.  ( You are so in tune with me..)

Credit: another day in paradise c. 2004 Anne Taintor Inc

So this afternoon was the appointed hour that I cracked open the box. I took out a  leaflet containing a whole lot of recipes containing ingredients that I did not have in my over-stuffed fridge. Bags of Kale (yawn) are very bulky.
Dearest last week:
"Jeez, why have we got a fridgeful of lettuce here? We've only just got rid of that bloody Kale!"
So having established that I did not have things like Stevia ( what the flip is Stevia? a sweetener apparently, natural, of course, or Silken tofu or Canola Oil... Who are these people?) I turned back to the Sirt Diet Book. Because of course I have all the ingredients to hand for the green juice drink (bar the Lovage -wrong time of year).

Why do I have this sneaky feeling that you've all tried it before me and like some secret club, you are waiting for me to join? Come in the water's lovely! Yes, we've all heard that before.

I am going to digress just a little. Unlike me, I know.
When the children were small I ventured off the Fishfinger trail once or twice in search of Healthy Alternatives. I decided one weekend to make an Avocado Mousse. It came out rather tasteless, but resonantly bright green, and very firm. It rapidly acquired the name Merde de Martian, in the family annals. (Martian Turd for short).

Well, let me just say that this is slightly more viscous. And I can quite see how people lose 7lbs in 7 days.. because  the thought of facing that at breakfast tomorrow makes me hanker for Cabbage Soup.
Said it.
Bet you don't want me in your club now.

Peas, peas Me

Sunday

It might have been a combination of things. 

I'm obviously building up for the County Medical Boot Triathlon as I scoot around the house listing at a perpetual angle of 45 degrees. 

For information: it is possible to get a device to equalise the height distance between footwear and minimise pressure on one's back but I decided as my recovery was home-based that it was unnecessary. What I hadn't taken into account was the number of miles you can cover doing Domestic Chores.

Finally, at the end of the day, Dearest and I sat and watched the first episode of Friday Night Lights (Netflix again) as antidote to an almost unremitting diet of subtitles : Spin; Deutschland 24; Occupied -all great drama but unwavering focus required. 

Dearest suddenly noticed foot looking overly plump.

Now I have to say that ever since this morning when Dearest assisted in putting on a light dressing and massaging  in some E45 cream ( a bit like a grown up who has just discovered the joys of finger-painting for the first time and last time) he has adopted a bit of a jaunty air. Like he's just got his Nursing degree or something. 

So short of calling for a Crash Team when he sees my plumptious pied he dives frantically into the freezer drawer feverishly searching for the petits pois.

I know, I know some people think I am posh and that tiny peas are further evidence of this, but I tell you now, they make a much better ice pack than those economy size cannonballs...

You do not however, need a 500 gram bag ( already opened - whooops!) dumped across wounded foot.. Accompanied by a a triumphant Nursey grin: 

'Check me out!'

I draw a veil over the rest of the evening. You really don't need to hear the rest.

Trust me. You don't .