Apologies For Absence

It has been ages since I have even looked at my blog, and I am sorry for not writing sooner... well I'm sorry and I'm not sorry. The last few weeks have taken their toll on my health and a trip to Geneva, standing without respite for over eight hours a day followed by another gig in London before I was fully recovered has taken the stuffing, and joy, out of my days.

The trouble with something like a dodgy hip is that it pervades every part of your life - I can't even sit on the toilet without shooting pains through the joint, so there's not even that moment of quiet repose, gazing at the ceiling blankly. I feel like all I do is moan about my hip pain and though Kim tells me it isn't the case, the chatter in my own head leads me to feel that I'm turning into a complete bore - so I stopped writing. You see, there's not much I can do these days; even housework and going to the village shop for a stamp is beyond me now, so I don't have much exciting stuff to write about. My travels don't even afford me that luxury, as all I see are the insides of airports, hotel rooms that could be anywhere, and the rooms where I teach; trust me, they're not much to write home about, never mind blogging about them!

So, dear reader, this explains my absence. I did see the Consultant at the beginning of last week, though I had to wonder why I was there. He told me that the waiting list was three months, which I knew from checking the net - but at least I am now on it now. He grabbed my ankle, moved my leg about six inches and seemed to loose interest, he told me I'd get a metal hip and that I needed to loose weight. To be honest, the 45 minute wait to be mildly pulled around for two minutes hardly seemed worth the bother. There was the usual disgruntlement when my blood pressure was healthily low and I was tempted to follow up with a snappy remark about how they'd be surprised at how good my cholesterol levels were, but decided to bite my tongue till I had a date. I opted to take a cancellation date if one came up, so please pray to your Gods that someone decides they're rather have Christmas and New Year at home (with no harm to them), as I'd far rather have a new hip and soggy hospital meals!

Happily, I won't be travelling any more until after the New Year, assuming I'm not recovering from the op, so I shall have the rest of this week to start feeling human again and hopefully able to get up and down the stairs without too many yelps. I have got so behind with writing to friends and catching up on that will be wonderful therapy. Some of my friends are having pretty tough times and even though there's nothing I can do to change that for them, at least staying in touch and making sure that they have someone to talk to helps - and it's wonderful therapy for me, because that is one thing that doesn't get spoiled by my hip. There, that's set my head back on straight and left me feeling cheered - what a nice way to end the day.