After two weeks in a hot, sweaty, constricting boot, hobbling about on crutches, I am finally free! What a difference to be my own person again compared to being locked up at home, dependent on Tim and friends every time I needed to see what the world was like outside my front door. Of course I forgot to take a photo of my "injury". But maybe I forgot on purpose. Who wants to remember incarceration!
I guess the low point was when Tim went off to Johannesburg last Thursday, on the field trip that we had planned together. I had made bookings with all the places we were to visit and with the coach company to get us from the airport to the B&B's and beyond. Thursday night they went to the Market Theatre to have dinner and see the Hugh Masekela show Songs of Migration, just before it closed on Feb 13th. HM is a unique performer and he led his stage team on a journey of song reflecting different migrations in Southern Africa and other parts of the world.
Next day, Friday, they went to Constitution Hill, the site of the old jails, one for men and one for women, now the Constitution Court. Then to Liliesleaf farm in Rivonia, once the headquarters of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC, where the treason arrests were made back in the 60's. Following on, the Apartheid Museum described the years from 1948 to 1994, and lastly an unscheduled quick drive through Soweto with a stop to see Nelson Mandela's home which happens to be in the same street where Bishop Tutu lived, both Nobel prizewinners.
Saturday began in Pretoria's Church square with a bit of background history from Sally Roper who was on hand both days to guide and inform. Next the Union Buildings, then the Voortrekker Monument and finally the new Freedom Park, built to memorialise freedom fighters who died in all the wars, starting with the San, the indigenous peoples of South Africa.
I vicariously enjoyed the trip through Tim's descriptions when we chatted in the evenings. It was almost as good as being there.
The King's Speech finally opened in Cape Town on Friday and I was lucky enough to be picked up and taken to the afternoon show. Understated humour together with overt emotion - brilliant is too small a word to describe the film.
I'm reading Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost about the Congo for my genocide class. It's a great history lesson and really well written for anyone with the stomach for greed and gore.
We had a fun Valentine's supper last night with Breda and Billy, our Irish friends who we met at the Wijnhuis last year. B&B brought the meat, spuds, salad and pud, Tim bought bubbly and assorted bottles of yummy wine. He braaied too - everything was perfect and made even more so today by my release from the boot!
We celebrated my freedom with lunch at the Casa Labia the former Muizenberg residence of Count and Countess Natale Labia.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Crutches
I suppose over my many years I must have used many a crutch to help me along the road, but I've never needed the medical variety until earlier this week.
Not only crutches, but a hot and sweaty moonboot too. It's a whole new world! A very much slower one, a deliberate planning of out how to get here, how to get there. How long it takes to get to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and bring the steaming liquid back via furniture stops. I stand still, let go of the crutches, move mug from one surface to the next within arm range. Back on the crutches, move to the middle of the next two posts, lay aside crutches, move mug to new position, and so on and so on until finally I sit with a huge sigh and wonder if the trek was worth it!
Tim and I were taking our usual hike in Newlands Forest last Sunday. We'd walked along the 300 metre contour path and had just begun the descent to the woodcutter's trail. I love this path. It's not all that well known, narrow and twisty and rocky and somewhat overgrown and I immediately started slowly jogging with a sigh of immense pleasure, remembering discovering the route back in the nineties when I had three Jack Russell terriers in tow.
A large black insect with long trailing legs flew across my path forcing me to duck and take my eye off the path. Searing pain dropped me to the ground with immediate huge swelling - it didn't feel or look good!
We met five wonderful women who helped strap my ankle and stayed close by me as I slid downhill on my behind, or hopped along, supported by small tree trunks and a borrowed walking stick. Finally we reached the forestry road where a National Parks worker fetched me in his truck and took us home and I could shower and ice and ice.
Monday's visit to a physiotherapist concluded I needed an x-ray and the report of that indicated a small bone fragment torn off the outside ankle bone. Tuesday then saw me strapped into the moon boot, needing crutches too, for at least a week. Then one to two weeks of moon boot alone.
These past few days have been hot and humid. But it could be worse!
As I mentioned earlier, life has slowed down a bunch. Maybe it's time to get some of my projects finished?
Not only crutches, but a hot and sweaty moonboot too. It's a whole new world! A very much slower one, a deliberate planning of out how to get here, how to get there. How long it takes to get to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and bring the steaming liquid back via furniture stops. I stand still, let go of the crutches, move mug from one surface to the next within arm range. Back on the crutches, move to the middle of the next two posts, lay aside crutches, move mug to new position, and so on and so on until finally I sit with a huge sigh and wonder if the trek was worth it!
Tim and I were taking our usual hike in Newlands Forest last Sunday. We'd walked along the 300 metre contour path and had just begun the descent to the woodcutter's trail. I love this path. It's not all that well known, narrow and twisty and rocky and somewhat overgrown and I immediately started slowly jogging with a sigh of immense pleasure, remembering discovering the route back in the nineties when I had three Jack Russell terriers in tow.
A large black insect with long trailing legs flew across my path forcing me to duck and take my eye off the path. Searing pain dropped me to the ground with immediate huge swelling - it didn't feel or look good!
We met five wonderful women who helped strap my ankle and stayed close by me as I slid downhill on my behind, or hopped along, supported by small tree trunks and a borrowed walking stick. Finally we reached the forestry road where a National Parks worker fetched me in his truck and took us home and I could shower and ice and ice.
Monday's visit to a physiotherapist concluded I needed an x-ray and the report of that indicated a small bone fragment torn off the outside ankle bone. Tuesday then saw me strapped into the moon boot, needing crutches too, for at least a week. Then one to two weeks of moon boot alone.
These past few days have been hot and humid. But it could be worse!
As I mentioned earlier, life has slowed down a bunch. Maybe it's time to get some of my projects finished?
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