broken arm

i am very grateful for everybody's good wishes. more than i can say.

we're getting along all right. i have served nine days of my sentence. we eat marks & spencer's ready meals. i will go back to the orthopods next thursday and trust they will be delighted with my progress.

i broke the other arm four years ago. and, yes, lady bracknell, i can fairly be accused of carelessness. it was a different sort of break, in the same place (humerus). i am much more comfortable this time, which i am sure is because i am in plaster this time. i can sleep lying down. i am taking few of the lovely painkillers they gave me -- none at all, in the last 48 hours. last time, i lived on a diet of painkillers for six weeks. the flipside will be major stiffness of elbow and shoulder at the end.

there seems to be nothing wrong with my left hand, but i can't knit. it is not painful so much as oddly uncomfortable -- the hand is not properly attached, via the elbow, to the shoulder. drs say it is ok to knit if i can. i try a bit every day, and am acutely aware that six weeks (or whatever) of knitting have been subtracted from a pretty limited remaining total.

cider: it wasn't involved in the accident, as someone said, but has been a comfort since, as many hoped. the initial difficulty was, there was virtually none in the house when we got back from a&e, so abstemious were my ways. and our local shopping street, which probably offers the best meat and fish in edinburgh, good groceries, adequate fruit and vegetables, a health food store and a good new delicatessen, strong on cheese -- broughton street has no cider, or at any rate none i would drink. i am fussy. however, a subsequent delivery from sainsbury's has put that right. consumption is tempered by the need to be steady on my feet. it's hard to say, about weight. how much does plaster weigh? my main discomfort is in the back of the neck, due to the weight of the sling.

i haven't done much towards getting on with the things i might be expected to be getting on with. i can still do a very little around the house, and every task takes an inordinate time. i do hope to get the planning of alexander's fair isle done, as someone said. i have decided not to allude to scotland's '06 victory in the calcutta cup, in the princess shawl, after all. all that stuff about elephants. if i ever do get near the end, i will initial and date it near the top of the centre bit. 2008? but i will incorporate the cup itself and "06" in the sweater -- that's why it's got to be started this year, and hopefully finished before the cup leaves edinburgh. and i must plan how that is to be done.

we're still planning to go to thessaloniki at the end of this month.