So much happening...........

The last few days have been very busy. We picked up my motorbike yesterday from the repairer's. It looks almost like a new Harley, with new paintwork and many components, including shiny new chrome slash cut pipes, front fender, wheel, tyre, and resprayed tank with paint so deep it looks like you could swim in it......

My man rode it home and proclaimed it handled 'beautifully'.

Our Harley mechanic, who is also a friend, asked me if I thought I might sell it. He said there would be no problem doing that as HD no longer make that model, and it's a favourite with the 'one percenter' clubs. I have decided to give myself three months to decide if I can ride again. Hopefully that will demonstrate my ability to recover sufficiently. My Harley weighs over 600 lbs and requires a lot of control and muscle to keep it upright. There are local men already making interested noises. One of the many excellent points of owning a Harley is that they hold their value really well, and although having over 52,000kms on the clock, it is still worth around $20,000.

Of course, it's only been ridden by a Granny, and I have never thrashed it, apart from my recent tumble.

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I had my MRI on my knee yesterday, and that was an interesting process. I have the films but no official results. They will come later next week which is a bit frustrating as I'm pretty sore still.

I have looked in my amateurish way, and have discovered that the sore area shows quite a large anomoly at the top of the fibular. It looks like the crack that my physio spotted on the X-rays could well be there.

It's not so heartening to know I have probably been walking round for nearly 11 weeks with a cracked bone in my knee, then twisted awkwardly on it and fell three weeks ago, to re-injure it all over again.

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Coming back from the MRI, we called in to a few lawn mower dealerships, and bought a self propelled mower. After having a TAC funded mowing man for a few weeks, my man was amazed by the fact that he could mow our large and difficult area in only one hour. When I asked this fellow, he said he used a self propelled mower. Aha! That was the secret!

I used to mow our grass, including the many steep slopes, and my face would get so red I would have a headache for the rest of the day. The effort of pushing the blasted weighty mower uphill was really heavy duty work.

So, we bought one, brought it home and my man got out in the heat of the afternoon to learn to drive it. Many mutterings came in between mowing runs as his brain got around the process of clutch bar in and out.........

Then, he came rushing in saying a bee had stung him between the eyes, just above the eyebrow level. The sting was still in there, pumping venom into his head, so I scratched it out in a hurry and gave him a cottonball soaked in vinegar and some ice cubes in a cloth.

Over the next four hours, my usually cheery man muttered darkly about bees as his eyes swelled alarmingly, until finally, in a rare burst of humour he said 'he could blindfold his eyes with a shoestring'.

He does have an allergic reaction to crustaceans.... prawns, crayfish and shrimps, etc, so I began to get a little concerned. I remembered that the Victorian Government began an initiative a while back where they provided a 'Dial a Nurse' service, to help free up the hospital Casualty system (1300 60 60 24).

I rang them and got a very pleasant nurse, who, after getting our particulars, suggested because the swelling was in very sensitive areas around the eyes, he should go down to casualty to be checked.

Well, that put the cat 'amongst the pigeons'! After our recent traumatic trips to Casualty with my accident, he cursed and carried on big time, saying he wouldn't go. We finally agreed that if he had further symptoms like breathing issues or rashes we would go. He rolled off to bed early, and did wake up this morning, which was a plus. But the eyes look pretty bad.

He has not been a good patient, and as I said to him this morning, I am glad the accident happened to me , not him, because he becomes a real grump ..........

We have a special 60th party to go to this evening which I am loathe to miss. At first he said he wouldn't go, but as the day progresses, he says he might go as the 'elephant man'.

We'll see. He will certainly frighten the guests.

"A Grouch escapes so many little annoyances that it almost pays to be one."

... Kin Hubbard