Every cloud has a silver lining... two in fact. The first being that as I have private health insurance I get paid £20 per night endured in an NHS hospital! The second is that although life is seriously inconvenient in plaster for two months, I can get so many things done that I don't normally have the opportunity to pursue, particularly as I will soon be even busier as I am moving house and yard!
During my first broken weeks I didn't spend many days at home. I recovered at Avington for a couple of days, where Scar and I compared injuries - he was awfully stiff for a while having needed several stitches on his elbow and being generally rather shaken. I then managed a trip to London for a friend's birthday, learning to negotiate a train and taking a taxi to avoid the tube staircases. On my return to Winchester I hopped on crutches the whole way to my physio's clinic, my arms and 
shoulders needed her more than ever by the time I had done half a mile on crutches! That same evening Tiger and I found a convenient lift to Cheltenham with one friend and from there to Wormington Grange with another. This was very fortunate as I enjoyed a delightful hat themed dinner party before a sociable day at Cheltenham races.
From there I found a lift to the Tunnel pub near Cirencester for a friend's birthday, before rounding off the night rock and roll dancing, hopping on one leg in The Rock until 3am! The funniest coincidence was that two of us were on crutches with the same plaster for the same injury, Luke having the pink cast I had admired when I met him for the first time a few hours prior to my accident the week before! Eight of us eventually crashed in a friend's sitting room, luckily my leg in plaster granted me a sofa...
My hectic hitchhiking week to cheer myself up continued watching friends play Old Boy Prep School rugby, sleeping on another sofa (couldn't face steep stairs on crutches) and a lift from my friend Faith Cook to Oxford via a meeting in Hungerford. The meeting was for an introduction to the MediVet magic mending machine. Basically it uses microcurrent technology to mimic the electrical impulses between cells, hopefully catalysing faster healing to produce original and not scarred tissue. I have taken it on trial and hope it works a miracles for me! It has a vast range of uses in horses too.
A delightful stay in Oxford with university students led to a handy lift to Stow where I went over final details on the rental agreement for my future yard; in Italian we say "Clear pacts, long friendships", I want to be clear on all the small things to avoid misunderstandings. Back in Oxford another friend gave me a tour of Christ Church (limited by my poor mobility) and I negotiated my first escalator on crutches in a shop whilst Tiger was being spoilt by my hosts in their student house. It's an impressive house, but has stairs so steep that I had to develop a technique sitting on my bottom to descend them!
The following morning I finally caught a train back home in a slightly eccentric fashion on crutches, in plaster and with a dog! Amazingly dogs can travel for free on a lead, luckily Tiger "heels" well so I stayed upright and turned heads! The only luggage I can manage is a modest rucksack, I thought it an impressive feat for a girl to live out of it for five days - my jeans certainly needed washing on my return.
An appointment with a private care specialist gave me the opportunity to learn more about my injury and that eight weeks in plaster is better than six, arghh! I may have negotiated a compromise as my operation to remove the longest screw and the cast is on the 2nd December (week seven), but I know I must be very cautious for a while thereafter. During my visit he also swapped me to a permanent cast as the swelling had started to go down, but I snapped lots of photos of my still grotesque fat foot and ankle on my phone in between! The new cast is less cumbersome, the first one I christened the "Winter Snow Boot"!
I have had to develop many techniques to cope with my limited movement - the greatest obstacle is the impossibility of carrying things on crutches, so for short distances I tend to just ditch the crutches and hop! This however is more challenging when a cup of tea is involved - one generally has to eat and drink things where they are made, but I have now learned to take the first few sips of tea in a tall mug before hopping very gently to the sofa, or I just crawl on my knees!
For showering my special plastic sleeve, left over from my broken arm three years ago, has come in very handy, and my bath/shower at home is best as I can sit across it with my peg leg sticking out. One realises how often one normally shifts weight from one leg to the other, standing on my left leg for a long time can cause it to cramp, particularly whilst doing small tasks in one spot, but my left leg is now becoming like superwoman - I can even hop up a whole flight of stairs on one leg with no hands! Once I am on a good surface I can get up a pretty good speed on crutches, but my hands get so sore that I am beginning to develop callouses. I was padding the handles with socks, but they can affect my grip, so I should really try gloves.
A few days stuck at home again gave me the opportunity to knuckle down to sort my emails and paperwork and start de-cluttering before my big move, but I soon started to feel stranded again so after a very busy day with successful viewings on the house I escaped Hampshire again...