Shortly before this pic was taken, at the Clearview Winery in Hawkes Bay on the night of the 20th March, I was crossing the room to visit another table when, attempting a joyous little skip across a corner of the low stage, I caught my foot beneath its edge ... flew gracelessly into the air ... and came crashing down on my left ankle, which bent sideways beneath my weight. You can always get a laugh if you say you fell down at a winery; but a friend I told this story to later asked, presciently, did I choose pain or humiliation? Pain, I told her, without hesitation. Even while in the air I was planning how to minimise the event, how to pretend it was nothing, or not much. Many of the guests there that evening didn't know I'd hurt myself but of course, by the next day, with the ankle elephantine and a stick for support, it wasn't so easy to disguise. I hobbled through the events I was to attend with it heavily strapped, courtesy the physiotherapist just down the road from my sister's place in Havelock North. Such treatment in NZ is free, it is paid for under accident compensation, whether or not you were working at the time. Even the injuries of carousal, it seems, qualify. Fortunately I heal pretty quick and, by the following Tuesday, was able to climb up to, and circumambulate, the lake pictured in the post below. Also to climb down to the base of a waterfall at the Buried Village near Tarawera and back up the other side. And various other minor exploits on the road. But the hobbling continues ... and I'm sick of it. Four to six weeks, the physio said, before it's back to normal. I didn't believe her but that's just me making another bad choice: humiliation over pain.

pic shows, from left, Karl Stead, Peter Wells and Martin Edmond; photo by Maggie Hall