2.4.09


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


4 comments:

artandmylife said...

Sorry to hear about the ankle - great photo though :-)

Larry Buttrose said...

Ankles are the wages of vin Martin.

Kauders said...

Gosh a photo of my old mate Peter Wells... when was the last time I caught up with him? Cambridge UK in 1976 when we were both grad students in the home country? No I went to the launch of a film he made about colonial Dunedin and opium dens in Melbourne probably the mid-eighties....it's nice to see him looking so, well, prosperous....

ZeldaZ said...

I was told - at the larger Saturday event which I thought was a bit flat (except for your reading Martin, and that wild Australian boy!) - that the Clearview event was excellent. And I don't think they meant your trip! Sorry to have missed the great evening. And yes, artandmylife, it is a great photo - but then all photos at Clearview are good photos!