Ankle-losing Despondylitis

I took a brief trip to London at the weekend. Having spent half of the last three years living in the south of England, I'd pretty much divested myself of any residual provincialism inherited from countless generations of Cheshire Platts, so it was with some surprise that I had one of those mythically cataclysmic trips to the capital that my relatives had always warned me about. In the space of twenty four hours I managed to lose two jobs, the ability to walk, and the option of wearing anything other than a natty pair of pale blue NHS hospital ward trousers. As the feculant air of the underground billowed through my now permanently open fly, I began to think my grandmother may have been right after all; nowt good can come of such a place.

Basically, I've broken my bastard ankle. Having managed, if only briefly, to fly the coop, shack up in Cheltenham, and find gainful employment at a bloody book festival of all places (n.b. my very first post), I've ended up back home, re-unemployed, and unable to do anything other than write self-pitying blog posts and abortively attempt tasks such as making sandwiches or cups of tea. Call me pessimistic, but there's something about having to coax your dog to lick drips of PG Tips off your toes that makes the prospect of spending the next six to eight weeks in plaster seem less than rosy.

And to think, how romantic a broken bone used to be. How I used to long for a snapped fibula or a shattered metatarsal. To be pitied by friends and teachers, to be waited upon hand and foot, to have all one's courage and manly fortitude affirmed by one brief parting of bone...I ached to break something. It might well be the only reason I ever participated in team sports; every P.E. and Gym lesson spent failing to get out of the way of an oncoming ball or classmate. It was hopeless. I never broke anything, except maybe my father's heart.

But no, turns out a fractured ankle is an unmitigated chore. Turns out in the adult world you don't get to shirk your manual responsibilities for a few weeks as people fawn over you; you have to give them up, and the money they earnt you along with it. Turns out it's only the second time you're forced to ask someone to fetch something for you that they start on the endlessly amusing 'Ooh, aren't you the Queen of Sheba' routine. I sat next to one such elderly joker in the A&E after someone kindly gave me the seat next to him. He was even more pleased to see me being pushed past in a wheelchair through the corridor a half hour later. 'Still getting the royal treatment are we?' he joshed, chuckling to himself as he walked away on his two perfectly functioning ankles. The commoner.

So, here I am; housebound and tea-stained and vaguely ticked off at just about everything. To anyone who might read this, sorry; though I value your interest and attention, I much prefer being able to walk to every single one of you. Walking is fucking boss. Yes, I'll probably have cheered up in a day or so, and yes, I plan to be stacked as hell after 8 weeks getting around on my arms alone, but for now, permit me a bit of teenage sulking. Christ, even our copy of GTA V is broken. Truly, we live in a godless universe.