Aug 04 2008
The Best Laid Plans…
With my dodgy ankle playing all kinds of havoc with my plans for last week I found myself at a bit of a loose end most of the time. I sat around in our living room, one foot up on the coffee table with an ice pack strapped to it, one hand clasping the freezer chilled can of lager and The Wire playing on the TV in front of me.
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Let me stop and say this. If you haven’t seen The Wire, (or if you’re in the ever decreasing few who have no idea what I’m talking about), go onto your local Amazon, and do yourself the biggest favour you could ever do. In fact, here’s some links to save you looking for it - The Wire : Complete HBO Season 1
Greatest TV Show Ever Made.
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So instead of going to the cinema to see The Dark Knight, I had to sit on my sofa and relax. As the week progressed and walking became easier I shifted from the sofa to the pub, with taxi’s in between the two. To say my week was unproductive would be a major understatement. It’s not as though I sat around feeling sorry for myself, it was a really fun week, and I got to go out with a few friends I hadn’t expected to get the chance to see again for a while.
I did have a few projects I wanted to complete, some writing I wanted to start, and to get some research for another writing project I’m looking into out of the way. As of a earlier this evening I’d completed exactly none of that. I made the conscious effort tonight to come straight home, cook dinner, and then sit at my desk getting things done. So far so good. I’m slightly ahead in one writing project, and I’ve started some of the research I wanted to get done. So tonight has been far more productive than all of last week, and a damn sight less painful.
The ankle/foot is healing very nicely thank you. I’m not shuffling around like an Igor any more, and I can actually uses stairs again. As I mentioned in a previous comment, I ice packed the thing like crazy, and avoided doing anything that put unnecessary pressure on it for a few days. By around Thursday evening/Friday morning I was able to walk on it properly. It still hurt like a bastard but strength was returning to it. Now it’s still a little sore, and it tightens up quite a bit by the end of the day. So when that happens I’ve been stretching it out gently to loosen it up. It’s a very similar feeling to when I completely screwed my other foot growing up playing football. I did the dumb fuck thing by playing on it for six months because my form peaked just as it happened, (I was a goalkeeper so there wasn’t too much running, and I did play pretty damn well for a while there), but the one thing I learned was how to look after it to recover it after every game. I don’t recommend this method for anyone else. For being a fairly smart guy, I can be as dumb as a bucket of bricks some time.
I do think the period of complete inaction may have helped me though. Apart from the “not-able-to-walk-properly” frustration I let my brain kick back and recharge. I feel much fresher for it, and I think in the long run that is going to hugely benefit my attitude to all the projects I’m trying to juggle, and in the long run make them better than they would have been without the rest.
Does that mean I’m advocating going to the pub every night for a week and getting completely tanked… well…
Yes I think it does.
