Laid up, foot up, fed up... Shut up?

It's hard not to feel sorry for yourself when you had work, activity, family and friends mapped out for a few months and then TWANG! The ordinarily elastic and highly complex series of muscles, tendons and ligaments in your ankle are asked to do some involuntary acrobatics as you temporarily forget how to put one foot in front of another.

Unfortunately I'm not the type to "make the best" of a situation like this as I'm constantly imagining an alternative universe in which I've been active for the last 11 days and not just thinking about how long it's going to take to start getting around again. It's also one of those injuries that seems to get more annoying as it heals.

At this point (11 days later) the only bit that is swollen is around the "ball" of my ankle, where the foot articulates. Whilst this doesn't look very serious, you kinda need this area to work if you have any chance of walking properly. It also bears weight when you extend onto your toes, so even after 11 days, walking up the stairs is pretty damn painful! Not to mention standing on bicycle pedals.

Nope...

The constant ingestion of both anti-inflammatory and pain killing drugs is also just unbearable on the digestive system of someone who doesn't ordinarily partake. There really is nothing good about the situation at all.

The reason I'm even writing this today is that my mate was sitting in a McDonalds 20 miles away for a pre-production meeting this morning (Wednesday) only problem is I'm still on Tuesday over here and a full day behind. So sorry Andy, I'll see you tomorrow. The combination of all the above and having no reference points for the last 11 days has just tossed everything up in the air for me.

So what to do? I did get on my feet for a few hours to go over to Sprockets and catch some footage to test the new camera gear and my chops with Premier Pro, the results of which you can see below. It's a bit rough around the edges but if you've ever tried using a steadicam, you'll appreciate that the results are actually pretty good for a first time user.



Another thing that really grates is just the sheer amount of reliance on other people. It's brutal to watch your loved ones running around after you, insisting that its all OK for them and knowing that you're the cause of them having to out in that extra effort and screwing up their schedules and arrangement. At the risk of sounding a bit self indulgent, I feel pretty bad for my wife and my in-laws, they really are the best people I've ever known.

On an even MORE depressing note, whatever happened to daytime TV? I'm sure it's like many things in that nostalgia and the loss of "youth" to the ravages of time kind of skews your opinion of what was good and what was not, but crikey! Rip off Britain, Cowboy builders, Wanted down under, Loose Women, Judge Rinder. I mean come on! It's easy to see why people who may choose to "apply themselves less" could sit and watch this sugar coated nonsense with no real motivation to leave the house, but it's not for me, it's terrible.

What else then? I don't really play video games these days, with the exception of GTAV if I'm just in the mood to cause some carnage on the streets of Los Santos. But in a weird course of action my wife & son bought me Battlefield 1 for Christmas.

I was a little confused at the time, but having played it a few times it really is quite a masterclass in every sense of the word and pays a very real homage to the horror, romance, cost and importance of the Great War. The story modes in particular are very poignant. Its actually hard not to relate to some of the characters as well as finding it double hard to watch increasingly realistic digital humanoids die over and over again in the most horrible ways ever invented. (sorry depressing I know)

The game play is amazing, the graphics and textures are stunning and of course getting killed is easy as there are folk all over the world that just spend all day playing games like this, with the express intention of kicking your ass.

Chaaaaaaaarrrrge!!!!

Even worse is the fact that I got to ride my new bike for the first time at the start of the year, only to watch it become a literal clothes horse over the last fortnight. In fact it was in the act of putting my bike in the van for a trip that I sprained my ankle in the first place.

Quite a bitter pill to swallow as I was ready to go to Innerleithen for a proper big ride to start the year and of course my journey towards the Cairngorm Loop this year. I guess this is the main reason I'm so down on this last 11 days.

I promise that the following photo is not set up. It's now like a chameleon, blending into its sad familiar background...

Literally the worlds most depressing picture.

Anyway, I think I'll quit this one just now as I initially did it to cheer myself up.

Buh.....