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winterbadgerOK, so I need to tell about my travels, but this first.
While I was walking the first morning I was on Orkney, I thought "Gosh, this is a single-track road; I should walk on the verge instead of on the road, for safety's sake." I stepped off onto the verge, walked several yards, and promptly stepped in a deep hole. I fell forward onto my right knee and hand; my hand got a bit bruised, but I could tell right away that my knee was really chewed up, almost certainly cut up and bleeding. Since I was with a friend, rather than make a fuss about it, since there was nothing we could do in the middle of the countryside, I just kept walking.
About the time it really started to hurt (suggesting to me that it had started to scab over a bit and the scab was getting pulled whenever I stretched the leg out), I stepped in another such hole and fell again in exactly the same way. :-( I got up again and kept walking, but this time on the road. There weren't many cars, and they had plenty of visibility to avoid me. And I didn't want another encounter with one of these drainage holes of whatever they were (they were frequent enough, now I was looking for them, large enough, and regular enough that they couldn't be just chance rabbit holes).
Eventually when I took a break later I pulled up my trouser leg (now bloodstained, but thankfully dark brown, so it didn't show very much) and, sure enough, the knee looked like 'road pizza'. (Photos here and here.) I washed it off with some water from my water bottle, then when I got back into town I went to the chemist and got some Elastoplast to cover it up (very handy, and not nearly as painful to remove from hairy leg as Band-Aids are--I'm still using it).
That night, after dinner, I wandered around the streets and allies of Stromness, enjoying the winding closes. But they are also a bit steep, and it had been raining so, of course, at one point I slipped and, wouldn't you know it, went down on the same knee! Arrgghh!
Well, I got back, and I've told the story several times, including to my customer at work, who thought my whole "well, I won't bother looking at it right now" was hilarious. "Admit it," she teased me, "you were thinking 'well, if I don't look at it, it won't be so bad.'" Can't really argue with that.
The epilogue being that, having finished work at the end of the day on Friday, I walked out of the building, carefully avoiding one of the cleaners who was vacuuming the carpets in the hallway and tangling his power cord all over everywhere. As I watched him run over the power cord with the vacuum and have to stop and untangle them, I stepped out into the lobby. And promptly slipped and slammed straight into the floor on both knees. He'd been just as careless when he cleaned the floors there and had not (a) thoroughly mopped up all the water he used and (b) put out a sign to say the floor was wet. All the cuts that had nearly finished healing up are now torn open again, and I have blood all over the knee of my (light coloured) work trousers, which may or may not come out.
Auuuuuugggghhh!
While I was walking the first morning I was on Orkney, I thought "Gosh, this is a single-track road; I should walk on the verge instead of on the road, for safety's sake." I stepped off onto the verge, walked several yards, and promptly stepped in a deep hole. I fell forward onto my right knee and hand; my hand got a bit bruised, but I could tell right away that my knee was really chewed up, almost certainly cut up and bleeding. Since I was with a friend, rather than make a fuss about it, since there was nothing we could do in the middle of the countryside, I just kept walking.
About the time it really started to hurt (suggesting to me that it had started to scab over a bit and the scab was getting pulled whenever I stretched the leg out), I stepped in another such hole and fell again in exactly the same way. :-( I got up again and kept walking, but this time on the road. There weren't many cars, and they had plenty of visibility to avoid me. And I didn't want another encounter with one of these drainage holes of whatever they were (they were frequent enough, now I was looking for them, large enough, and regular enough that they couldn't be just chance rabbit holes).
Eventually when I took a break later I pulled up my trouser leg (now bloodstained, but thankfully dark brown, so it didn't show very much) and, sure enough, the knee looked like 'road pizza'. (Photos here and here.) I washed it off with some water from my water bottle, then when I got back into town I went to the chemist and got some Elastoplast to cover it up (very handy, and not nearly as painful to remove from hairy leg as Band-Aids are--I'm still using it).
That night, after dinner, I wandered around the streets and allies of Stromness, enjoying the winding closes. But they are also a bit steep, and it had been raining so, of course, at one point I slipped and, wouldn't you know it, went down on the same knee! Arrgghh!
Well, I got back, and I've told the story several times, including to my customer at work, who thought my whole "well, I won't bother looking at it right now" was hilarious. "Admit it," she teased me, "you were thinking 'well, if I don't look at it, it won't be so bad.'" Can't really argue with that.
The epilogue being that, having finished work at the end of the day on Friday, I walked out of the building, carefully avoiding one of the cleaners who was vacuuming the carpets in the hallway and tangling his power cord all over everywhere. As I watched him run over the power cord with the vacuum and have to stop and untangle them, I stepped out into the lobby. And promptly slipped and slammed straight into the floor on both knees. He'd been just as careless when he cleaned the floors there and had not (a) thoroughly mopped up all the water he used and (b) put out a sign to say the floor was wet. All the cuts that had nearly finished healing up are now torn open again, and I have blood all over the knee of my (light coloured) work trousers, which may or may not come out.
Auuuuuugggghhh!
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 10:44 pm (UTC)Mine still aren't fully talking to me yet, but then my aches are self inflicted ;-)
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Date: 2010-09-18 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 11:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 02:18 am (UTC)I hope they heal up really soon. There's so little you can do in life without bending your knees.
We took a pretty walk in Little Bennett Regional Park this afternoon. Your knees would not have liked it.
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Date: 2010-09-19 02:43 am (UTC)My knees are fine for walking; it's the kneeling on them that is very painful.
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Date: 2010-09-19 06:47 am (UTC)I hope you heal up, and don't re-injure soon.
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Date: 2010-09-19 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 12:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 12:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 03:31 pm (UTC)Sorry 'bout the knee, though -- did you do something wrong that the Universe was taking out on just that one knee? Jeez.
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Date: 2010-09-21 03:58 pm (UTC)