So last week, after a company p*ssup involving much champagne on the top floor of our office, I decided to lose my balance and fall down the top flight of stairs. Result: One dislocated ankle and a whole weeks worth of hobbling and pain.
Needless to say, I decided not to go into work and decided to work from home instead. I was finding it difficult to sit down at my desk at home and work, as my ankle kept swelling up rather painfully during the day. A short trip to the Doc’s later and I was told I was doing all the wrong things. Apparently, I needed to:
i) Raise my ankle above the level of my torso.
ii) Get an icepack on it
iii) Compress the swollen area with a bandage
iv) Above all, stop putting my weight on it!
Taking this advice literally, I decided to re-arrange my home work area as above. I was lying on my bean bag when I took this shot. V comfy!
The ankle is now nicely healed, and swelling has gone right down. So remember, kids, next time you drink too much champers and fall down a flight of stairs, remember to apply RICE
So last weekend I went to Devon for the first time in my life. I’m amazed that it’s taken me 33 years to get there, given the outdoorsey sort of person that I am. I think having a childhood spoiled with the Yorkshire Dales, the Lakes and Northumbria kind of kept Devon and Cornwall low on my list of places to visit in this country.
So my first experience of Devon was a wind and rainswept night spent rough camping on Dartmoor last Friday night. We had the tent pitched by12:30am – quite difficult, actually, not because of being in absolute and utter darkness, but because of the difficulty in finding a tent sized pitchable area in the dark without cowpats on it. We were woken up at 3am by some pretty strong winds and heavy rain which lasted until 4pm the following day. Lovely. Still, it was a cool experience, snug in a little tent, knowing that you are the only people for miles around.
The next day we chickened out and headed for a campsite near Slapton Sands on the coast, where the weather got a lot better. A very different kind of beauty to wild and desolate Dartmoor.
Overall, I think Devon is a lovely place, and I’m sorry that it took me so long to actually go and check it out. But I still think I prefer the Northumbrian coast to the Devon coast, and the Yorkshire Dales to Dartmoor. As wild and as desolate as Dartmoor is, I still think the Dales is wilder and more dramatic, especially the area of the moors west of Pateley Bridge heading towards Grassington. And Devon definitely gets more tourists, and is more geared up to them, so it has a more touristy feel, I think. But then again, I am a Northern Git, so I’m probably biased.
