Once again time somehow gets away. I looked at my blog for something else today - to see when Peter got his bike, and realised I've written nada since I was just about to go for knee injections. Well that day was a drama and a lot has happened since.
The day of going for the injections I was up at the station early, not trusting fate, or at least not wanting to leave anything to chance. When I got there (I was travelling through to Falkirk) the first train that was due to go was up on the board and I was going to get it as soon as the platform was announced - but it was never announced and never announced until 1 minute before it was due, it came up as cancelled. It turned out someone had died on the rails somehow, somewhere around Camelon. The next train was 'expected on time', but that's what they'd said about the last one. I dithered a bit but just couldn't stand the thought of waiting like a lemon (I don't know why it's always a lemon) as trains got cancelled and my appointment became impossible to make. Also I'd paid a healthy deposit which was also a late cancellation fee. I figured I had about enough time to make it by car if I got a move on. I had to get back down into Leith and get the car. I phoned Peter on the way and asked him if he'd meet me at the car with the sat nav and the car key so I could get going right away. He did and I set off.
It was touch and go - some traffic getting out of Edinburgh, and then the motorway was nice and clear and I was treating it like a race so I was going as fast as I could on the motorway. Then going into Falkirk the Sat Nav, without explanation, said it had lost the GPS signal. So I was driving into Falkirk blind. I'd been to the clinic before, but travelled by train, so I had no idea how to get there by car. I just made some route choices based on nothing at all and wrangled with the GPS when I was stuck at lights and it came back on thank goodness and I discovered I was just round the corner. I had about 10 minutes to spare. The last thing was to find some parking, which wasn't easy, but I found a tiny little space on a corner that didn't have any yellow lines, and thankfully the car is titchy, so I could squeeze it into the spot.
I was a bit full on I think when I stormed into the clinic. Too much adrenaline. I saw Stewart who does the injections and he asked me how I was and I was like "GREAT JUST MADE IT BY THE SKIN OF MY TEETH. SOMEBODY WENT UNDER A TRAIN SO THERE WERE NO TRAINS SO I DROVE BUT THE SAT NAV WENT OFF BUT I GOT HERE ANYWAY" I had a wee seat and a drink of water and calmed myself.
So we had a chat and I got my injections. Exciting. I'd had the needle in the knee thing before so I wasn't worried about it, just really glad to be doing something proactive rather than...waiting around... like a lemon. I don't want to be a lemon.
I didn't notice much difference that day but the next day after I'd gone for a walk I could feel they were definitely on the improve and in a few days both knees were looking nearly normal. They're doing okay now too. I have a niggle on the outside of my left knee which I'm trying to figure out because sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not and it's likely to do with a tight muscle somewhere else. Everything has been feeling fairly hunky-dory in fact, except I've just started doing a bit of running again and that's stirring things up. I hope manageably so. I'm still going to see Ross the P/T and every week he gets me to do hard things. I've come to really like it.
But so, in the meantime, a couple of days after I'd gone for the knee injections, my poor old mum finally died. After numerous falls and strokes and fractures and hospital admissions she just went for a snooze after breakfast it would seem and took off and didn't come back! She was 98 and tired of it all, so it's hard to be regretful about it. I'm an orphan now though and probably I won't get any birthday money any more, so that's not ideal.
Mum wasn't exactly what you'd call a church regular, so we - all the daughters - agreed, that we'd just send her off to get cremated herself and then have a gathering in her honour. We have cousins in England who wanted to come up, and I have a small herd of nephews, and in fact a grand-niece although it's hard for me to keep track.
So we went up and spent a weekend. It was interesting to see all the rellies. I won't bore on about it.
I heard new things about my auntie Joan though from my cousin Alison - comparing notes of parenting styles with how our mum was.
So that's you up to speed. I wish I was! I started off kidding myself I would do a couch to 5K session but the minute I get out there I start pushing the distance and instead of doing 7 sets of 1 minutes run, it turns into 18 and 24. It is like an addiction - kidding myself I can just have one drink - but when I get running something else takes over. Some fecking madness. If I was running smoothly, that would be one thing, but I'm not really. I feel like I don't know where my legs are supposed to be when I'm running, which is probably true - so I confessed all to Ross and we have a plan. All hard efforts to be done on the bike. Running to be done only twice a week and purely to try to sort my form out.
Wish me luck! :-)
Hay field and bales and middle sister and youngest nephew.
Oldest sister and hubby Andy. I don't know why but these pictures have a paparazzi feel.
Nearly full or full moon.
All the rest of the pics are from Castle Fraser.
