How dignified...

Strange feeling that someone has hit the pause button for a few days. Where were we?

Bastard delivered hero to airport, after rather smugly suggesting that alpine cycling is a breeze. Actually, Eric the Bastard was charming, like the gourmand and delivered me in wheelchair to Easyjet check in.

Hmmmm, Easyjet. Difficultjet, as it happens. All very nice until they get you on the plane, then it just, "Sit there and shut up". Strung out across 3 seats with painful children everywhere; "Daddy, what's that man done to his leg?", "I think he fell over and got a big owie (owwweeee?) skiing, Tabitha, darling". No shit, Sherlock. And the air stewards? "Can you get up now, sir?". Seriously. "Well, actually, no. I happen to have a full length plaster cast on my leg. It my surprise you to know that I did not do this just to get through the airport quickly". Mind you, if you were a good steward/ess, you probably would not work for easyjet on the Gatwick/Grenoble run, would you? I mean, the Matriarch, that's proper stewardessing (verb?); the full monty, London/New York with BOAC in its heyday...

While I'm on the subject, I've always wondered how she managed to do that job. I mean, apart from the fact that she has an abject fear of flying (which can't help, can it), she seemed to have spent the entire 1960's with a 3ft beehive on her head. How did she get up and down the aisles? Come to think of it, maybe she didn't; maybe she locked herself in the loo, too frightened to come out. It's not very comfortable flying with the Matriarch; just as the plane starts to taxi she grips your hand and whispers through a haze of brandy "How do these things ever get off the ground?".

Anyway, to digress a little further, but topically. Loo or toilet? Hmmmm, the Middleton debate. Does your hero go to the loo or the toilet? Which brings me nicely to one of the more delicate aspects of breaking a leg. At last, you sigh! On the afternoon of the great event, Punch returned from the chemist with a bag of goodies. He doled out a whole series of narcotics and even some rather nice crutches. Nice blue ones with, imagine, reflectors on the ends of each arm rest. Huh? Just in case I happened to want to go out at night and walk down a busyt road. They think of everything...

Anyway, finally, with a big fanfare Punch announced he had "Bought you this...". There was I, imagining a nice tarte au pommes to cheer my spirits; should have known better. He pulled out of the bag a weird pear shaped plastic bottle with a spout at one end. "What the.....". Then it dawned. "It's come to this" I thought, "my father has actually bought me a pee bottle and, what's more, he's actually proud of it; can I sink no lower?". I smiled weakly and muttered something about not needing that bloody thing...

Bravado soon subsided and your hero soon found himself rolling to one side trying to perform the perfect bottle fill. Undignified? Depressing? Actually, no. Bloody nice! The relief of not having to schlep to the loo (?), just lying there. Marvellous.

Anyway, enough of that lavatorial stuff. Except to say that when after some 5 days nature had a rather more urgent call, one that a pee bottle could not have been expected to manage, crisis loomed. I was at home, Chief Nurse was in France. What if I needed help? The only other person present was the mother in law, the Matron. Oh my God...

Suffice to say there has never been greater incentive not to fall over...at any cost.

Dignity in tact, just. "Everything ok in there?"

"Just fine, Matron, just fine..."