Sticks and stones...and John Deeres

Right. It was a brisk Wednesday morning last week when I set out, as usual, from my new home in the village of Madingley to bike to work. Madingley Road is quite busy and narrow, but has a separate cycle path that's empty and safe.

Or so I thought, until a large John Deere tractor abruptly turned off the road without signalling, and ploughed into me.

Well, I guess I should watch my words when describing a tractor collision - it wasn't ploughing at the time it hit me. But it was going at a decent clip. Decent enough to knock me off my bike and fracture a bone or two.

I've been vain about my bones all my life. I've fallen out of trees, fallen down stairs, crashed into all sorts of objects all my life, without any lasting damage. But this Cambridgeshire tractor has now finally stolen my immortality. I disentangled myself from the bike - on long-term loan from the Finn, and it didn't sustain a single scratch - and felt that my right arm was a bit funny. A couple doctor visits and x-rays later, and "funny" was updated to "fractured". Possibly more than one fracture exists, as my wrist is more painful than the already-identified fractures. But yet another x-ray will be needed next week to determine if it is also damaged. Here's one. Don't bother looking for the hairline; you won't see it. I do appear to have a benign tumour shaped like a little arrow in my upper arm, though, which worries me a bit.


In the meantime, no casts are needed, as the fractures are just hairline. But the arm is only half-useful. I shall report progress, which I hope to be rapid.

In the meantime! This weekend was spent with friends from Halley last season, in Cornwall. Here they are, Jim and Tamsin, at Tintagel:



As well as Tintagel, we saw some nice pubs, nice beaches, and nice farms. Plus, the village of Cheddar. Guess what manner of food we sampled there?

The fractured arm didn't help this weekend, but then again, it didn't really harm it either. But here's hoping it goes away soon. Real soon.