The ice cream scoop of victory

Back in early August when I was feeling blue following my foot surgery, Philippa, Kathryn and Anne came round to share a takeaway. Anne kindly brought ice cream…. and her own ice cream scoop.

Proudly she demonstrated its ergonomic design. She showed us how it thrust through ice cream like a snow plough through…well, snow. No other scoop worked as efficiently.

After they had all left the scoop was still here.

"Probably she’ll pop back for it."

But she didn't.

"Perhaps you could take it round to her, Nigel "

But Nigel was busy covering my household tasks as well as his own. 

Over the following weeks the ice cream scoop shifted from one part of the kitchen to another until finally its role became clear. 

It was to be SYMBOLIC.

When I could walk well enough to take the scoop back to Anne's I would be a good way down the road to recovery.

At last, on Sunday the moment had arrived. I tucked the scoop in my coat pocket and clumped off on my crutches. Anne was certainly going to be overjoyed to see her long lost scoop again.

At the door she was glad to see me and invited me in politely.

Although it was hardly the exuberant reunion of scoop and owner that I had been anticipating.

“Aren't you pleased to get it back?”

“To be honest, Clare, I thought I must have accidentally thrown it in the bin.  So I went out and bought a new one.”

So we are both winners – I am beginning to walk again, and Anne is now the owner of a double-scoop household.

A foot like a root vegetable

A red letter day was looming on the calendar. I was due to get x-rayed to see if my foot operation had been a success.

Fiona texted, "You know, don't you, that your foot will come out looking like a root vegetable. Take fake tan and a razor with you."

So not just any root vegetable then: a hairy root vegetable.

Perran said "Dead skin. There'll be lots of dead skin."

I peeked at my leg just inside my cast. It did look a tad...scaly.

All was about to be revealed. I hoped it would not be so bad that Nigel (accompanying me) could never again regard me as an attractive woman.

Perhaps there is the basis for a reality TV show? 

Forgotten celebrities desperate to revive failing careers could have their legs broken (perhaps by Timmy Mallett with a golden mallet), get put in plaster, and get judged on the quantity and quality of leg-hair and dead skin they managed to produce over six weeks. 

There would certainly be a “big reveal”. Not sure how they'd fill in the other six weeks of the series though.

Perhaps they could follow the celebrities as they discover that having a broken leg doesn't entitle you to park in a disabled space.  Or as they wait for ages outside the disabled loo because it doubles as a baby change facility.

But all this speculation was just a sideshow. Due back to work on Monday, I really needed the op to have worked.

At the hospital I tried to read the face of the radiologist. She was giving nothing away.

Finally the consultant greeted me, beaming. 

The bones had knitted.

Time to move on to a plastic boot and crutches.

“Thank you thank you thank you,” I said.

“We're not home and dry yet,” he said.

But at least the plastic boot covered up my hairy, scaly leg.

Get Well card from Liz