not nice ice

in the end i guess my nicotine habit will kill me... perhaps...
in a previously unimagined manner!

so last night...there i was, smoking my last cigarette of the day. the night was pitch black and freezing cold. but...i am a considerate smoker, i always smoke outside, sharing the pollution of my dreadful habit only with mother nature.

i knew about the ice!
between the cottage and the retaining stone wall there is a large concrete slab...stops the mud from actually taking over the house. all winter long water seeps from the hillside behind the house, through the stone wall and then dribbles out over the concrete.
sometimes it freezes. last night...guess i lost concentration. my legs started to slide apart, as if i was doing the splits. i have never been able to do the splits ... there is always a first time...
the pain, omg... then a dreadful cracking sound from both my knees and then i was on my (fortunately fairly rotund) arse. i screamed...nobody heard, the kids were already asleep and stone houses are amazingly soundproof.
my first thought was...

"omg you idiot $%&^* what the $%^&* have you done now!"

i'm not really that good in emergencies, if you have one...you should probably call someone else.

i managed to scrabble up into an ape like, semi crouching position. hmmm...everything seemed to be working, i straightened up, not too bad, i could walk...aaahhh...adrenaline!

two hours later...my knees were sharing with me how it would feel to be one hundred years old. i swallowed an ibuprofen, arranged myself very carefully in the bed and off to the land of nod, to dream....or not, as the case maybe.

I awoke this morning with sincere regrets that i still inhabited the mortal plain. my knees were now allowing me to experience two hundred year old joints.
i am able to walk, only just and very carefully. any sideways movement tends to lead to a horrible howling sound emerging from deep in my throat.

managed to eat and swallow some more ibuprofen. now the question is, should i look for a lift down to the village surgery or should i just lie here and hope for a miracle!

oh yeah... and happy christmas to you too ;-)