I’ve got a habit of buying people ‘experiences’ rather than ‘objects’ as gifts, and sneakily they’re always things I want to do too, so I invite myself along as a +1... winner winner. Darryl’s birthday was earlier this month, and his present was a trip to Dubrovnik in Croatia. Dubrovnik was lovely: gorgeous weather, an awesome vegan restaurant tucked away in the beautiful Old Town, and an apartment which came with its own massive testicled friendly ginger cat. We went up a mountain in cable cars which gave stunning views of Old Town and the coast, and also had a museum about the Croatian war of independence which used highly emotive and biased information; bordering on propaganda.
As part of my mission to visit 100 countries before I die we got on a bus and hopped over to Montenegro to hear their side of the story! On crossing the border the weather dramatically changed. There was thunder, lightning and rain so hard that we queried wether the bay we were driving around had actually been a bay earlier in the morning.
We arrived in Kotor, an extremely pretty town wedged between the sea and mountains, just as the weather started to change for the better. The combination of residual puddles, Kotor’s smooth medieval paving and my flimsy flips flops meant I went flying and did some painful damage to my right ankle. Montenegro isn’t an EU country so my E111 doesn’t carry much weight, and I didn’t want to use my travel insurance to go to a hospital here because we only had 90 minutes in Kotor before our bus left, via Budva (the other direction from the Croatian border). I got on the bus and limped around Budva for a bit, got some bandages and strapped my leg up as best I could whilst still wearing the offending flip flops.
7 hours later we arrived back in Dubrovnik and reasoned that yes, it’s probably broken, but if I got that confirmed with an x-ray then I’d be plastered up which would mean missing my flight tomorrow morning (you’re not able to take a flight >2 hours long within 48 hours of having a cast fitted) and not getting back to the U.K. until Wednesday. In light of this I strapped it up using an alcohol soaked cloth my host provided (it smells too much like ouzo for me to be tempted to take the bedtime shot she also gave me), used the best analgesia available (paracetamol, ibuprofen, tramadol and alcohol which probably shouldn’t be mixed but work FAR better when they are!), elevated it (by the pool), and I’ll swing by Nottingham’s minor injuries unit if it’s still swollen and painful tomorrow afternoon.
Up until this point I’d like to think I’ve been reasonable in dealing with all the crap life sends my way. It’s easy to ask “why me?”, but far more accurate to think “well, it probably had to happen to someone, so why not me?” - and that had been my philosophy for as long as I can remember. I firmly believe you stand a far greater chance of being in the right place at the right time the more places you go to, but I guess if you pessimistically flip that; you’re also a lot more likely to be in the WRONG place at the WRONG time. Given that the last 12 months have pelted me with: 3 anaphylactic reactions (each to a previously unknown allergen, one escalating to anaphylactic shock), being hit by a car and breaking my arm in 2 places, pyelonephritis, 2 kidney stones, a busted lip after slipping in a colossal pile of pigeon crap and the diagnoses of premature menopause and infertility I thought I was due a break.
If there is an omnipotent power... it hates me.
No comments:
Post a Comment