“You’re walking better this morning,” I noted as Karen hobbled into the kitchen around 9:00 AM.
“Yes, I can walk!” she proclaimed proudly.
‘Walk’ might have been a slight exaggeration for someone possessing an ankle currently the size of my thigh, coloured black as the ace of spades with a delicate fringe of green and purple bruising around the edges. But yes, she was officially moving around unaided.
As a veteran of severe ankle sprains, she knew the drill: strict rest combined with periodic, gentle movement was the only path to a speedy recovery. That became her official order of the day.
My own order of the day involved drafting a series of delicate emails. Now settled into my study, I decided I desperately needed a proper external monitor hooked up to my laptop. In my experience, monitor installations go one of two ways: either smooth and effortless, or a soul-crushing, afternoon-wasting ordeal.
Lifting the monitor down from the loft ladder, I felt a surge of gratitude that we’d boarded out the roof space. It meant we could actually locate the remaining items that hadn’t been dispatched to the recycling centre. Miracle of miracles, it connected to my laptop instantly without a single glitch. In no time at all, I was happily bashing away at my inbox on a glorious big screen.
By early-afternoon, I left Karen resting peacefully in the sunlit cocoon chair in the garden and took the dogs out for a walk. I needed a sharp break from the desk and some exercise before the night’s main event: my first competitive table tennis match of the new season.
At the hall, Mike and I had a sensational warm-up session. We both agreed that if league matches were judged purely on warm-up performance, we would currently be representing Great Britain.
Regrettably, that is not how the evening unfolded.
Old Faithful performed admirably. The player holding the handle, however, performed… precisely as expected for his first competitive outing of the autumn: average at best. Afterwards, Mike and I compiled a comprehensive list of contributing factors for our defeat: we were both adjusting to new bats, it was the start of the season, we hadn’t played together as a team in months… and, crucially, the opposing team were simply much better than us.
I’ll be back on the robot tomorrow morning, practicing those open-up shots until they become second nature.
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