What a week it has been. After one small miscalculation in the gym in Wednesday, I have jeopardised all the training and my plans to do the Jatbula Track next weekend. On Thursday,  when I woke, my foot was aching but not too bad so I decided to go down to Balmoral Beach and do the Thursday swim. Whether it was the pain or the cold water I don’t know. It was 14°C brutally cold against bare skin. Like being kicked by a mule when I first put my head under the water. I became very chilled on the way back from the Balmoral Baths, and felt unwell. I think it was a combination of anxiety and trepidation over the setback that I’m enduring.  Several people remarked that I looked really crook in the shower afterwards. My hands had turned blue.I felt incredibly cold and almost fainted under the hot water. Anxiety and a bit of hypothermia. This is not a good combination. When combined with the pain in my now injured left foot I was literally on my last legs.

I decided that conservatism was required and went home and lay down for the rest of the day. I lamented that six months down the track I’m back where I started – in bed unable to walk. This time it’s not my injured leg – it’s the other one. In trying to rehabilitate my broken leg I’ve now damaged the unbroken leg. So frustrating. I had nothing to do but lay there all day and read a book called The Girl in the Train by Paula Hawkins. It has been very well reviewed but I found it incredibly depressing. Its themes are just too bleak for me.  Who wants to read about a woman accidentally drowning her first child in the bath. Give me a break.  I didn’t like Gone Girl or The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair either. They are all the same book with different names on the cover. I just don’t get modern fiction.

It was a very lonely day. I spoke to the office several times but the depression broke over me in waves and almost drowned me in the blackness. Today, Friday was no better. I was still in pain and decided to stay at home. A quiet day in touch with the office and hobbling around my apartment. I can’t put any weight on my left foot. The bitter realisation is dawning that I will probably not be able to go to the Northern Territory. I can hardly walk, let alone carry a pack. Saturday more of the same. I missed the Saturday morning swim on a beautiful day and was told alter that a whale had surfaced in Sydney Harbour and swum with our club members. I was at home flat on my back. In a “back to the future”, moment I got the old crutches out again and started to use them around my apartment. I had to go out at one stage during the day. It’s interesting but I’ve lost all the technique on crutches and feel very awkward on them. They do however, take the weight off the new injury in my left foot. Saturday evening attended the 25 year celebration dinner for the Loretto Kirribilli school rowing program, which I was very involved in during my daughters’ time at the school many years ago. Seeing all the videos, much of which I shot, and some of my photographs of my children on the walls, brought back many happy memories of the joys of being a father involved in children’s sport. I got to the evening on crutches and was able to get through it okay plonking around like I did in the first weeks after surgery. Getting out of the apartment made me feel better.