Two years ago this week I broke my toe by dropping a breezeblock on it. accidentally! This was not an attempt to get out of the trenches and secure a ‘Blighty wound.’
I once stood by and watched as a drug dealer deemed to be fleecing his supplier was held firmly by two burly men while a third man raised a solid breezeblock to head height before dropping it on the bare feet of the alleged miscreant.
Not a sight I’d want to see again.
I was supposed to be the new best mate of the man who’d given the order and had to nod my approval and go off for a drink to celebrate a job well done.
That breezeblock punishment was flavour of the month at the time. Those dozens of tiny bones in our feet are fragile and breaking even a single one hurts a lot. Crushing an entire foot, both feet in this case, will engender unmentionable agony and leave the victim unlikely to ever walk properly again. Precisely why it’s so popular with those who have the power to punish wrongdoers. Punishment should punish, obviously, but also be a deterrent to others and no-one who witnessed what I saw that day would ever wish such a fate upon themselves.
My own breezeblock related injury was trivial by comparison, just a broken big toe, but it came at an awkward time. We were removing and replacing roof tiles from our Spanish ruine as we’d found a likely buyer and the prospects of a sale would be considerably enhanced if the roof were less inclined to welcome the onset of rain by saying ‘come on in, plenty of room inside.’
A rush job. Just the two of us, as usual, working all the hours of daylight from can to can’t, and a broken toe was the last thing I needed.
Hard to know this, but we’d almost finished by this stage! Lick of paint and a good tidy up, etc. Note killer breezeblocks in foreground.
My book was doing well on the Authonomy site and was nudging the top ten. Anyone who’s suffered there will know the way the site leeches time and effort in an attempt to keep the book rising up the charts. An hour snatched at the end of the day as we wended our way down the mountain road in pitch darkness to an Internet café was all the attention it was going to get. For reasons that escape me now, all this fuss over a book was deemed important at the time. The quest for a Gold Star from Harper Collins and consideration by a top Editor was almost as important as selling the finca. Well, almost as important.
Somehow, we finished the roof, sold the finca, the book got a gold star and my toe healed up. Harper Collins didn’t ‘get’ the book, passed it back to me and I faffed about with a bit before publishing it myself as an e-Book. Last year it sold over 70,000 copies and got me more attention that I really needed from a bevy of agents and publishers. With hindsight, concentrating on selling the finca was a good decision; broken toe notwithstanding.
Result.
New retaining wall and start of new front terrace, rescuing finca which was about to fall down the hill. Still to add a bathroom and kitchen at the front and erect wall round terrace as very steep drop below.
Above Pic – A little later in the process. Note the ‘rustic’ rendering on new kitchen. Yes, of course I can do smooth rendering, but on a 300 year old finca the new bits have to be in keeping.
Last summer, we were in Bosnia, travelling around Eastern Europe, and stopped to help a fellow motor-home owner, an Italian, with a punctured tyre. The driver and myself were sitting in the dust, wrestling with the wheel nuts, and I was searching for a means of saying, ‘that jack doesn’t look very safe,’ in Italian, when the jack collapsed. My new friend lost the tip of his finger, sheered right off, and I gashed my big toe to the bone. Yep, the same one. A lucky escape, for both of us.
There’ve been many changes in Bosnia since the war. Mostar with its iconic and ancient bridge was virtually flattened by relentless shelling. The bridge has been restored and there’s a new hospital with facilities to put most other hospitals I’ve ever visited to shame. They stitched my toe together, told me to come back in a week, gave me a handful of pills and forbade alcohol for 48 hours. Poor Mario’s reduced length finger was dressed and he went on his way to borrow a decent jack. We put our feet up for a week – I had no other option to be fair – chilled out and read a lot of books.
Last night, walking back barefoot along the beach, I stubbed my toe on an unseen rock. Not one of those smooth, round rocks either. A jagged, unyielding Jurassic era monster. Big toe, right foot. The unlucky toe. This morning it looks grotesque. Swollen, purple, useless in every way and I can barely hobble. What do you reckon? Cut my losses and have it removed? Just think of all the injuries I’d escape.
The state of my throbbing toe has had one effect at least. Last night I was a clumsy idiot who should look where he’s going. This morning I’ve had breakfast in bed and a milky coffee, both reserved strictly for invalids. Naturally, I shall milk this situation shamelessly.
When a friend of mine was young, the punishment for wrongdoers among is kind was to have your bare foot held over the edge of a kerb and hit with a pickaxe handle. Breaks all the toes. His toes are a horrible sight now, if he ever bares them in sandals.
If you have that toe removed, it will make walking hard, balance harder and dancing impossible. I’d suggest wearing safety boots are all times in future. Even in bed. Worked for the Duke of Wellington…
Oh dear it’s time you started wearing toetectors – Is that toe longer than all the others or maybe he’s just the one they send to the front – whatever I do hope it heals up quickly but if the breakfast in bed is part of the convalescence maybe not tooooooooooo quickly – super pictures by the way.
don’t chop it off, just don’t. The bad luck will just work its way down through your foot and then back up your leg. And think of the mess. And the disposal of toe.
Sounds vile. Whenever I stub my toe (joins in valiantly), despite cripplingly pain and the sense that a pulp of mangled flesh should be what I see, the toe looks insultingly healthy. It’s then that I rail against my injury, generally to my chum who hobbles on sticks, who has had to learn to walk again after 9 months in hospital following a neck injury. I never learn. But he is a captive audience and so my wedding guest warms to its theme and we both limp on.
Painful, eh? Don’t chop it off you’ll fall over – and look silly in sandals. Gypsy remedy: If the skin’s not broken bathe in Witch Hazel, (any chemist) brilliant stuff. Brings down swelling & bruising quickly. Don’t go another yard in your campervan without Witch hazel (liquid) and a tube of Calendula Cream. (Marigold ointment) for cuts, burns… death!
Liz x
Definitely relate to the autho experience. Dare to have another life and you find yourself careering down the red arrow to oblivion. Sucks, really