Moral of this story? Don't get up early in the morning!

It does not pay to get up early! It is the one thing that I hate doing and yet I love birding so every now and then (like once a year) I make the effort. This year was Saturday morning. We’ve had house guests all week – first a hippie couple from Cape Town for three nights and then a great couple from our hiking club for two nights. But 6 days and five nights of constant talking pushed me into making the effort to join the bird club at a local reserve to look for the Painted Snipe. At 4.30 am my alarm went off and I got up, dressed, made tea and a sandwich and OAP came downstairs to say goodbye just I was slipping out into the early dawn. It was GLORIOUS! We’ve been having such hot weather and this was cool and clear and obviously going to be a scorcher of a day.


An hour later I arrived at the gates of the reserve and paid my entrance fee along with 6 million masochistic cyclists fully kitted out in the latest gear with their little water packs on their backs and their little pipes next to their cheeks should they feel the need to have a “sluk” whenever. I remembered the days when we cycled and wore an old Tshirt and a pair of padded hellenca stretch cycling pants and had a bottle clipped onto the bike frame – obviously not good enough for this lot!

The rest of the club members arrived (having got up about 10 minutes before) and we set off for the camp site in the top end of the park. From there we picked our way through the waist high grass, praying the snakes were still asleep, down to the wetlands below. Normally you are not allowed to do this but we had permission which felt great. That’s the nice thing about joining clubs for this and that – you get to go places where the plebs can’t go! Down in the wetland area we discovered why we had been advised to wear “wellies”. The water was about knee deep in places and the mud even deeper! I don’t have wellies as I put them in the “box for France” (this is a box in a store room in town where we put all the things we want to take and know we’ll forget! It used to be the Swiss box but is now the French box). So, not having wellies I wore my hiking boots and having forgotton socks wore two pairs of OAP’s gym socks that he’d left in my car. Hiking boots were by far the best footwear unless you had a pair of waders anyway as one or two gave up on the chase after getting stuck in the mud and others ended up with as much water in their boots as out. Once I got my feet wet I didn’t mind the feel and just sploshed along with leaders of the hunt. You needed to be up front as they flushed the birds and that was the only sight one got! They sit still until you nearly tread on them and then suddenly flap up in your face giving their drumming call – heart attack stuff! I was chief flusher after the first half hour as the two lead men wanted to try to get photos so there I was like a retriever squishing around the tufts of long grass trying to stay out of the deepest areas. Some of the flatter areas looked so tempting until you put a foot on the grass and realized that the whole “lawn” was afloat! After 3 ½ hours of this we decided to go back to the cars and join the others and look for other birds in the area. Almost back at the road I fell into an Aardvark hole and twisted an ankle. It was hidden under grassy tufts and I must have just got the edge with my right foot, so the ankle went over and then down 3 feet! It was actually so embarrassing that I made out it was nothing and managed to pull myself together and hobble back to the car where we ate our breakfast – I took off my boots as my ankle was screaming but this was possibly a mistake as it ballooned out spectacularly! Couldn’t eat breakfast as I felt quite sick and left soon after to go home while the club went off looking for Tree Pipits (that would have been a first for me but I just couldn’t think of anything worse!). At home the guests had gone and I lots of tea and sympathy and I am now feeling a bit better and am able to stand on it but can’t bend it or move the foot, so tomorrow am off back to Rustenburg to have X/Rays.

Tuesday: X/Rays showed a fracture - the whole knob bit at then end of the bone has broken off so I am now in plaster up to my knee and not allowed to put weight on it.  In two weeks time I have another X/Ray to see if it is knitting (not crocheting) and if not then I have to have a screw inserted.  Don't like the sound of that so I am being fairly good and hobbling around on OAP's crutches.  Not easy - all my weight is divided between my left leg and the crutches and boy am I heavy!  Also the cast feels like I am wearing my right knee length boot from the 70s - too tight and I want to take it off, especially before getting int bed!  That just feels WRONG!  I can't lie on my stomach either as then it hurts like hell.  This is going to be a LONG two weeks with the house getting dirtier and dirtier (OAP doesn't see dirt!) and, as we've had a constant stream of guests, there is much to be done.  This morning I had to instruct OAP in the art of getting the weekly wash done - what a frustration!  Everything I take for granted had to be explained over and over and then all the clothes and bedding got slung in lumps over the line!  How the heck does he think it will dry?  At least I can ask one of the ladies here to iron some things for us or he can take a bar stool and I can sit and do it.