All This and Christmas Too

It's been a rough couple of weeks for me one way and another.  Not only has my newly reinstated Tasmanian correspondent apparently discovered something better to do than send me information but my body has taken a bit of a pounding as well.

In my increasingly pitiful attempts to convince myself that I'm still young, fit and vigorous I have been playing in a corporate soccer competition with various colleagues at lunchtime.  Corpses have better reflexes and coordination than I do, can probably run faster and, based on the popularity of the game across the world, are statistically more likely to know more about soccer as well.  Anyway while running for the ball (or at least in the rough direction of the ball) I managed to connect the side of my head with somebody's knee.  For good measure I slammed my ribs into his other knee just in case he thought it was a mistake.

Nobly I lurched to my feet and continued playing (after a minute or so while I listened to the bells in my head and tried to figure out which way was up).  I am pleased to say my team won despite my best efforts.  It has to be admitted however that the next few days were rather unpleasant.  I seem to have displaced a couple of teeth which steadfastly refuse to go home and I realised I might have been slightly concussed when I woke up on Friday with only the vaguest memories of what had happened on Wednesday and Thursday. 

Irritating teeth and a slight puffiness on the side of my head notwithstanding the worst of that incident seemed to be over so I turned up at my place of employment rubbing, gingerly, the side of my head and eager to work.  By lunch time I had made apologies and dragged a suddenly extremely painful body back home again.  I spent that night on my lounge room floor (which would be my home for the next several days) and the helpful paramedics the next day informed me I had acquired a kidney stone.  The hospital gave me some highly addictive opiods (which were absolutely useless) and sent me home again.

Fortunately help was at hand.  My Belarussian tech support having noticed my unaccountable absence from certain (ahem) websites they administer had sent a medical team to look after me.  They drilled holes in my head, applied leeches and started a cupping procedure before admitting that their normal practice consisted largely of castrating donkeys.  But they assured me they had a high survival rate, comfortably over fifty percent.  They were about as helpful as the opiods but at least I could swear at them.

Far more use (since I didn't actually make this part up) was a good friend of mine named Amanda who delivered cup a soups to me so that I could have a dinner that didn't require me to stand up for more than three minutes at a time.  She also chased off the Belarussian witch doctor and killed the most persistent of the leeches.  Many thanks my dear.

With all of this rubbish going on I barely had time to buy my father a tea cosy for his birthday and now I realise I've run out of time to buy Christmas presents.  Normally I am reasonably competent at this (or at least the recipients of the presents pretend that I am) but I'm afraid this year might be a little less stellar.  They will be nicely wrapped however.  The Salvation Army has set up a present wrapping service in the foyer of my building.  In return for low denomination currency they will adorn whatever I manage to purchase with brightly coloured paper.  This is apparently to assist literacy programs for young Australians.  Although I was slightly thrown by their posters which were covered in pictures of definitely elderly woman baring their teeth for the camera. 

My family are going to have to make do with whatever I can pick up from 7-11 on my way to their home on Christmas Eve.  I'm thinking family sized slurpees for everyone.  But they will be nicely wrapped.