Things are looking up. Yesterday the physio have me a 90% chance that I won’t play on Sunday but today that came down to 70%. It’s been an intensive week. I took Monday and Tuesday mornings off my class in order that I could stay at home and ice my ankle while watching Alan Partridge which was, as I’m sure you can imagine, a challenging way to begin the week. Both afternoons were spent on the physio table passing as many electrical pulses/ultrasounds through me as is safe in one day.
Back in class yesterday to find that middle-aged Korean Opera singer had missed me rather more than I had expected and seemed overly concerned for my well-being. A highly uncomfortable start to my day as I took my customary unsociable position at the back until my peace was disturbed by creepy Chicagoan with too much red lipstick. I don’t mind the gaggle of Swedes asking after my health. I had missed very little on the academic front. In the afternoon, I managed 20 mins on the elliptic trainer machine which gave some indication of range of movement and then the classic Frankenstein treatment.
Today I had been given the ultimatum that I had to succeed in running 10 minutes on the running machine or it would be an immediate NO for Sunday. The ankle was under more strapping tape than Tutankhamen (?) and I got through it with only minimal pain and a deranged running style. Clearly things weren’t perfect but it was good enough. After some more exercises outside where I tried to prove to the eternally optimistic physio that I could put all my weight on the ball of my right foot (I couldn’t...), he got on the phone to the Doc and asked if he would give me an injection tomorrow morning.
So tomorrow morning I will get one of these injections. It makes me feel quite like a pro, you always hear about pros getting pain-killing anti-inflammatory injections. While it is obviously skirting round a problem and not something to have done every week, it’s a last resort. Hopefully I’ll make it onto the bench for Sunday, and then hopefully not be needed. Coach says I’ll travel with the squad (which indicates I maybe wouldn't have if I wasn’t to play) and a decision will be made on Saturday evening. We travel on Saturday afternoon, have a barbeque in the evening, a petanque tournament (which I fully intend to win for Britain and the Queen) to loosen us off and then hit the Lyonnais hay.
Having well and truly stopped feeling sorry for myself, the victim of a cruel twist of fate, and nearly overcome the dark forces of luck through the advances in modern scientific medicine, I am looking forward to at least travelling to the once green, now slightly brown and dusty fields of Villefranche sur-Saone, just north of Lyon. We will conquer the pilou pilou singing (see below post), sun-tanned, boat dwelling, disciples of King Jonny. It’s the battle of two great clubs, recently reborn, the ciel et blanc against the rouge et noir. It’s a clash of cultures – the aristocratic city slickers, heady with the pressures and indeed trappings of France’s hub versus the beautiful backwater, chilled to the max and content to pass through life reflecting off the bay, on the jetty and the port, with a different rugby culture based on defending the honour of the town and the way of life it stands for rather than the loftier ambitions of defending the finest traditions and history of the game itself in France. As north and south meet roughly in the middle, let’s be having you, RC Toulon.
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