After mine and Mum’s dogs met with a whippet in the woods, got the ‘zoomies’ and crashed into my left leg painfully, throwing me up into the air in cartwheeling, comedy fashion, I hobbled around on it for two days. The dogs (otherwise well-trained) were very sorry.
Having just moved house, albeit within the village, and with autumn and winter to enjoy outdoors, not to mention unpacking, decorating, and driving my daughter into town for work, volunteering and back, and settling our old horse in her new yard, I could do without an increasingly troublesome leg.
Eventually, I took my husband’s advice (he’s a paramedic after all) and rang 111. Hobbling back from the x-ray unit later, I was met halfway with a stern-faced nurse and a wheelchair. It turns out that, just because you have too much to do and people reliant on you, you can’t refuse to have a broken leg.
The logistics were our first challenge, as all my responsibilities were laid bare. My youngest daughter can drive but, due to the current driving test situation, is six months into waiting for a test to come up. Most days, she needs to be somewhere involving an hour round-trip into town at irregular hours.
Though we have a local bus, it’s infrequent and often cancelled due to road closures (35 times in the last 18 months, which renders it a somewhat precarious service) and it doesn’t run after 5pm. The dog needs walking, the horse needs looking after – so very much needs doing.
But once we’ve sorted that out (the kindness and support of villagers, friends and family is heartwarming and practical, and makes up for the lack of services and access in this rural place), I’m left to contemplate my situation.
As an ‘outdoorsy person’ and a nature writer, being cooped up indoors is a challenge. But, of course, there is a precedent. Freedom to get out and about at will is a privilege I try to remind myself of often, anyway.
There are many things that restrict us – from our economic situation to our physical one, in place, health or access; through injury or illness; or our responsibilities for others.
There are a growing number of authors writing brilliantly about these experiences, whose words are vital, rich and energising, and illuminate the world in a different way; writers such as Polly Atkin, Nic Wilson, Louisa Adjoa Parker and Josie George, or in the wonderful anthology Moving Mountains: Writing Nature through Illness and Disability.
This is going to be a different time for me, not a difficult one, and it will have an ending. I need to learn acceptance, patience and appreciation as I heal, and my world shrinks to a handful of indoor rooms.
I am getting to know our new home properly; how the light falls at different times of the day and in different weather, what sounds it makes, the views from each window. I have missed the whole of autumn outdoors, and much of winter – seasons I love, despite the cold, wet and mud – but I watch different winds peel off individual leaves from the lime trees at the edge of the garden.
I watch a corner frost not-entirely melt all day, as the hedge above exhales purls of steam that echoed those coming off my mug of tea. I learn to always be in the conservatory at sunset. I read more. I listen to podcasts and the radio. I think. I promise myself I will slow down and savour things, pay attention, and take up painting and drawing again, after a hiatus of two decades.
And while I hope to be out walking again, maybe even riding soon, I will recall this time with gratitude. Even now, I’m wondering if I have stayed with it enough – appreciated it enough.
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Top image: Inna Yatsun
