Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is simply that, although experience has often taught me otherwise. So when I say it is finally looking like that, excuse me if I add "please God", "all crossed", "touch wood" and so on.
For, at last, October has arrived and by the end of it I should be standing and walking. I will be allowed to put weight on my leg towards the end of the month and then, well, hopefully the three hours of physio daily and, just as importantly, my own confidence should do the rest.
After all, as they keep telling me, I no longer have a plateau fracture of the tibia. It is fixed; held firmly in place by plate and pins. It is the framework around it – of muscle, ligaments and tendon – which now needs to remember its work.
The knee has to be able to bend 120 degrees to stand and walk. I’ve so far reached a shaky, painful 110 degrees but each week sees another notch on my chart.
Of course I will not immediately arise and go forth as I did in the days before the mid-July accident. I will arise, but with walker or elbow crutches, gradually reducing to one and then, quickly I hope, none.
It will take however long it will take before I can drive or certainly walk a strong dog. So waiting for me at home will be the young Italian couple, Sandybell and Livio, 28 and 27, I found on the website for house and pet sitters.
They sound ideal for me. She’s a photographer/translator and he is a sports journalist with his own website. They will bring life, music and fun into the house but, even better, they will introduce youth into this geriatric sanctuary in which I’ve ended up.
They call themselves digital nomads because they can work from anywhere, so how better to see the world than house sitting.
Once I’m home, a couple of days later, Cesar will come home from the kennels where he’s learned to love Trudi the owner and grown used to the play and company of other dogs. I fear he will be discontented and difficult with the return to a quieter life but my Italians know exhausting him is the key to all our happiness.
I will play no part in that, merely concentrating on keeping out of his large, unbridled way. The couple will ensure this in the three months they’ve agreed to stay with me.
It’s wryly amusing how only the French and a couple of English ever mention Cesar now.
I’m well aware we were much discussed at the time and the overall consensus was that he should be rehomed or shot. Yes, that really was suggested as if he were a mad, slavering beast who had attacked me, instead of a frightened pup who jumped the wrong way at the wrong time.
My break was fodder for those who cried madness when I even mentioned getting another Afghan and friendships have been lost because of their attitude. I figure other reasons must surely have already been in play so "tant pis", as we say in the boondocks.
Interestingly, the French, who can be unthinkingly cruel and unsympathetic with their animals, cannot understand why a dog has to go because of a mere accident that could have happened at any time.
But I do not like giving those others ammunition for their prejudices dressed up as concerns, so I will guard myself carefully around him until he matures and steadies somewhat.
I also understand myself well enough to recognise that ownership of such a dog is also a statement that I do not want to go quietly into that downward slide of age-related fragility. What I'm saying is there is life – a lot of it – in the old dog yet. But not, I think, if I continue to live in the countryside, however beautiful.
I need more, much more, and having firstly resigned myself to it and then begun to almost, almost, enjoy it, I have come full circle again. So the winter will be a time to seriously decide on the next venture, even adventure.
At the moment, I doubt I’ll leave France but I will seek a place where the streets spark with energy, where youth abounds with all their awesome possibilities ahead, and people – loads of people – throng and move outside the door that will be mine.
I’d like sea and beach too; raw, untamed nature, not cultivated fields, predictable in their crop year after year. And I’d prefer an apartment to a house, with ceilings high and windows long and only a terrace to house stylish urns of clipped greenery.
The next objection will be: Cesar needs space to run free and fast. How could you move him to a town or city? And I agree, so a compromise will be found but one this time to my advantage, for I too need to run free to be happy.
So there you have it. Three months in hospital certainly focuses the mind. Now the clamouring thoughts need a plan. One that I will stick to. One that allows us both to run as long as we can.
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