I had the indignity of picking up an injury while playing football the other day. I’d like to say I was stretching to score the winning goal of the FA Cup final after coming on as a substitute, but instead my foot got kicked while challenging for the ball during a game of 5-a-side. I limped through the rest of the game, the rest of my working day and through a fairly impressive bowling game (well, the league bowlers next to our lane were pretty impressive) and a curry later on that night. When I got home at night and took of my sock I was quite surprised. My big toe was about twice it’s usual size and was as black as the ace of spades. The strange thing was that it didn’t hurt – except when I walked on it, or moved it in any way, or touched it, or even though about touching it.

So to try and speed up recovery I’ve been sitting around with my foot up on a chair (RICE treatment – Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation – two out of four ain’t bad), taken a few ibuprofen pills and just been taking it easy. I was tempted to post a photo of my battered toe right here, but it looks so terrible that I thought most people would find it horrifying (if you really want to see, drop me an email). Basically it looks like someone has hit it with a medium-sized hammer a couple of times and sprayed it with dark purple paint – looks far worse than it feels (which is nice for a change). Anyway, I’ve put a picture of the neighbour’s cat instead (left).

When I used to pick up injuries as a younger lad it used to drive me crazy. Having to sit around, doing nothing, rather than being an adrenaline junky pushing myself to the limits was hard to bear. I felt like a caged animal and was counting the hours until I’d recover. But at 27 I’m not quite so bothered any more. Clearly I’ve mellowed and now take time to laze around, watching football on TV, knowing that the tiny amount of fitness I’ll lose over the next week or so will be quickly made up. Also, I’ve got an air rowing machine that will allow me some exercise without hurting my toe should I feel the need to punish myself.

In the meantime I’ve continued reading my photography book and it’s starting to mess with my head. The key to taking good photographs seems to be composition and colour. So everywhere I go now I’m looking around and thinking to myself “how can I make a photo out of that?” and visualizing looking through the viewfinder of my camera and trying to make it work. So far I’m not seeing the shots, but if I stick with it I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

So in summary, this is a lazy bank holiday weekend for me. I’ve been gradually moving my favourite photos over the last 10 years onto electronic format (via a scanner) so I plan continuing that effort – something I’ve been meaning to finish for a while. I’ll try and take a few photos. And no, I won’t be doing any DIY. Or cutting the grass.