Richard & Trish in France

It’s two and a half weeks since I fell off the companionway ladder on the yacht and got hauled off to hospital. The bruising is going down but it’s still rather sore and I can’t lie flat at night. I’m taking two Cocodamol every three hours to cope with the pain. And it’s those that are making me drowsy.

Ah well, no pain – no gain. At least I’m losing weight (as my appetite seems to have diminished somewhat).

So what’s coming up? Tomorrow we have a day in Toulouse. We are collecting Louise from the airport; she’s returning from running a course in Switzeland. Before the airport, Trish and I will have lunch at our favourite restaurant there Soililesse. And before that I have an hour on the telephone with my French business associate, improving my French.

On Thursday we are both going in the afternoon to Chez Feliz in place Carnot in Carcassonne. We’ve discovered a group of English people who are learning French. So we are going to give it a go!

Then at the weekend, it’s my 64th birthday! Enough said.

I thought I’d end with a lovely photo of our garden, taken at the weekend.

I have sailed for 50 years and last week I had a new experience. I fell off the companionway ladder, flew through the air as the boat lurched and landed on the right side of my chest on the chart table! It hurt! So the skipper ordered a course change to the nearest harbour (Poole) where we arrived two hours later. I called the ambulance service, who arrived five minutes later. After checking me over, they gave me oral morphine and was able to climb off the yacht.

At Poole Hospital they kept me in overnight for observation. The X-Ray showed no ribs had been broken. So the next afternoon I was released with a large bag of pain killers. Two good friends, Vicki and Jimmy, drove down from Leatherhead to collect me. Meanwhile, Trish, who’d been recovering from gastroenteritis and had stayed at home, booked a Ryanair flight to London and trained down to Leatherhead to meet me.

After a very painful weekend, we moved on to Vigo and are now staying with our good friends Graham and Sue. They thought we were just dropping in for a couple of days! The current plan is to return to France on a ferry on Monday. That depends on how I feel!