I spend my days walking from one part of the nursery to another in a state of almost perpetual motion. But I’m going in for an operation on my right foot tomorrow. (I’d love to proudly claim it was a bunion brought on by years of strutting in Jimmy Choos, but it would appear to be a simple case of wear and tear). Anyway, I shall be required to stay put with my feet up for at least a fortnight, and then be very careful for a good few weeks. It will feel very strange indeed not to leap up and do things when the mood takes me. It will feel even stranger to have to ask for help.

The positive effect has been that I am unusually well ahead with winter tasks in the garden. The general year end clear up is done, the apple and pear trees are pruned, the greenhouse is insulated and all the young plants are fleeced. And there is no shortage of ‘sit down’ tasks to do. I will have no excuse for not getting my RHS Plant Finder list done on time, or my accounts. I’m planning to update the website, write up two years of propagation notes, sort out all the seeds and just possibly start the book I’ve been planning.

It’s an opportunity to think, to plan, to imagine and to write. I’m hoping I’ll find that I can enjoy the break from intensive physical activity, but I don’t know yet.

My last job today was to do a final stock check so that I won’t need to go out on the nursery’s icy paths again this year. I had to scrape off the snow to read some of the labels, but the new benches look very smart and at least next year neither you nor I will have to bend to ground level to read the labels.

For the medically curious amongst you, behold my sturdy, hitherto reliable size 5s as they are now. I was going to give them a hot bath and a home pedicure before showing them to the world, but blogging, tweeting and watching the ashes have eaten up my evening. So here they are in their unimproved state (though my toenails don’t look yellow in real life, I promise). Now, if you have a grand pair of perfectly good bunions you’ll be looking at my right foot, scratching your head and wondering why I’m letting a man with a scalpel anywhere near it. Fair enough, but it’s persistently sore underneath the toe joint so I now walk on the outside of my foot. And if I do that for the next 10 years I’ll need a new knee or hip. So the foot cops it.

I promise not to post any gory post-op pictures without a health warning…

UPDATE – 4th December…
Back home, parked on sofa, my new home for a fortnight. Bunions are clearly the stuff of humour, but there are enough ‘should I, shouldn’t I have mine chopped off too’ questions flying about for me to share what happens to me. So here you go.

Spot the arrows, reassuring to see the surgeon didn’t rely on ‘now which one is it we’re supposed to slice up?’.

The post operative article. I have a natty blue velcro shoe and two crutches to get me where I have to go, but I’d much rather rest it on a cushion and avoid the throbbing. Foot still a bit numb from a huge dose of local anaesthetic so I don’t yet know what the unnumbed product feels like.

December 2, 2010