there goes the sun...

So Long Sweet Summer... it had literally only just begun and now I'm done...

Caught up in the excitement of the world cup and the extreme rareity of sunshine and the phenomenon we like to call heat (note: I am measuring this by English standards because last nite as it was cooling off I heard several Pom's remark "it's just too hot!") Now, to be fair, England has 8 months of winter and 4 months of what could generously be described as summer so it actually was pretty warm in comparrison to the rest of the year. Anyway! Back to the point, the Pom's have been outside playing "football" (soccer) every day for the last week and it's been brilliant!!
I've been in two absolutely amazing games over the weekend which were so much fun it almost makes up for the 8 month winter!! But it was all about to come crashing down in a heart breaking end last night. After we'd been playing for about an hour tragedy struck, the ball was put across to a guy in front of me playing for the other team, I stepped forward and robbed him of the ball with some fancy footwork but instead of clearing it I kept up the footwork whilst looking for an open man on my team and remained unfortunately close to the bloke I'd just robbed of possesion. And as he attempted to steal the ball back he put in a sweeping kick around the outside of my body hitting my leg and causing us to twist as we both went down in a heap... as we fell I felt a huge wave of pain as my knee cap drelocated itself to the side of my leg.
This has happened once before during a game of Aussie rules so I knew what was going on straight away but this time round was far more painful than the first. Tim came running in obviously realising that I'd done myself an injury but as I was wearing long pants he missdiagnosed it as cramp and said typically "it's ok, I know what to do!" (note: if anyone ever hears Tim say this again knock him unconscious before he can do any damage) and grabbed my leg, straightened it, put my foot over his shoulder and hugged my knee into his chest. Having been falsely reassured by Tim's previous statement and the knowledge that he is qualified as a personal trainer I blindly trusted he knew what he was doing although during the minute he spent stretching out my "cramp" the pain seemed only to intensify.
Realising that this wasn't working (the reasonably clear indicator being my continued shouts of pain increasing in volume rather than subsiding) Tim gritted his teeth, got a firmer hold of my knee, and tried harder -how exactly he didn't realise my knee cap was in the wrong spot I'm not sure- A sudden gestalt hit me as I realised exactly what Tim was trying to do and that it was not going to help if we tried it till Christmas.
I informed him, in a quiet and calm roar, that my knee was disloacted and if he would kindly put my leg down gently I would see to fixing it. The scattered laughter of the onlookers cut off abruptly to be replaced with horrified gasps as I rolled up my pants to reveal my Picasso'd leg.
In a moment of madness I stupidly considered hammering at my leg Bommer Thompson style to put things right but another wave of pain informed me this was not a wise choice and so I intstructed Tim to "have a go" and this time he rather wisely levered my knee cap upwards so that it was free to slide back into place (he later informed me that he had a facinating time feeling my knee cap from underneath and has since taken to calling himself Doctor Tim, something I cured him of by retelling the story making special note of his "help") and I enjoyed the few moments of comparative relief as shock numbed my leg to feeling... this blissful state lasted not long enough...
Tim again showed his awareness of sporting injuries and how to treat them by calling out "All right, Game On!" Picking up on the process of the laughs he recieved back for the spectators he passed the comment off as a joke but later confessed he had thought I would be ok to get up and keep going now it was fixed.
We finished off the evening by spending 3 hours in Stoke Mandeville Hospital and watching the world cup high-lights with my African doctor Tomi.
(If anybody happens to go to Stoke Madeville hospital anytime soon and happens to require a wheel chair; don't get sucked into paying a pound for one near the door, have someone help you hobble up the hall to the reception desk and then limp your way over to a seat and a nurse will probably take pity on you and ask you if you'd like a wheelchair -free!- graciously accept this offer and bite back any cutting comments about the ludicrousity of charging for wheel chairs and parking in the emergency ward)

In other news the Socceroo's beat Japan 3-1 in the World Cup!! I watched the game in a pub across the road from work. It was a good game although I was fairly tense throughout as we trailed 1-nil for most of the game. In the last 10mins Australia scored 3 goals!! They played well throughout but I'm worried by the way that our strikers would carry the ball to the edge of Japans box and then play these weak girly balls forward which Japan turned aside easily and though I kept reasonably calm for the duration a few exasperated cries of "Have a crack boys!" escaped my frustrated body in the second half as we went forward for the 57th time only to surrender the ball on the edge of the box!! To my great relief they began to listen to my advice in the last 10mins of the game... Cahill plugged 2 great shots through the defence and then Aloisi made a great run through the japanese defence to slip a final goal past the keeper placing Australia on the top of the ladder for GROUP F on goal difference... at least until we play Brazil on Sunday...

Thursday 2moro!! Love Thursday!!