And how I missed it! I’ve been spending too much time inside.
Greetings from a very noisy café in Stoke Newington – Lemon Monkey, in fact – where I am sandwiched in between two young women who talk loudly, one of them leaning all the way back in her chair and fiddling with her long hair behind her head, just slightly into my space – and a couple whose table is 4 inches from mine, and who are talking about programming or something, in German accents. The fridge sounds like small aircraft landing. The music is Coldplay. Just so you know.
In other news, I have won a Lego dragon in an eBay auction, with mixed figurines to follow tonight (edited in: no; outbid by 20p), for the little boy who was at my house all weekend. He’s six. It turns out that all the Lego we have is vintage retro collectors’ Lego, you can’t even get it any more. Now they only get Harry Potter. So I went on eBay to sort it out, and now I’m bit. Amazing how it all comes back the minute there’s a child on the scene. I want it all. Boy oh boy.
The kid in question is half-Japanese and it’s amazing how he tells you things about “the War time” in conversation. You don’t even get English kids, and certainly not American ones, doing that. A visceral memory. (His other half is Serbian. Just don’t mention the War.)
(This girl is practically shaking her hair out into my tea.)
But the real news of the day is this. My concerned readers – an overlapping group with all the people who have been hassling me either by phone or in person – will be happy to know that I have finally been to A&E about the recalcitrant Baroque ankle. In the Homerton they told me off about my footwear (cloud-blue ballet shoes with square silver bows) (“they give NO support”) (“yeah but they’re really cute and sometimes that is all the support you need”). They strapped up my leg with tape, directly onto the skin – I’m not sure Clinique even makes something to deal with that – clocked the look on my face & told me this also happens to athletes, perhaps I’ve seen it on TV, then looked a bit incredulous when I said that no, I never watch any athletes on TV. The main nurse said, “And I gotta tell you this, Tubigrip bandages do NOTHING. it’s PLACEBO effect.”
But they didn’t tell me off for waiting a month to come in – the main nurse even told me that when her kids were little she used to tell them, “Nothing’s dropping off – go back out and play!”
It is, and I use the medical term, a “proper ligamental sprain,” which can take 6-12 weeks to improve. “Even with the correct footwear,” apparently. I’ve done four, in black patent sandals with a big rose and a strap that just slips behind the ankle, and my above-mentioned ballet ones. WRONG. (My friend Suzanne, I’m editing in to say, says she has had a broken ankle and this, and the broken ankle was better. “It hurt for a bit and then got better,” she says. “But if you tear your ligaments it just goes on forever.”)
Anyway, the worst part was when I had to go into the cut-price sports shop in the High St – in the premises that used to be the delightfully overstuffed, wood-fitted London Pride supermarket – and try on trainers. In the end I simply couldn’t do it. They’re not even that comfortable, anyway, always much too high around the ankle – just too high a centre of gravity, my feet are essentially not that big, or deep, they don’t want to be completely encased in large plastic boats. And nobody makes half sizes any more. I’m a perfect 5.5. Well, I finally found some little Nike cotton plimsoll things and they are comfy, and give much better support than my real shoes, even though they are the inevitable half a size too big – but I am choosing to ignore that, because they are not too bad. If they were a 5.5 they’d be downright cute.
Exciting, isn’t it?
And that’s not all! The most exciting part of the day was the bus ride home on the good old 276: starting with the old, skinny tramp at the bus stop. He had filthy black trousers, filthy black shirt, filthy black jacket, & ancient sandals; and a long grey filthy beard. He looked like something out of Dostoyevsky. I was reading about Schoenberg, and I must have sensed this man’s education, because I suddenly wondered if he might be interested. (I guess he also looked like a Modernist.)
Then, after only half an hour of waiting, the bus suddenly came! (Just as well. I was getting antsy, there is no signal outside the Homerton; but my children and erstwhile best friend have not rung me back, anyway. So there was no need to worry.)
The man stood and began to shuffle pathetically towards the open bus door. As he did so I clocked a gigantic crucifix hung around his neck. I got on the bus, and he got on behind me. It was packed. PACKED. I could barely get past the door. The man told me in very plummy tones to move in. I replied, people were rearranging their giant suitcases, trying to condense themselves. “Move down inside the bus please!” Slightly sarcastic. I said the usual things, the man repeated, “Please move down inside the bus!” After the third time I snapped slightly: “It’s packed, move down where?” Still evenly and plummily, the defrocked tramp said, “Move in, bitch.”
Can you believe it.
So I said – loudly – “Did I see that you have a CROSS around your neck? Did you just call me bitch?”
Light sprinkling of laughter. Inevitable as the autumn leaves. It is a curse. And people got off at the next stop, and others moved down, and I even got a seat (excellent news with the ankle), and then the people who had been nice to me were making very loud remarks about the terrible smell coming off the holy one, who had his back resolutely turned on me.
Really, he was truly filthy. He was like the Witch of Wall St, Hetty Green – the richest woman of her day, who wouldn’t pay a doctor when her son broke his leg, & he ended up losing it; and whose black taffeta dress turned green from filth and wear.
Well, anyway. I felt bad.
Oh, the girl who’s leaning back is like out- to-here pregnant. She got up for some reason and her bump is huge. There’s no way she can sit up at that table!
So then the (black) mother and kid, who were loudly complaining about the smell, which was prodigious even by Hackney standards, wondered aloud who a certain buggy belonged to. They asked a young Polish guy, who looked like he’d never been near a buggy in his life. He pointed at the baby, and said, “Er, no, that baby’s black!”
Uh oh.
Unleashed a torrent, got his head bit off, “what a racist reply”, “That baby’s BLACK!!” says the kid five times. “You coulda just said NO! That is the worst answer to a simple question I have ever HEARD!” Polish guy doesn’t have quite enough English to defend himself. He was all right.”Yeah,” says some young black guy. “He talked too much.”
All crammed in. I just sat there. Trying to stick my foot out a little so everyone could see the tape. To be honest that “bitch” thing had kind of got to me. I was at least treating that man like a normal person.
Hackney buses: it’s a tough crowd, baby.
And to be honest, my foot does feel a bit better… bit more under control… “It’s a proper ligamental sprain.” Even with the right shoes it could take up to 12 weeks. So much for my gorgeous grey heels, then. DAMN. I was in LOVE with those.
Oh, and a note to my conservative American readers (and this does NOT mean I want an argument in the comments). I did not have to fill in any forms today, nor will I be receiving a bill from the emergency room. I paid for this treatment in my taxes. It’s about the only thing I like that my taxes pay for. And how would you be feeling if you got a proper ligamental sprain just as your job was ending? EH?
Thanks for this one. Cheered up a rainy Sunday afternoon in the North . . .
That was a very amusing post ms Baroque, love it, so lively.
Pascale, it’s a funny thing, I thought of you while I was writing it! Hope you’re well x
When singing The Wheels On The Bus song at playgroups I used to be secretly seething that “none of these buggers ever sets foot in a bus”. Just think how the lyrics could change. “The tramp on the bus says move along bitch, all day long”.
Very true, Laura! And of course any little kid who ever goes on the bus knows this too. I’ve always hated that song, for the same reason I hated “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.” Bossy, forced and false.
Wonder why you thought of me? This is a cross between Frida Khalo (the hospital and bus bits) and Sex and the City (the shoe and ankle bits)? But like how it’s woven into the Melon Donkey scene. Hope ankle feels better soon.
Thanks Katy; I always enjoy these incidental snatches of conversation. Bit confused about the black baby at first, because I took it that the buggy was empty (so I thought you meant the black mother and kid). Slow on the uptake, as always.
Dear, you should have popped in for a cup of tea and a biccie to help restore yourself before the bus journey – I’m only 5 mins hobble from the Homerton.
We usually avoid the 276 – it’s full of people from Stratford and West Ham.
Hey Rik, don’t make me laugh! I originally wrote something exactly like that in this post! “Full of people from Stratford and Hackney Wick,” I wrote, but West Ham is better. I only took it out cause I thought it didn’t sound very nice. LOL
Mark, glad to oblige and no, you;re not slow
And Pascale, I don’t know why! But glad you liked it.
Your reposte to the tramp is priceless
Are you quite sure the holy man’s sandals’s weren’t filthy as well? I think it’s required.
Very funny KEB. But don’t knock trainers. Since buggering my achilles tendon nearly a year ago, I have been ordered by the physio at St Leonards to wear trainers ALLLL the time. My other half is on the verge of demanding a divorce: ‘I never imagined for a minute I was marrying a middle-aged North American tourist who’d wanna trek round London looking like THAT.’ And he’s gotta point. But the trainers are fab. They are comfortable – don’t lie to your readers! And even more so if your lovely phsyio – Chris (we’re on first name terms) – tells you they look good, and winks. OK, so they cost more than any shoe I’ve ever bought before. But at least I can walk in them. And I’ve got heel raisers and foot supports and God knows what else inside. All available at BOOTS I might add . . .
But do you know what really gets me? I’ve never worn high-heels in my life for more than about 5 hours twice a year. And look how I suffer!
Oh dearest I am sorry, it is quite filthy doing that to your ankle. I have done the same (cocky after 5 months in Amsterdam thinking I can balance 4 bags of shopping on my bike handlebars: I cannot, and end up on my head in the gutter with two Dutch men leaning over me saying: “That is the lesson for why you should not carry the shoppings on the bicycle!”).
It will get better, but maybe a nice physio can help; I used to put mine up and spray it with that lovely freeze spray stuff. And a nice shiny new pair of Superga sneakers may help as well ….http://www.superga-usa.com/superga-2750-classic/243232
Other than being almost packed to move, your mother is a) very sorry about the ligament; b) not astonished, considering those adorable and decorative but structurally useless shoes you wear; and c) vastly relieved, as always, to know you have a SUPERIOR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM. It has kept me from worrying for lo, these decades you’ve been over there living under a SANE HEALTH CARE system. You may go bankrupt because of the shoes but not because of MEDICAL EXPENSE TRAUMA. That’s why God made taxes, for sensible purposes. Love you. Love the single payer system. Feel better.
Mom B.
No argument from me, either. Then again, I’m not a conservative American.
Wear sensible shoes, Sis. Really. It makes all the difference.
xxoo
Thanks guys. First of all, I’d just like to make one thing perfectly clear. I’ve been wearing virtually nothing but FLATS! For MONTHS!
Sis, I’m on it now. At the Dylan night last night someone even said to me at the break: “You know, when you were up there I thought: ‘Oh my God, Katy’s wearing trainers!’” The funny thing is, I’d only ever met her once before. So sweet.
Englishclub, bless you and yes I remember when you had that terrible accident. See, it can happen to anyone. (Especially people who think they can do anything.) Your recommended shoes are quite comforting, not too alarming, and in fact not too dissimilar to the ones I got.
Lara, yeah yeah. Well I trust your judgement and you do carry off the look!
And Mom, thanks for your little coded messages, they are very TRUE. Though I was a bit stung by “structurally useless.”
Anyway, improving already, and no more bus trauma either! However, I am going to Kings Cross this afternoon so who knows. And of course the real people you have to worry about around here are the COUNCIL .