When Something Oo Occurred
(a line from A.A. Milne's poem 'Sing Ho! for Piglet', one of my favourite poems)

Martyn met with a mishap on Wednesday morning. He was running (walking) down the side of a volcano (along the footpath) being chased by tribesmen (on his way to a meeting at work), when he slipped over a precipice (on a few small stones on the path) and broke his leg!

He tried to send smoke signals (call me on Messenger) and a group of passing missionaries (Annette on Ethel) picked him up and whisked him off (trundled along slowly) to an idyllic retreat (Vila Private Hospital).

His right fibula is broken just above his ankle - you can see the swelling starting already in this photo.

Fortunately he had a good young French doctor and nurse to look after him. In next to no time he was plastered up.

Still smiling, and just learning how to drive crutches - trickier than they look, and not recommended for rough, stony roads! 

Graffiti artists are everywhere! The top line is by Judy - "I know that you are resilient (or tough)", and Nicola wrote "you are very strong!" Melton and Jonathan also autographed the back of the cast.

He is not in much pain which is good. He thinks more pain will be inflicted on me over the next 6-8 weeks looking after him! He needs a daily injection of blood-thinning stuff to minimise the risk of blood clots in his leg, so I had to learn how to give these to him. He wishes I didn't look so happy about it.

Early days yet, so we haven't set our return date, we'll just see how we can manage here for a while. We went down to the waterfront this morning for a coffee/milkshake and get him out of the flat for a while. We went on Ethel - he's getting quite good at getting on and off, I just have to go slow over the worst bumps. Thank the Lord for providing Ethel, and enabling me to drive her 😄

This is a much nicer view than at our flat.