Best Foot Forward

When I had two good knees

Wednesday morning I'm at St Vincent's Trauma Clinic and the wait isn't so bad except there's nowhere to rest the throbbing leg. I have a book, Tatty - the name, not the condition - an iPad to write on, forms to be filled in for a mindfulness class, which ask all sorts of mood questions in different ways just to catch you out.

There are quite a few leg and arm cases around me, young and old, the main problem is the audible tv show on the wall, Jeremy Kyle, with crazy mean people saying crazy mean things to each other.... a teenage mother who doesn't know who the father is.. I think that's all a bit depressing for the outpatients already in pain. Everybody is studiously avoiding watching it, except the man beside me is trying to explain it to his elderly mother and keeps repeating ‘it’s all about sex'. It's really too early in the morning to be listening to him too. So I'm assiduously clacking at my keyboard, looking busy.

The student nurse calls me in, the orthopaedic doc can't read the notes, I explain in detail from memory what the damage is, then the senior guy arrives, he talks about skiing a lot, slightly embarrassing, I feel guilty taking up their time, although, all the cripples outside have foot, knee and leg injuries and they probably had a stupid fall as well. A new knee brace is fitted to keep the joint from rocking (what a pun!) and off I go in search of an iron to replace the caramel clogged one at landladyhouse because I forgot the gentlemen lodgers like to iron their shirts.

En route, I get the call from the Sunday Times to say they're going to run the story in the News Review section, I was just thinking a little column in the opinion page, if anything. They want to send a photographer. Holymotherofdivinesweetjesus. Tesco don’t have any irons, we’ll have to try another day, so I leg it home for Mr De Mille and get ready for my close-up. I put a black jacket on over the tracksuit bottoms which conceal the chunky knee brace and try to clear a space on the table so it looks like a tidy office.Mr De Mille does his best lights, camera and action, I want to smile into the camera, its eleven years since the event I am interviewed about, but a jolly face won't work.

At this point I’d like to remind the dublinlandlady reader that levity, not brevity, is the soul of wit, and I am departing from the serious matter of the interview by making light of my domestics while more than slightly traumatised by the idea of the piece in the paper.

With all this going on, I’ve managed to overlook an important meeting in the courts, in Smithfield which couldn’t be further from landladyhouse on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, so I superlash into town and hope legal counsel hasn’t got the clock ticking. If I had any idea how this case was going to start, never mind end, I’d write about it, so we’ll all have to wait in suspense, it’s another one of its kind, testing Irish legislation, when I’d rather get on with writing another book.

After all that, the new, new thing, I think, is Mindfulness, a sort of talking yoga for the mind and body. Anyway, it’s a recession by-product and I’m lucky to have been given a place on this course so I must turn up even with all the trials of the day. I think the idea is to be conscious of your thoughts, and how they’re interpreted, choosing to step back or let them stress you, I’m still figuring it out.

I arrived in time for the meditative body scan, where we must start with focussing on the big left toe, as I lie on the floor, warm under a blanket, restful after the hospital, photographer and court; I concentrate on the toe and rub it against the fur of my Ugg. I think of the Boston amputees, the dance teacher, the little girl who loved Irish dancing, and am so grateful to have that toe. I can’t think of anything else except how lucky I am to have all the toes on each foot attached to my legs and, albeit one wonky knee.