Blood, Haircuts & a rubber band.

Things around me were definitely a little hazy as I watched the Dettol and water mix in my washing up bowl turn a deep rosy red from blood pouring profusely out of a wound in my foot. Luckily I had only got a few metres away from Foxy10 when the mischievous and devilishly sharp bamboo spike casually sliced through my soft shoe and travelled deep into the sole of my foot. Poor Tanya looked bemused as she tried to work out what the screaming, and frightening for a wee dog, profanity meant and why we suddenly weren't walking any more.
The shock/trauma factor slowly subsided and shaky hands steadied as they gingerly dried off a still bleeding right foot. An injury to the sole of your foot is a fiendishly difficult part of one's anatomy to see. With leg bent double and foot placed sole up on the bed I could at least see over my right shoulder and ascertain I had a clean puncture wound with no bamboo fragments remaining. Once disinfected, dried and plastered it became apparent that I was not going to be walking or driving anywhere for a few days. Fortunately I was at 'Vilamoura' and only ten minutes from where I was staying with my X Bro in Law Ian and lovely wife Aju. Foxy10, with some difficulty, was returned to her spot outside their luxury apartment which is where I am right now and will be for the next few days as throbbing and painful foot slowly heals.

The incident is ironic as Ian himself, a keen golfer, is also incapacitated due to a groin injury. That's two grumpy and immobile males in one luxury 'Vilamoura' apartment. Strange thing is Aju is getting out of the apartment and playing more golf.
Now I wonder why that is? lol!

We all enjoyed a momentous occasion a few nights ago when we visited 'Chicken Shack' in 'Quarteria'. The place is famous for its no nonsense, sit at benches and tuck in to charcoal grilled whole Piri Piri chicken and chips. Delicious, especially when accompanied with tomato and onion salad. However; the meal, enjoyable as it was, was not the 'momentous'.

The 'momentous', and you're gonna have a good laugh at this, was that for the first time in my 69yr life I sported a pony tail. Ok: so it was a very small one, a bob really, and it was held in place by a small green rubber band but the fact remains. I have finally grown long enough hair at the back for a pony tail.
Mind you I very nearly lost it when I recently went for a haircut. I explained to the lady with my best Portugese 'long here' and 'short there' gestures excactly what I wanted. Well, a dubious looking cubicle right by the 'Tavira' fish market advertising Unisex haircuts for six Euros should maybe have warned me that we were not dealing with a 'Vidal Sassoon' hairdresser here. Five minutes it took her. Five minutes of vigorous scissors and wicked looking razor clicking, scraping and slicing unmercifully to deliver a very short cut to behind the ears where a clear line of definition was left between short hair and long hair.
I Look more like a Mohican I do!
I'm trusting (praying actually) that a couple of weeks growth will soften the effect. No matter though, my long hair at the back is still there and my green rubber band awaits its next outing.
Oh! The simple pleasures of a vain degenerate and aimlessly wandering 69 year old eh!
................
It is now three days on and I am €80.00's poorer having reluctantly been forced to take my rapidly swelling foot to the local GP. Thought I had possibly got away with it but this mornings foot comparison exercise plus visual confirmation from my highly supportive and appreciated hosts told another tale. Oh well: guess a few more days of foot up draped in cool wraps plus a course of antibiotics will have to suffice for now. Poor Tanya though. She is getting a bit fed up of following this new fangled 'hobble very slowly' master round the same old Condominium block.

My hair is growing though and I have the June 8 election via Facebook to keep me amused. You have to admit don't you..... life is sometimes just soooo good....!!!