Well, I’ve been incredibly slack lately and those few of you who regularly read this blog will know what I’m talking about: I didn’t write at all last week and this week’s entry is late, short and perhaps you’ll find fairly uninspiring. With that ill motivating preface set out for you, please read on!
I was early, early to bed last Sunday night as I had a 4.30 a.m. start on Monday morning for a surf trip to Nan Ao with Dan, Simon and Zef. Chinese New Year always starts off in a dreary drizzly fashion and this was no different than any other year. It’s weird really: based on the lunar calendar, the New Year switches around in dates year to year, yet the weather is depressingly similar each time! The worst thing is that in the working weeks either side of the break, the sun comes out, the skies clear and lambs frolic in the fields (or something like that!). Anyway, I’ve wildly digressed from this paragraph’s main idea, so I’m going to cut and start another.
The trip started sensationally well. We were a little bleary eyed but excited to find Nan Ao pumping at a solid 5-6 foot, offshore, with fast pulsing lines charging down the point. It was on my very first wave of the day that the rot set in. Overbalanced on the lip, I free-fell awkwardly about 8 feet top to bottom crashing on my side on the water at the pit of the wave which had the consistency of concrete at that velocity. Immediately, I felt an immensely sharp pain and the wind knocked from my lungs as I was tumbled over and around the famous Nan Ao thunder boulders like a rag doll. I knew I’d done something major, but in denial (come on, it was the first wave of the day!) I grimaced and battled my way out into the lineup.
I ended getting some sensational waves on the day, yet the pain was becoming almost unbearable by the time I was into the second hour of my second session. I reckon nearly five hours in the water was a pretty fair effort! Anyway, to cut a very long story short, a night without sleep and searing pain from my left anterior rib cage every time I moved, convinced me to scooter myself up to the emergency department of the local Cheng Hsin Hospital on Tuesday morning. In and out in an hour and a half, consulted , x-rayed, advised and medicated for $15 (yes, really!), my torn rib muscle and one fractured rib were sent home to rest for the week.
Luckily, my darling wife, put paid to her long held, self-professed inability to nurse, showing great patience and kindness for the next week until today (she’s actually still exhibiting these traits, it’s just that I’m slightly reluctant to extrapolate her extreme care into the future!). We watched eye-straining, headache inducing hours of cricket and muscle numbing hours of tennis…thank god for the great Australian summer of sport! I commented on my facebook page that my interpretation of my suffering was rigid stoicism, yet I think Cass might change that assessment to a lot of moaning and groaning at great volume! One thing I did discover: if you have a cracked rib, it’s sensible to avoid laughing or coughing, but whatever you do, don’t sneeze! I’m pretty wussy, but I almost passed out from the pain of those couple of sneezes this week!
As the theme for the week was pretty much sitting on the lounge all day and all night, we both managed to do a lot of reading, lots of (aforementioned) sports watching and lots of very lazy cat petting. We did get out on Sunday to see the surprisingly entertaining and well made “Haywire” (Cass and I both give it an “A-”) and ate a delightful lunch on the leafy avenue of Chung Chen Road at Al Fresca trattoria.
I’m reading Stephen King’s new and exciting novel “ 11.22.63” on my e-reader, and Cass is reading Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru
