You know when people tell you that things happen for a reason, or to tell you something, like to slow down or to rest or whatever?

Bollocks.

There’s a particular kind of frustration that comes with finally feeling as though your body is returning to you, only for something else to go wrong at exactly the wrong moment, and I'm not happy Jan - to quote a 2000's Yellow Pages television ad that only Australians will recognise.

After months and months of hip pain, I had only just begun to feel that quiet sense of freedom again. My hips were good - god knows that's been a fkn journey - and I had started to think about the ocean again, about surfing, about that feeling of being out there in the water where everything seems to settle into place. I could surf again. Not as good as I used to, but still.

And then I came off my bike. You know, my lovely new e-bike Sandy that was giving me this sense of freedom and movement I was missing?

It wasn’t anything dramatic either. I had just taken off, but my front wheel was sitting over a tree root, and I sort of tipped sideways. I even had a baguette in the back, which snapped clean in half, and at the time I remember thinking that was the worst of it. I picked myself up, told Jamie I was fine, and we cycled home.

It turns out it wasn’t.

By the time I got home my arm had started to swell, and the pain set in properly. It’s one of those injuries that doesn’t fully announce itself straight away, but makes its presence very clear soon after, despite ice and comfrey cream and rest. A week later, thinking I’d recovered enough, I went out for a surf, only to find myself in so much pain that I had to paddle back in using one arm like a decripit Bethany Hamilton, my elbow swelling up all over again as if to say you fuckwit, you knew it was too early to get back in the water.

I’ve had it checked, and nothing is broken, which is something at least. Just a fair bit of soft tissue damage, which sounds minor until you try to use your arm for just about anything - and it's my right arm as well.

I'd also stupidly done a week of extreme knitting, two words the doctor said he'd never heard together in the same sentence. Turns out if you knit too much you get knitter's elbow. Du'oh.

It feels incredibly frustrating. There’s something about coming out of one period of pain, just beginning to trust your body again, only to be pulled up short by something else, that feels harder than if it had all just happened at once - and to reiterate, not fucking happy, Jan.

And yet, alongside that frustration, there’s also this very real sense of gratitude and happiness. Turns out you can be happy and sad at the same time. No problem. You get used to juggling emotion by this age. It's all good.

So, for the record, I have to say how grateful I am for my beautiful husband, who, when we first got married, was always busy with his own things — DIY projects, building cars, all those roles that naturally fell his way — and I was more than happy to take care of the cooking. That was just how things settled between us.

Now, because I can’t properly use my arm, he’s in the kitchen with me, following my instructions as I stand slightly uselessly to one side — chop this, chop that — while I attempt to add spices with my left hand. Within two days, he's kinda remembered some tricks and he's now cooking independently. Well I never. Don't worry, I'm still ordering him about from the couch.

The first night we had roast veggies with mushroom gravy. Absolutely delicious. Food is so much better when you don't cook it yourself. The second night we had what I can only describe as roast aloo gobi - potatoes and cauliflower with Indian spices, with a side salad and some yoghurt with fresh ground cummin. He wanted cauliflower cheese but I 'directed' him elsewhere.

He’s been making me hot water bottles, bringing me glasses of water, making the bed, doing all those small, ordinary things that suddenly don’t feel small when you can’t quite manage them yourself.

I do feel sorry for him. He’s only just finished a big stretch of DIY, probably expecting a bit of rest afterwards, and instead he’s ended up helping me with the most basic tasks. The other day he even had to pull my leggings up for me, which was both completely undignified but a proper giggle.

This is the truth of a good marriage. The 'in sickness and in health bit'.

And the truth is, I don’t really miss surfing as much as I thought. The ocean itself is the important thing, and it's it’s there all the time - I can hear it from my bedroom at night. I can still walk down to it, still go for a swim, still stand on the sand and watch it move in and out as it always has. I still can’t quite believe that we live in this beautiful town and that this is just part of everyday life now.

Not happy Jan, but happy. Sitting by our newly made fire, Jamie's dinner on the plate, in heaven.

Maybe I should break the other arm.

With Love,

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