Sprained ankle. (2005-08-01 - 4:15 p.m.)

Ugh, it's definitely Monday. Can barely keep my eyes open this morning (not sure if it's exhaustion or conjuncitivitus, though) and I've sprained my ankle.

How did I manage this, you ask? Well. Brad and I wanted to go to Inchcolm Island (in the Firth of Forth) yesterday but didn't actually manage to work out when the ferry sailings were. So we agreed to meet at Waverley Station around 1.00. I was only as far as Queen Street (probably a 15 or 20 minute walk from the station) when I got a text saying the train was at 1.05. At the time it was 12.52, so I pretty much had to sprint to the station. I sort of speed-walked through the most touristy areas so as not to kill anyone, but ran down South St Andrew Street. This turned out to be a bad idea as I managed to turn my ankle on a loose cobblestone and skid all the way down the hill on my knees. Very embarrassing, having all the tourists trying to help me up. And then I had to keep on running to catch the train. Felt like someone out of Run Lola Run. sigh...

I did, however, make the train, despite ripping my bag, burning my jeans (that'd be the friction from the cobblestone skid) and hurting my ankle. Turned out all for the best as we just made the Inchcolm ferry, and would have missed it had we caught the later train.

Ah, have had caffiene and life suddenly seems much better. I will crash by 2pm, but for the moment I'm full of energy.

Anyway, very glad I did the Inchcolm trip (despite not being able to see much - had a bit of a conjunctivitus relapse yesterday and my eyes were very sore and senstive to light). The ferry ride was very nice, right under the Forth Bridge, which is lovely and one of my favorite "monuments" (that's what they called it on the ferry soundtrack). I was sort of having to close one eye and squint, but it was nice out and I like boat rides. Even saw some seals poking their heads out of the water!

The island itself was very pretty. It's a very small island with a gorgeous ruined abbey, some WWII bunkers and a lot of very grouchy seabirds. It had a couple of beaches and a little bay (complete with seals, apparently, but we didn't see any) and some nice paths around the island. We started by exploring the abbey, which was really quite well-preserved. There were quite a lot of bits you could go into, but the best was the tower - up a tiny narrow winding flight of stairs to a bit of wall that had had square holes hacked out of it to turn it into a dovecot. Then up two more flights of stairs to the very top of the tower, which had a super view. The stairs were a little hard on my ankle, but the view was worth it. It was so interesting to look down on all these old ruined stone walls, because you could see right into most of the roofless buildings. I think that was my favorite bit of the trip. (That, or watching six foot five Brad trying to fit up that little tiny flight of stairs! The stair treads were about half the size of his feet).

Then we went for a walk, but this was severely curtailed by Brad, who was terrified of the birds and wouldn't go near them. He was walking about with a large branch over his head for protection, which was pretty amusing. The birds were a bit scary, though - there were lots of them and they were diving pretty close. It was also creepy that you were constantly crunching over bones walking along the path. I wish I knew more about birds, because besides seagulls I have no idea what kind of birds I was looking at.

The trip back was much better as my eye had sorted itself out a bit, and then we had ice cream so I was automatically happy. I managed to re-twist my ankle on the way back to the train, though, and properly sprained it this time. It swelled up a ridiculous amount and was very painful and black. However, I spent the evening with an ice pack and strawberries and scones and tea (Jen and Lindsay came to visit) and it's much less painful today.

The rest of the weekend was good, and less fraught with painful drama. Friday I just went to Nicol Edwards for a pint, and Saturday I went to the charity shops with Andrew. I bought a horribly tacky red shirt that says "Keep it Country" and Andrew bought about twelve games and a cat mask with long whiskers. It was good fun.

We stopped at a pub on our way back, and promptly got taken hostage by a very loud, very drunk Glaswegian. He wouldn't go away and was very, very ribald. The brunt of the conversation was a long-winded joke about a 96-year-old man who died of Viagra (which involved a lot of repetitions of the phrase, "It was so straight ye could fly the bonnie flag of Scotland from it, auld St Andrews"). And then he started making rude gestures with the bar stool. He left the remainder of his beer with us while he went to check his bus schedule, though, so we managed to escape.

That night I went out for Bella's birthday and then to the Speigletent, which lives up to its billing as a great venue (I've been hearing about it all year). I sort of got roped into going to a late-night jazz jam session, part of the Jazz and Blues festival. I was reluctant because I am cheap (it was �5 cover) but it turned out to be a great decision. The music was amazing. The best part was the guy playing the jazz fiddle, which I had never seen but which was really well done. It was mostly sort of 40's-style, not annoying pretentious jazz, and I really liked it. There were vocalists as well, and as it was a jam session they let anyone come up and play, so the band kept shifting over the course of the evening. Pretty cool, though I shouldn't have stayed out so late in a smoky environment (I suspect that's why my eye was so bad the next day).

So it's looking like a quiet week as I can't do anything till my ankle heals. Rats.

As my dad would say, may as well take me out back and shoot me...

backwards ~ onwards

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Missed anything?
moved! - 2008-05-12
Sunday = time to ramble on - 2008-05-11
apparently I'm doing monthly updates these days. Sorry. - 2008-05-04
watershed - 2008-04-06
end of trip - 2008-03-31

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