Misty morning on the heath

I seem to have spent most of the day in the car today - it started with a quick walk in the misty woods with Murdoch, where I noticed the gorse was in full bloom and looking lovely with yellow patches dotted all over the heath. I quickly took a few photos as I knew I would not have another chance during the day for photos. Then on to the dog parlour for Murdoch's long overdue grooming. The traffic there was awful as a major road was closed for gas works and all the traffic was then redirected on the route I was on. Back home again through that same bad traffic - a quick cup of coffee at home and checked on Luke and Thomas -  and then back out again in that traffic to go fetch Murdoch.

I had an absolute blonde moment when I came out the dog parlour with Murdoch and was standing outside my car with him and I could not open the central locking on my car. I tried and tried but nothing happened - by now several minutes had passed and I was panicking as I had to drop Murdoch at home and get back through that same heavy traffic to get Luke to physio and the timing was now getting rather tight. I was about to phone the vehicle assist service when I realised I was using the wrong key....oops, I also had the key to the other car in my handbag and they are exactly the same keys, so maybe not such a daft mistake to make after all!

I managed to get home, drop Murdoch off, pick up Luke and get to physio - which turned out to be an excellent session. We changed the physiotherapist after Luke's session last week to someone the orthopaedic surgeon works with, and she was excellent, really knew her stuff and Luke felt quite inspired by what she told him. It was middle of the afternoon by the time he finished and we had not had lunch but fortuitously there was a wonderful artisan cafe opposite the physio where we had a delicious light lunch, including an excellent cappuccino with oat milk for me. I think I will be visiting that cafe again when I take him to physio in the future!

Back home, barely time to do anything and then back out again to take Luke to the orthopaedic surgeon for a checkup. He is a consultant trauma orthopaedic surgeon specialising in knees, and claims he does more ACL operations than anyone else in the country and comes highly recommended - we both liked him very much. Although he was a bit like a whirlwind with all the information he was giving us, it was hard to take it all in. He gave Luke contradictory advice to what he was given in Switzerland and said things are done differently here - Luke was told to have no weight on his injured leg at all, but he has said he can be full weight bearing (but obviously no deep squatting to bend the knee beyond 90 degrees) as apparently movement is required to stop the knee from prolonged stiffness. He also said icing is crucial and wants him to ice every 2 hours for the next month and therefore not go back to Berlin for another month. We are going to rent a special icing machine for better cold compression of his leg as he said his long term recovery will be so much better with proper icing.

Finally got home at 6.30pm and now have to sort supper and do ironing....but wait, Luke has offered to make supper. If I get everything out for him he can stand at the cooker and get on with it.