Prickly but beautiful

I'd like you to think that describes yours truly, but sadly only the first adjective applies. This is dedicated to drcraig, who had a prickly day recently, and it seemed appropriate as today's blip is medically-related.

Today I was hoping to blip something at the new St Helens hospital, where I went for a post-op checkup on my second chevron osteotomy (bunion correction). Before you start thinking Old Lady Ailment, let me tell you that Posh Spice is similarly afflicted, so we have that in common, along with a lousy singing voice (but nothing else). Sadly I had no blipping opportunity, as being a spanking new hospital it also has red-hot security, so I didn't want to excite the uniformed security staff too much (they're a funny breed in St. Helens), and the Radiologist and Consultant seemed much too busy to pester with requests to blip the X-ray machine or resulting pix of my feet. OK, I admit it - I'm a wimp, a disgrace to Blibdom, but I will get tougher, I promise.

It transpires that the damage inflicted in the operation to correct the abnormality has spontaneously healed itself, so now I'm back to square one, with no chance of redoing the op as I now have arthritis in the toe joints. The big toe could possibly have the joints fused but that would make it difficult to do my bellydancing - don't laugh. OK, boring medical ramble over, and a blip of a flowering cactus.