My Left Foot

Those of you expecting a deep and meaningful depiction of the triumph of an indomitable human spirit à la Christy Brown are about to be disappointed. The story of my left foot is quite different.

It started on the day after I had finished the paving. The paving had taken a few weekends and had interfered with my jogging. On Sunday, 8th May I was looking forward to a nice gentle 6 mile run.

The first part of this run takes me up a hill and it’s always like a call to get back to work. I start easily rolling along the first flat 200 yards, then it gets quite steep. Up goes breathing and heart rate and after a couple of hundred yards, I’m breathing heavily and my legs feel short of oxygen. But, as if by magic, but in reality by the wonders of the human body, when I get to the top of the hill, I feel great – breathing deeply and in a steady rhythm for the next five and a half miles. At least, that’s how it usually goes.

Half way up the hill, starting to feel good, my left foot lands on a stone and rolls over, with  a “ckwk”, and it hurt. Despite (or perhaps because of) the swearing a dog walking woman stopped to ask if I was alright.  Residual politeness made me say yes.

I hobbled home.

And sat with my foot up, with ice.

Later, Sally went to play tennis and my foot had swollen so much that I decided to go to the Minor Injuries Unit at Altrincham Hospital. One of the good things about this whole saga is that I’ve been reminded once again of the huge benefit to us all that is the National Health Service. I hobbled in, the nurse said, “You’ve broken your foot, go to X-ray”. The radiologist x-rayed it, I went back to the nurse who put me a tubi-grip on, and gave me some crutches (and instruction) and an appointment at the fracture clinic. All in half-an-hour.

When Sally came home she couldn’t believe that a)  foot was broken and b) I had been to the hospital in the short time that she had been away. See how stoical I am?

Anyway, the next day I could hardly move about at all – just felt really tired. The following day I went to York on two crutches, feeling a total fraud. Little old ladies stand up to give me their seat! People are kind and considerate! And, unexpected bonus, I find that I quite enjoy getting around slowly, being stoical and not wincing.

After a few days I progress to one crutch, and then, after a week to a stick. I tried the “House Method” (stick on same side as gammy leg) and the “Hospital Method” (stick on opposite side from gammy leg). “Hospital Method” easier, if less cool. Still, many enquiries about injury, and many opportunities to praise National Health Service and my own stoicism!

Weeks pass with daily improvement and gradually I dispense with the stick and the tubi-grip, and get back into normal shoes. Then, after about 5 weeks foot suddenly swells up again and feels worse. Back to the Tubi-grip.

Then, the last chapter now, I went back to the Fracture Clinic. After having an x-ray, the doctor told me that the bone hadn’t healed, and never would! What? Never? – No! Never! Cartilage will form (eventually) but I can’t run for at least 3 months, and then only gently. Bummer!

Oh, woe, woe and thrice woe! What a lot of  moaning and self-pity over a foot! Where’s my humanity, my sense of proportion, my maturity, my gratitude? Gone! Fallen down the crack in my fifth metatarsal!

Happily, normality is soon restored and gratitude returns. How could it not? I am wholly healthy with a gammy left foot; my body could be wholly palsied with only a working left foot!

So, Mike, what do you do for a living?

Does everyone have the same problem answering that question as I do? I always witter on about smartcards and eventually say something like, “You know Oyster, in London? I do the same sort of thing only in Yorkshire”. “Oh, that sounds…interesting. I must go and have a word with…”

What I actually do is easy to describe, and not remarkable or unique in any way – I’m trying to make as good a living as I can in the most interesting and fulfilling way possible given my particular attributes, personality and skills, the demands of the market place and the aspirations and needs of my family and me. In short, I do the best I can (as opposed to doing the best that can be done - you have to keep your expectations in check).

How do I do this living making? I get up early, put on a suit, get on a train and go to an office. In this office, I go to meetings, read email, write email, make and receive phone calls, try to communicate what has to be done, try and let people get on with it (no control freakery here – honest!), try to listen, try not to agree with just the last thing I heard, read and approve documents, occasionally make a decision, write documents, do plans, prepare presentations, give presentations, do financial plans and budgets, explain, cajole and argue, occasionally I lose my temper, sometimes we have a laugh, I get stressed and generally try to move things forward, if necessary through sheer bloody-mindedness, sometimes by just playing by the rules. “Moving things forward” usually means hiring someone, getting someone to agree to something, getting someone to understand something, understanding something myself, deciding what to do about something, getting something organised, forecasting something. Very occasionally, it means actually getting something done.

Sometimes I get on a train and go somewhere else (in the olden days I used to drive, but I’m too old for that now, and anyway if you’re on a train you can do all the things that you do in the office (more or less) – with the added pleasure of a nap! And you feel virtuous because you’re not wasting your time and you’re saving the planet all at once). In this somewhere else, I’ll generally do a sub-set of the things I do in the office. I especially like going somewhere else and giving presentations. There’s little I find remotely as stimulating and absorbing as my own “insights” and “thoughts” (“belated realisations” and “hobby-horses”?). Sometimes I get asked back!

Even if I were to say all that (which I don’t), I still wouldn’t feel I’m getting to the nub of the question. It’s missing the point – it doesn’t include the purpose of my job. It might be better if people asked, “what is the purpose of your employer that you achieve by your employment”", but only Mr Spock talks like that! It is, however, a question I can answer, “My employer wishes to design, build, roll-out and transition to operations an integrated, contactless smartcard ticketing scheme, including an interoperable stored travel purse, for the Region of Yorkshire and the Humber. My job is to make that dream come true.”

So there you are, I make dreams come true. Do  you still want to go and talk to someone else?