A day off!

So, you get a day off and what do you do? Well, being the sort of person who feels guilty if she’s not ‘doing’ something, I’d planned to head of somewhere like Heidelberg for the day. Whilst I’ve been there many times before, it is lovely and a good old stomp up to the Schloss is always good for blowing out the cobwebs and a welcome antidote to being cramped up on trains and coaches for hours on end.

However, they do say (well Eddie Izzard does anyway - Definite Article tour?) “the plans of mice and men oft gan agley” (no idea how to spell that!) and my ‘gannin’ agley’ was as a result of the fact that I was suffering from a severe case of swollen Jools. I have traced it back to the fact that I stupidly, yet unwittingly managed to eat some sage and onion stuffing on the plane on the way over, and the swelling has gradually been getting work during the past 5 days.

Initially, I put the puffiness down to the flight (I always puff up a bit, but it only lasts a day), and a fundamental lack of water - its been the devil’s own job getting hold of water on this trip for some reason; and I put the feeling of general lethargy down to the mad working hours catching up with me now I’ve given myself the chance to unwind and a couple of late nights (by the way, while the nights have been late my alcohol consumption has been very light - trying to be sensible in my advancing years!) However, I abandoned these assessments when really bad swelling kicked-in in Köln, and when on the morning following 10 hours sleep I recognised that old feeling (ie. the one I always used to have before I cut out wheat) of just wanting to curl up in a corner and sleep, sleep, sleep ...

It all came to a climax when we arrived in Mannheim. We walked to the hotel from the station and each step was more painful than the last. When we eventually reached our attic room I took my boots off and was shocked to be unable to see my ankle bones. There wasn’t much time before we had to get on a coach to Frankfurt (a further 90 minutes travel) so I spent it sourcing a picnic and lots of water in an attempt to re-hydrate and maybe make my legs less painful. After the concert (number 5 - not one of the best, but well received), my legs had swelled up so much that I could only get the zip up halfway ...

So my day off was spent having an uncomfortable yet effective lymphatic drainage massage, after which I lay on my bed with my feet up on some pillows watching a pay for view film. By the end of the film, while I was still puffy, the Yorkshire pudding ankles had subsided slightly and I was at least reacquainted with my ankle bones! All this inaction kind of went against the grain to be honest, but was actually the best thing to have done and meant that I was nicely rested and raring to go to round the day off by doing my hair (straight Jools went bouncy), getting dressed up and going out for a lovely meal - first proper meal in days - followed by a good old natter in the bar until the wee small hours ...