Christmas is Cancelled!

Well mine and Richard’s is anyway 😦

No photos, sorry!

On 13th December I set off for the outdoor shops in Keswick to get Richard’s Christmas present… It was during the few weeks of Arctic weather where it never got above freezing during the day and dropped to around -12degC every night – yuck!  However, this was one of the days where it was at least sunny so you could pretend it was warm.  I decided to grab a few hills first…

I decided that, now the bogs and flooded ground had frozen, it would be good to do my 4 hill circuit from Walla Crag again – I couldn’t do it over the summer as it was too wet.  So I drove up to my usual parking spot which was way up the hill out of Keswick.  I hoped the lane would be safe to drive… When I got there, it was very frost-covered but okay to drive carefully to the parking.

I quickly set off along the lane which, just short of the farm became a solid sheet of very thick ice for about 30 or 40 yards.  I managed to find enough grass verge to avoid most of it and a thin strip of non-frozen for the rest.  Once I left the lane for the fell track, all ice was avoidable and it was quite a dry ascent.  I was soon in full sun on Walla Crag.

After a brief pause at the summit, I set off across the sunny moorland for Blaeberry.  Apart from two beck crossings and a cold, shady section, this went well.  There was lots of rime on the final stone pitching but it was quite grippy to ascend.

From the summit of Blaeberry onwards, it was long, tussocky grass full of thick rime and very few bits of path for the rest of the walk across Dodd Crags and onto Pikes.  This meant wet feet!  I noted someone else had been this way too…

There was a steep descent down below the crags but, with care, this was fine.  From Pikes I decided not to do my usual very steep descent down the north facing side and went back along the ridge to the gate and track.

I noticed the fell ponies I’d met in summer were out on the fell.  Two were in my enclosure and one came charging over to meet me.  I was initially pleased and spoke to the pony and patted it.  However, it was determined I must have food on me and must feed it.  When it found I hadn’t, it uncharacteristically turned very mean and tried to bite me.  I walked off down the track only for the pony to come thundering after me trying again to bite and generally harass me.  Not good as it was a very long way across the field and I couldn’t get it to leave me alone.

I tried leaving the path and thought that might put it off but it was soon pounding after me again.  By now I have to admit I was getting rattled but knew I mustn’t transmit fear to my attacker so kept outwardly calm.  I could see it was one of the yearlings from spring and obviously not blessed with the nice temperament and manners of the mares – his mother was quietly tackling a pile of hay on the track – I wished he’d join her!

In the end, all I could do was turn round and tell him off very firmly every time he came charging up teeth at the ready. That put him off for a minute and then he’d be after me again.  I was relieved when I got to the gate at last!

Bearing in mind the ice sheet on the lane, I toyed with the idea of going across the fields until I was level with the car but in the end I didn’t.

I soon reached the lane – by now it was around 1600 hours and dropping dark.  I reached the ice patch and avoided the first bit on the rimed-up banking but then had a way to go on the lane.  Maybe it was because my soles were wet with rime I’m not sure but the first step I took on the less icy side, my foot shot away under me at terrific speed and it was impossible to save myself.

As I fell I was desperate not to break another wrist (the last one had to be pinned) and I kept my arm at my side and tried to gradually fall along my length.  I landed with a horrifying crunch.  For a second I felt nothing and monitored myself… then the familiar and awful sickness hit – I’d definitely broken something.  My arm was painful but not excruciating so I thought, “Oh, I’ve broken my arm”.  I sat up and put my other hand round the bad bit to keep it firm but then I felt so sick I had to lie down again.  I knew the lane was popular with walkers and dog walkers so just decided to lie there and wait.

Luckily I had my winter jacket on so my body was fairly insulated but the icy road was getting through my trousers and my wet feet started to chill rapidly.  I had one attempt to get to my feet or to sit on the banking but it was umpossible to keep my feet still enough to get up – it was just too slippery.

After about ten minutes I heard someone shout to ask if I was okay.  She’d set off running towards me so I shouted not to run and that I’d broken my arm.  She asked if I had a phone but I said I hadn’t so she got hers out.  When she rang 999 for an ambulance, they said it would be around 7 hours!  People did lecture me about not having my phone but it would have been no use – I wasn’t well enough to get one out and use it and anyway, neither ambulance or mountain rescue would have got to me before I froze to death!  After the 20 minutes it took to get me found and off the road, I’d already gone into first stage hypothermia and the shock wasn’t helping my survival either.

On hearing the news about the ambulance, the lady went to the nearby house and the lady of the house came out.  Also, by now a group of walkers arrived off Walla Crag.  They got me sat up and the house lady wrapped a big scarf round me.  Just then a small van came to get along the road.  The dog walking lady and a male walker who had studs on his boots lifted me bodily onto the verge and all went to speak to the van driver.  It happened to be the farmer’s wife from the lane end and she and her neighbour said they’d drive me down to Keswick Hospital.

At the hospital, they gave me four painkillers, hot water to drink (at my insistence), covered me in blankets and (again at my insistence) removed my soaking socks and boots from my now-dead feet and put some slipper-socks on them.  My temperature had dropped quite a way  and so had my blood pressure.  I was shivering so hard I was almost dislodging the blankets.

They told my rescuers there was nothing else they could do there and that I needed to go to Carlisle A&E.  The farmer’s wife and the nice neighbour kindly agreed to drive me there – an 80 mile round trip.  So we set off with the van’s heater on full blast for the trip to Carlisle.  The two ladies in the front had a good catch-up which was a nice distraction for me.

We arrived at the hospital right by an arriving ambulance with another broken bone victim from the ice (indeed, the whole waiting room was full of broken bones from the killer weather!) and he took charge of me and his other patient.  They whipped me inside in a wheelchair – I felt a bit of a fraud as it wasn’t my leg but then I didn’t feel well enough to do much for myself.

I tried to pay the farmer’s wife some petrol money before she left but she wouldn’t take it.  When I kept insisting she told me the farm name and I said I’d call in a couple of months when I’m better.  I thanked them both profusely.  (I had also thanked my rescuers in the lane).

After a 5 or 6 hour wait I was potted up (it was my wrist after all) and sent home by contract taxi – I got home at 0200 and more or less went straight to bed – I’d managed to get a couple of coffees at the hospital.

The next day or so, I got a call from the hospital.  The break was very bad – fragmented and unstable and needed an operation.  I had it rebroken and plated a week later on the 20th and was sent home that evening.  The anaesthetist had had to do a fairly grim set of nerve block injections in my armpit to completely deaden my arm for 12 hours or so followed by a general for the op.  He was surprised at my lack of reaction to the pain and discomfort of the jabs but I told him my arm had hurt so much all week, I wasn’t likely to notice anything more minor!   Little did I know what was to come…

I got home and had a weird night with my totally dead arm.  Hot fingers kept touching me up slyly and making me jump.  I’d look down and see it was my own arm – it was creepy.  I had no control over it so had to be super careful with it if it was out of the sling as it would just drop and you didn’t want that!

Come 0600 and I suddenly awoke to intense pain – the arm had come back with a vengeance!  It was agony – at least twice as bad as when it broke.  And all they’d sent me out of hospital with after the op was Paracetamol and Ibuprofen.  When I got up, I phoned the doctors to try to get more painkillers.  He didn’t manage to get back to me till teatime.  He agreed I had totally insufficient painkilling drugs for post surgery and prescribed Tramadol.

Luckily, my neighbour ran me straight down to pick up the prescription and get the pills at the next-door chemist before they shut at 1830.  It was twenty past when I got them.

I was supposed to go to Richard’s for Christmas but because the railway staff were again pratting about having yet another damned strike on Christmas Eve, I couldn’t go.  So poor Richard had to be all alone at Christmas – no presents either.  I hadn’t managed to get him one and his sister had sent one but the postman took it back to the depot and that was shut as they are on bloody strike too! 😦

I couldn’t face not having my poor abandoned Polo over Christmas so paid the local recovery garage £150 to repatriate him.  It was really heartwarming to see him arrive outside my house at last instead of having to leave him up the hill for 8 weeks or so!  I was so chuffed, I kept looking out of the curtains and grinning all evening!

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