Well no doubt March has been an unlucky month for us a family. We started off with more COVID disruption with our eldest home from school. 48 hours of feeling under the weather followed by a boredom inducing isolation period. The poor kid tested positive every day, yet somehow we avoided spreading it around the house. The extra pressure of trying to work with a bored 7 year old in tow eventually took its toll… it was a busy work period anyway and there’s so many jobs to be done around the house. After a particularly rainy Wednesday (just before the amazing Spring sunshine we’ve enjoyed in the last week) I spotted a leak in the studio roof and needed to find half hour to go up and patch it. Fix the roof while the sun is shining goes the saying. That task was achieved, but the ladder I was using decided it had had enough and brought me down to the ground much quicker than I had intended. Ouch.
A proper fall from a dangerous height. A broken arm/elbow (my Olecranon i’ve been delighted to learn). But by some miracle, not my drawing arm.So trips to hospital for x-rays and a temporary cast, followed by surgery to install a plate and fix the break. It’s painful yes, definitely uncomfortable… but I cant help but feel charmed for the damage I could have done to myself from such a fall. In many ways I feel a lucky boy.
Yes, I should have had someone at the bottom to steady the ladder (I feel very foolish about that now). Time pressure and rushing a job never ends well. But it’s the nature of accidents that sometimes you don’t see it coming… and I still couldn’t tell you what I‘d failed to check (on what is normally a very stable wide base/tripod ladder) before it went from beneath me.
I’m recovering from the surgery now, with hopefully not too many weeks in the sling. Friends and family have been amazing in offering help as I wont be able to drive until at least Easter time. But I can continue to work… I even started this drawing of Kiyv for my World Series. Whatever we’re going through in Sunny Hampshire is nothing in comparison to that horror. Ukraine has some truly stunning, ornate buildings and i’m going to try and add colour to this one soon.
