falling irons | The Contented Crafter

This was to be a post about an opera and some mittens – instead it will be a brief cautionary tale involving thoughts and irons and puppies and Emergency Rooms……..

You know how sometimes a day just starts off wrong? Something is amiss, something escapes you, something is askew within your psyche…….? My day started like that yesterday. I was just a little grumpy, a little out of sorts, vaguely irritated with life. No reason to be so, no idea why and seemingly no way to step out of it. I went into the ‘just accept that today is an off day’ mode and watched the cricket, which even though the Black Caps won and We Beat the Aussies didn’t quite dispel the malaise. And I worked a number of rows on the third incarnation of my crochet jacket [the tale of which is a whole other story] and finally toddled off to bed saying all will be well in the morning!

It was well-er in the morning, but not quite on top of my game I ignored the ironing board still sitting up in my workroom with several lightly steamed mittens laid out drying on its towelled surface. I looked at the iron and thought, I should put that away and went on to the next thing.

The next thing was to have my shower, wash my hair and return to my workroom to begin the routine of light yoga stretches I had begun [again] to do each morning a couple or several weeks ago and had so far managed three consecutive mornings on. I lay on the floor beside the ironing board and began the alternate leg raising scenarios while puppy thumped me on the head with his latest ‘fetch’ toy. Being ignored he gave up and skipped happily across my stomach to go sit on his chair.

Siddy had his haircut last week in a #1, he is ready for the army!

After I finished jerking and moaning with pain from the hefty leaps of the careless puppy, I took a moment to straighten my spine out, stretch myself to my full 5′ 31/2″ and do some slow, deep breathing. As I relaxed and centred myself Siddy jumped from his chair and something cold and very heavy, reminiscent of a brick, landed just to the left of my left eye.

For a moment I was completely stunned, then I am ashamed to say, I roared something rather akin to “Cheeses Crisp!” as I clutched at my eye to see if it was still there. The pain was blinding and my hand did not recognise what it fell upon – something hard and cold and heavy. I pulled it off my face with my right hand and saw it was the iron I had failed to put away. My left hand was cupping the pain in that eye and when I pulled it back I saw it red with blood.

I don’t do blood!

Luckily there was the towel that had been wrapped about my wet hair and I used that to mop up the red stuff.

Eventually I staggered up to my feet and found a mirror to peer into. Blood was smeared all about the top of my eye and was still oozing out of a jagged cut that would have, on any pirate, looked rather daring-do! However on a somewhat tousled, stunned looking upper-middle-aged woman – well, it just lacked that certain debonair charm.

Feeling a tad off my game, which hadn’t been that great to start with you may recall, I sent a text off to my daughter who was on her early shift crying out for help. My youngest daughter is terribly practical and very clever at fixing things and finding solutions to problems and is my go-to when my brain has shut down. Which it had.

Within moments she was with me – and within more moments we were in the doors of the Accident and Emergency Dept of Dunedin Hospital where we spent the next half hour waiting to be seen and eventually I was adopted by a lovely nurse, poked with a particularly nasty biting needle, cleaned up, stitched where possible and glued in the other bits and finally eye examined for subterranean problems by a charming resident. Eventually I was pronounced almost as good as a new one because I would likely now and forever after sport a dashing scar by my eye and sent on my way with dire warnings about wetting, touching or otherwise unduly disturbing the unstitched part of the wound for five days and a tube of antibiotic cream which I must on no account use as it would likely wet, touch or unduly disturb the unstitched part of the wound…….. so I left it in my daughters car.

So here I sit, slightly head-achy, a little the worse for wear – and my dears I am at an age when one needs all the help one can get in terms of ‘wear’ – but with no-one to blame but myself!

What I find really hilarious is that on reading a post from one of my lovely blogger friends early this morning, and still in a slightly irascible frame of mind, I had written a comment that had stated my desire that the world and her husband get their acts together and take responsibility for their choices and decisions.

Now that I have finished roaring with laughter at myself and acknowledged wryly that Karma is indeed a bitch – yes. I should have put the iron away and my morning would have been way more productive and you would now be coming to the end of a lovely post all about opera and mittens and, my friends – freebies!

I still have to write that one and if you would like to come by again to read it and find out about another giveaway, that would indeed be grand!