Unlucky Break

The best-laid plans gang aft agley, the immortal Burns counsels. So it would seem. In our last dispatch I allowed as how we'd be happy for a while to limit peregrinations to the near horizon -- only as far as hiking boots or bicycles allow. Suddenly even that became overly ambitious. Last week a slippery rock undid my Jan: while birding at Cattle Point she went, as country folk used to say, ass over tea kettle, landed on her right shoulder and fractured both ends of the shoulder joint. How quickly and radically things can change. Instead of a pleasant day in the great outdoors we went to our local ER and saw first-hand how the demands on the health care system are affecting wait times. After many hours we left with Jan shackled in an immobilizer to keep the shoulder in place.

There will be no bike rides and no Sooke Hill hikes for weeks to come. Not to mention no quilting, no guitar-playing and -- in case it isn't obvious already -- no cooking, no kitchen magic. I am suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar role of everyday cook around the James Bay shack. If that sounds like bad news, the good news is that I have embraced the catastrophe whole-heartedly and with good attitude. Cooking turns out to be fun and so perhaps I oughtn't be surprised that a measure of success is fun's companion. Sure, I sometimes forget to turn a burner off, or spill the pasta, or overcook the breakfast eggs, but mostly it turns out I can be competent in the use of oven and range.

Various activities are available to the one-armed: take a walk on even ground, read, attend a Remembrance Day parade, ponder US election returns. Americans are not of one mind in the matter but a week ago we joined in the rejoicing heard in the rest of the world that Obama managed to persuade a majority of voters that he is a better option than a guy who doesn't give a damn about 47 per cent of his fellow citizens.

It will likely take four to six weeks before Jan's shoulder is sufficiently healed to go back into action. Yes, we miss the hiking and biking, but all is not lost. Despite what got us into trouble in the first place we have rediscovered the joy of attentive birding. You can hold a binocular in one hand, and birding tends to be mostly benign provided you mind where you step and avoid slippery rocks. Pal Mary has joined us for a couple of outings. We've even managed to find rarities: a short-eared owl flying past the end of the Ogden Point breakwater, a swamp sparrow skulking among the brushy margins of Maber Flats.

I expect that her present restrictions are likely to make my better half a tad cranky before the bones are healed and the immobilizer comes off but if I should occasionally burn the vegetables at least I don't have to fear Jan's fearsome right hook.