New Formula 1 Season. Hurrah! It's not boring!

This season could be worth watching for once. Last season had the added interest of whether Lewis Hamilton had the character to take the championship, and he had the grace (!) to keep that interest going right to the end.

I felt genuinely sorry for Filipe Massa, and you don't often get that from me for a Ferrari driver. His reaction at finding out that he had not, in the end, won the championship was an example in sportsman-like behaviour to the louts who shout the odds at every decision that goes against them. I understand why he is driving for Ferrari - it brings great kudos - but I think he's a bigger man than to have to work for a team that does behave loutishly whenever it finds another team getting the upper hand under the rules, by trying to get the rules changed or re-interpreted.

A case in point is the design of the rear diffuser on the Brawn GP car. Because they didn't think of this design, Ferrari (together with their engine customers, Scuderia Torro Rosso) have tried to get it banned. Typical! Here we go again! Mump, grumble, etc. The Stewards at Melbourne ruled that it's perfectly legal, but of course, these teams have appealed; which will go to a Ferrari-friendly organisation to adjudicate on, so they'll overturn the stewards' decision.

But it was GREAT to see Brawn's team do so well from such a late get-go. I've always thought that Button had been badly treated by Williams, who should have stuck with him for at least one more season. I really think that he could have had a good haul of wins with them, and seeing how he drives at he wheel of a good car bears this out, I think. OK, he's had a lot of experience since he was at Williams, but he was progressing well. Imagine if he'd had the support from them that Hamilton has had from McLaren!

The star for me was Trulli: coming 3rd from a pit-lane start was spectacular, even if he did foul up right at the end by passing Hamilton under Safety Car conditions, earning him a 25 seconds penalty on his finishing time (putting him 12th).

Also worth a mention is Rosberg, mostly for his terrific overtakes. Williams badly need a good tactician in the team before they are going to get any results, no matter how improved their car and driver are - I don't count Nakajima: he's only there to shuffle the pack when the pace car comes out after his accident.

Have the rule changes worked? Seems so on the basis of today's race
- There was close racing
- Cars were able to follow one another closely enough to draft down the straights
- There was overtaking! Quite a lot of it! Hoo-bloody-ray!

Well, it wasn't as close and exciting as Touring Cars or Bike racing, but on this basis I don't think I'll be saying "that's it! I'm not watching this boring load of old tosh ever again" at the end of this year, unless the politics ruins it all again. Lets see what happens with the diffuser appeal.

Just waiting . . .

I haven't posted anything here for ages (again!) because there really hasn't been anything to say because I havn't really done anything. I'm just waiting for the sore on my leg to heal so I can wear my fancy new leg that was in all the local papers a few weeks ago. I was denounced as a fraud the first time I got up to the pub (pushed by Denise in my wheelchair) after the articles were published. I let them buy me a beer anyway.

I do have some gruesome photos on my phone showing how the healing has been progressing, but I won't post them here. Suffice it to say that it only needs a couple more millimetres to close up, and for me to start the acclimatising process. I will have to start from scratch after not having worn it for so long. I'll begin with wearing just the inside socket, then progress to wearing the leg for half an hour at a time, twice a day, with minimal walking, and build up from there until I can wear it all day again. It's hard to tell how long this 'toughening up' process will take: it might take a week or so, or it might take just a few days. The main thing is not to irritate the delicate, newly healed spot. Not having the stitch fragment in there will help, I'm sure.

Denise in our HUGE hotel room

This is in Nairn, near Inverness, where D is running a half-marathon this weekend

Snow and ice looks quite nice ...

... but it's on days like these, when I can't wear my leg, that I feel disabled. Have you ever tried using crutches on an icy footpath? Do-able, but a tad tricky. Makes it almost impossible to get out for my meetings and appointments.

Going from bad to worse ...

Warning! Graphic details follow - don't read if you're squeamish!

The blister I wrote about last week got nastier, went black, and the whole area became very sore, so I went to the doctor last Tuesday, and he put me on antibiotics. He said that I didn't need a formal dressing, unless it became open.

Last night, blood started weeping from underneath the bottom edge, as you see it in the picture above left. We put a dressing on, as best we could, and called NHS24, who said they'd contact a district nurse, to see if they could help. When he phoned me back, he said he wouldn't do any more than we'd already done, which didn't please me very much. I wanted them to have a look and see if it was still infectious, and if there was any more of a dressing that needed to go on. Anyway, I went to the doctor this morning, and when he took the dressing off, the blister had gone and left a helluva mess and a nasty looking wound. When the doctor went "oh, my!" I started to worry. He took a look at it and decided that it wasn't so angry any more, but that the wound would obviously need taking care of; he prescribed me another course of antibiotics, and made an appointment for me to see the nurse before I left.

I was really getting concerned about the remainder of my leg, now. What if they couldn't control the infection and it got into the bone? It was so close, there, with there being very little muscle over the shin; I couldn't see how deep the wound was. I started having visions of having to have another amputation: above the knee this time. I sat shaking as I waited for the nurse to be free to dress my wound. As she started to clean it up, she found a fragment of stitch there! It must have been there for 18 months. Could this be the cause of all the problems I have been having in the area? We'll just have to wait and see. If it all heals up nicely, I might just find that I get less irritations and pain from now on, and can really start progressing ...

I'm still very worried about the infection, but I'm also oddly elated about the nurse finding the stitch there, even though it was only a tiny fragment. I have been convinced for some time that there was something wrong with that area. It's a very delicate spot, right over the shin-bone where the 'padding' is thinnest, and if the prosthetic rubs there, it would be bound to cause problems: even the tiniest fragment of a foreign body there would be bound to cause irritation.

I have been really struggling to increase my walking range, not because of tiredness, but because of getting pain and sore spots in the stump. I just thought I was overdoing it, and maybe needed to build up a little more slowly; but I've read stories of other people who, after the same length of time as I've had since the op, have been back at work, and almost back to normal. Every time I've increased my exercise, I've had problems afterwards, and I've been thinking that it is very strange that nothing I've done seems to make this spot any better, and that the problems I've been having there have really been going on for too long to be normal. This discovery fills me with real hope of a full recovery.

What a lovely day!

Well, that's cheered me up. And I managed to get to an appointment on my own today, without my leg on. As I knew I wouldn't have to go very far, I used crutches, which was a lot easier than trying to get my wheelchair in and out of the car on my own.

Blister

The sore I had on my stump has now blistered, and it looks like I'm going to be off my feet for a while. My hopes and ambitions are crumbling, and it's getting very hard to maintain any semblance of positivity. Denise is trying to keep my mood from turning black, but it's a bubble that's more than ready to burst. This is so fucking depressing it's not true. Every time I think I'm making any progress, I just get smacked down. What's the point even trying? So far, I have really tried to stay positive, but I'm running out of energy. I can't keep taking there setbacks. I'm sure that he I resolve this issue of the fragility of my stump, I can get back to my old self. In the meantime ...

The last crop from the garden

The last of the parsnips from last year's planting. Denise is as good at parsnips as her mum is at beans!

Denise's Fundraising Triathlon

Denise is raising money for the charity 500 Miles, by taking part in a Triathlon later this year; so I've added a link to their website, To Denise's Triathlon blog, and to her Just Giving page. I'll be pestering friends and family for donations via e-mail shortly.

Denise was inspired to do something to raise money for 500 Miles after reading mountaineer Jamie Andrew's book, Life and Limb, in which he tells the story of how he lost the extremities of all four limbs to frostbite after having been trapped on top of an alpine mountain for five days in a snow-storm. How he learned to continue to live life to the full despite his disability is an inspirational tale.

Jamie's best friend, Jamie Fisher, was killed on the mountain, succumbing to hypothermia in the terrible conditions only hours before the mountain rescue team got to them. Since his recovery, Jamie Andrew has dedicated his life to his friend's memory, and has, amongst other things, collaborated with another quadruple amputee from Edinburgh, Olivia Giles, to start the 500 Miles charity.

500 Miles is dedicated to raising money to fund prosthesis equipment, technicians and clinicians in Mali and Zambia, where these services are practically non-existant. Denise's decision to support this charity is obviously prompted by my experience of the superb prosthetics service we have here in Edinburgh and Lothians, following my bike accident. She is taking on a huge challenge to raise this money, as, although already an experienced 10k and half-marathon runner, she was never a particularly strong swimmer, and had very little experience riding a bicycle at speed. She is having to learn these new disciplines to take part, so we are hoping all our friends, relatives, colleagues and ex-colleagues will chip in to try to meet Denise's fundraising target.

500 Miles is not a charity most of us can identify with: nearly everyone gives to cancer charities, because they have a friend or a member of their family who has been affected by it. Not many of us are faced with amputation, but 500 Miles is nevertheless a charity worthy of your consideration, and Denise's huge efforts are surely worth your support. Having a simple low-cost prosthetic leg can make the difference between life and death in these very poor areas; and lost limbs are all too common in a part of the world littered with land-mines following brutal wars.

If you have made it this far, thank you for reading this, and I apologise for my writing style, which could use some work. Don't forget that the links to Denise's Blog and Just Giving websites, and to the 500 Miles website, are on the right of this page. Or click on the following links:

Denise's Triathlon Blog - http://denisetracey.blogspot.com/

Denise's Just Giving donations website - http://www.justgiving.com/denisetracey

500 Miles charity's website - http://www.500miles.co.uk

My world this week

I've not been able to try out my funky new leg for a couple of days. I've had a bruise of some sort on the end of my stump for a while, and It's got so sore this week, I've had to leave it off. Which means I'm officially PISSED OFF, and NOT good company!