I have gone through my life up to last Saturday and avoided breaking a bone to my knowledge. Last Saturday I managed to break my right fibula and badly sprain my left ankle which means six weeks of relative immobility as one is sore from the operation and the other is not getting better as it has to take all my weight in its already rather poor state (nice yellow bruise from toe to almost the knee and still about twice its normal size after a week).

Anyway... I write this not for sympathy but from a different perspective.

Over the last few days in hospital I have met and shared stories about injuries and breaks with various people. To quote a couple -

* The chap opposite had fallen 30ft+ through a perspex roof, landed on his feet but broke his back
* The lad in the next bed had been out drinking too much and gone to his attic room, out the skylight to 'chill out' and fell off the roof - luckily not killing himself in the process but breaking his femur and elbow

How did I do mine?

I feel a bit embarrassed to say but - I was taking my trousers off. It somehow doesn't have the same romance does it?

One of the ladies in the Potting Shed (as they call the plastering area at the hospital - as an aside, if it were men I presume they'd call it the Casting Couch) asked whether it was in my haste to escape the clutches of a jealous husband returning unexpectedly from work but, unfortunately, nothing as glamorous or daring. Her reaction did however point out the need for a bone breakage to be linked with something slightly less mundane.

I have some weeks to polish up my story to give it the veneer of dash and excitement that I feel it deserves.