It just had to happen. After writing my bit on those horrible bugs which clog up the filter baskets in my pool and having the temerity to have a go at one of them for hanging onto my finger when it was dead, they got me back on Friday. I was bitten by a snake. Well I think it was a snake. I don’t know anything else which bites you and leaves two puncture holes. Someone suggested it might have been a spider but it would have had to have been a bloody big spider to leave those holes so far apart!
I was rushing back on Friday having had my ears examined (again) by a specialist (Mr Jeaubert) and after an hour of poking, prodding and hooking me up to a machine which blasted various sounds through my ears and brain (what else was the electrode on the front of my forehead for?), he said, ‘your left ear is fine, your right ear is not normal.’ I felt like saying that I’d told him that at our first meeting a few months ago. ‘There’s nothing I can do for you’, he added. I felt like saying to him that my specialist 20 years ago said that but then thought that maybe medical science of the old earhole had advanced. Anyway, he charged me €110 for the privilege of telling me what I already knew and said I should come back in October, presumably so that I can pay him even more money to tell me that my ear still doesn’t work!
Anyway, I was rushing back to watch the Andy Murray match at Wimbledon (having completely forgotten that Holland were playing Brazil in the World Cup) and stopped where the workmen, who are laying cables in the roads had discarded some wood. Despite only having boat shoes on with no socks and therefore at the mercy of prickly bushes, I wandered in to the undergrowth.
I threw the first couple of pieces over to my scooter when there was a scratch of some sort on my left ankle. I’d been there on Thursday and had had a slight allergic reaction to some of the pricklier bushes but nothing serious and nothing like the excruciating pain which was now coursing through my left leg. I immediately thought it was a snake (I’ve been bitten before and kind of recognized the pain) and went back to see if I could find it which would tell me if it was an adder (I’m a goner) or a grass snake (ok but a bit sore) but there was no sign of it and I didn’t fancy poking around in the grass with a stick just in case it gave me a second dose.
My left leg was now almost useless so I thought I’d better get home, not that there was anybody there, but at least I’d feel better dying in my own place!
A couple of hours later the pain had subsided or maybe it hadn’t as I watched Rafael Nadal beat Andy Murray in straight sets but I did take a photo marking the puncture marks with a pen so they’d show up on the photo.
Our cat Lucy died of a suspected snake bite about a year ago and she had appeared to be ok for a couple of hours and then convulsed in agony and was put down by the emergency vet so I may yet be in danger.
Is that J phoning the vet ??????
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