Show & Tell — 11 Mar 2024

This is a post composed of some photos, recently taken, and my writing about them. There's a little to say about each of these pictures, but not enough to really justify a whole separate post for each. So, I've just decided to stick them all together. It's a collage of moments in my life and explanatory text: show & tell.

I'm out of hospital now. Still recovering. My rib has healed, apparently, as there's no more pain when I breathe deep. This is great! My knee fractures on the left side are still healing. I wear an angle knee brace during waking hours. It restricts torsional movement of the knee joint and allows flexion and extension. Which means, twisting movement is prevented but normal lengthways bending is allowed, so I can walk. Been making trips to the local supermarket every other day for a few groceries and so far so good. It is tiring, though. I've lost stamina, fitness and muscle tone from the time spent in the hospital. It's amazing how quickly those things degrade, a matter of weeks!

I'm wearing a splint also during waking hours on my left arm. It prevents me from using my arm too much. It's going to be a while before that's fully healed due to the damage done. There's what they call a bridging plate inside my arm as well: a miracle of modern medicine really. Can be thought of as an internal splint. Inside my skin. Check out the X-Ray below or in my first post linked above: it's the long thin strip of metal. At some stage, when all the bones are properly healed, I'll have to have an operation for that plate to come out.

The image above is my last meal at the hospital. It was pretty good. Chicken Schnitzel with a Passionfruit Pavlova desert, Wholemeal Bread Roll, Apple, Orange Juice and a Black Tea. There was also a small bottle of Cow's Milk and a Banana, which I took home with me and ate later. When I got a bit more independent and was shifted from the Intensive Care Unit to the Trauma Ward, I was able to order my own meals from a touch screen hanging from the wall. Since that point, I ordered Cow's Milk as often as I was able to: good for the recovering bones, I figured. All that calcium. I'm fortunate not to be in the third of the world's population with some degree of lactose intolerance.

The Tea was a source of much amusement for my Wife and I: every morning and night in the Trauma Ward I would order Chamomile Tea, but without fail I would get standard Black Tea — which was fine, I enjoyed it. Just seemed funny... why even have it as an option? I had to smile when I got home though, as there waiting in the pantry was a box of Chamomile Tea bags, courtesy of the other half. What a sweetheart 😄

Hospital food tends to get a bad reputation but I was continually surprised by the quality and very grateful. The hospital itself is publicly-owned: run by the state-government and funded by taxation. I'm extremely fortunate to live in a society with universal healthcare. Otherwise, I'd be in crippling debt facing certain bankruptcy. Thanks Gough Whitlam (and everyone).

The above was seen on one of my walking trips to the local supermarket, just round the corner from the rental I'm in.

I enjoy eating sardines. I've recently switched from eating them on toast to enjoying them between cracked-pepper flavoured water crackers. Sounds flash but it's really quite humble. Though I'm definitely not against the classic sardines on toast, the crackers were just more practical where I was working and staying, and so I've continued it. Usually I go for Santamaria brand Portuguese Sardines in Hot Sauce but I saw these two in the supermarket and decided to give them a try. I've had tinned sardines that you wouldn't feed a stray cat so it truly was a gamble — on one occasion in particular it was too much to bear and I had to throw them out. Years ago now but what a sad day that was! 😅

However, I was pleasantly surprised by both of these. It must be something about Portuguese Style — what does that mean? Is it a particular species? I don't know, but these were excellent. Would dine again! I've had Sardines in Tomato Sauce before but the sauce was far too acidic. Acrid, so I was reluctant, but these were beautiful. Just the right amount of flavour and richness.

The fish in Olive Oil were another pleasant surprise. It must be the grade of oil chosen as it was splendid. Slightly buttery and fresh in flavour; like eating sunlight. This brand of tinned fish will certainly find their way to my shopping cart again. Foi magnífico! Which DeepL tells me is a translation into Portuguese from the English: They were fucking magnificent!

Here's an animated gif of the series of X-Rays taken of my left hand and arm. It just seemed like an interesting thing to do since I had a small collection of very similar images in front of me. I used the Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) to do so. Quite a few plates and screws in there. The longest plate is destined to come out in time, but I'm not sure about the rest. Some of it might be with me for life.

I saw this cool rock while walking last week, picked it up and now I'm talking about it as I've been inspired by @nanixxx and their rock collection. 😄

I like it because it's shaped a bit like a peach, dual-lobed sort of thing, with a nice light streak down the middle. It's a good size too — fits nice in the hand. Important quality for a decent rock, I think.

Here's the new rock with a few other collected curio friends. And a small moth. All next to the front door. There's three pieces of zebra stone from the Northern Territory there as well and a large, semi-flattened gumnut.

A friend who works in a bakery came to visit and brought along a couple of sourdough loaves for us, which was really kind. They were enjoyed over the span of about five days, one slice at a time. Sometimes toasted, sometimes fresh, with peanut butter, chilli jam, pumpkin chutney, sliced tomato with cracked pepper, mashed avocado, honey... all the good things. Good looking and good tasting, can't ask for much more.

A good work of bread is a loaf of art...

The last item in this show and tell is this odd round shape I noticed in the dirt out the front when coming home from the supermarket one time. It caught my eye. Hands were full at the time so had to pass it by at first — which was risky, chances were good I wouldn't be able to find it again. After I got inside and set everything down, it did take a bit of searching on return, but I was able to find it again.

Here's a proper close up after I rinsed it off a bit. I think it might be part of an old shotgun cartridge? I don't know much about that sort of thing but I think the section in the centre is where a firing pin would strike. I'm more impressed by the photo: turned out really clear and showing a lot of detail. Pretty good for an old phone.

That's it! Perhaps I'll do this again down the line when I've got a few different photos. If you made it this far, thank you for reading, I really appreciate you doing so. Have a nice day.

-Sing