Mid-August update

Interesting times. No doubt everyone is fed up of seeing my damaged face after last Thursday's over the handlebar incident, but I thought I'd show some of the photos I took that morning. My car was in Arnold Clark at 8 am sharp for some work and, as usual, I took my (ordinary) bike in with me and went for a cycle while they worked on the car. Down along the River Dee, back to Duthie Park:

From there, I headed downriver and over the old suspension bridge where I came across my first sighting of one of the mini lighthouses in the LIGHT THE NORTH art exhibition going on across the North East just now:

From there, along to Torry and up the coastal path past Nigg Bag golf course and up towards Torry Battery and eventually I would have made it to (the real) Girdleness lighthouse. I was tootling along, taking photos and sending them to Jo at home:

The last one was taken inside the disused Torry Battery and just after I took it I walked up the short slope there with my bike to get a view of the harbour. Coming down, it looked a bit steep so I was sensible and walked my bike down there until it levelled off to what was a much gentler slope, so I jumped up on the bike and had barely settled in the saddle when I came to an indentation in the grassy trail where the front wheel got stuck, and with the forward momentum from the slope the bike reared up and I went straight over the handlebars. It was so sudden I never even got my hands off the handlebars and up to protect my face. The first thing that hit the ground was my nose and there was an explosion of blood everywhere. It's a fairly quiet area so I was fortunate that a couple were out dog-walking nearby and rushed over to see if I was OK. I could tell from the looks on their faces that my nose was busted up pretty bad and I could see my right leg had taken a hit too - probably from the pedal. The couple suggested walking over towards the golf clubhouse and they got me some dressings to clean me up a little and put a temporary bandage on to soak up the still streaming blood:

The girl did the bandaging whilst the man walked the dogs home to collect his car to take me to A & E. We tried the nearby Torry Medical Centre first but they wouldn't take me, so I was driven by my Good Samaritan over to ARI for treatment. He even phoned one of his clients (he's a personal trainer) to put back their appointment whilst he took me to hospital. The wait in A & E wasn't too bad but I was amazed at how many people came to assess or treat me - there must have been 8 or 9 of them at different times. The priority was a CT scan as I'd had a head knock, but once that was done, the most senior of the doctors had a look at the wound on my nose and reckoned it would need 8 or 9 stitches, but when it came to the experienced member of the medical team who did the stitching she said she thought she could pull it together with just 4 stitches - and she did. This was the before and after look:

The leg was a different matter - the wound was right on the shin bone where the skin is so thin and there was nothing much left to stitch anyway, so they could only put butterfly stitches on, which means it will take longer to heal:

I had wondered about how to tell Jo and not cause a panic. In the end, I sent a photo and some messages which hopefully made it clear that I was still compos mentis. My plan was to ride my bike across the city to pick up my car, which was now ready, but Jo insisted on coming in to Aberdeen to fetch me. In the end it was a bit of both as Jo then drove me over to Arnold Clark and I drove my car home - but not before we had some fun with the one way system and newly pedestrianised part of Union St. We await the fine and the photo of us in the bus lane then reversing back up a one way street! Quite an adventure but I feel fine, if a little sore still, and tomorrow (Tuesday) the stitches in my nose come out. Two days before this, Jo and I went back to Ross' flat in Aberdeen and removed all his remaining possessions and cleaned up the flat. There were two items that had to go to the recycling centre - an amplifier and a huge speaker. I was very grateful that Gary and Luca were around to do the heavy lifting - I certainly couldn't have done it on my own. Luca's a big boy now - he and Carole have just been down to Lincoln for Luca's cousin's wedding and Carole sent us this lovely photo of them:

Mary and Brian are coming up this weekend which will be the first time we've seen them in the flesh for almost two years. Jo and Mary have been making up for it every Saturday with their video calls, however, which started out at 2-3 hours and have now extended to over 6 hours! They start at 11 am and when I left to go to the pub to watch the football on Saturday it was after 5:15 pm and they were still going! When we were on our Zoom call on Thursday with Dawn, Barry and Helen, Dawn sent us a couple of photos of her recent holiday in the Lake District with her friends, plus one of little Avery when Meghan and Ellis took her for a little holiday - apparently she didn't sleep at all!: