I have the usual collection of small, insignificant scars
that you collect on the way through life, the pick of which include a small one on my thumb that proves you shouldn't rush grape-picking when using rusty secateurs, a patch on the back of my hand where I was closing a gate and trapped my hand between the gate and the rough stone wall and several small ones on my middle finger where it broke when my brother pulled out the deckchair support "for a joke" and crushed it as the chair collapsed. I also have a birthmark on the back of my neck just under the hairline that looks like a scar, so much so that once when having a haircut the barber insisted that I'd been hit with an axe, "'cos I know some dodgy geezers and they've got scars like that".

The best has to be these ones though.



They mark the place where two screws were inserted and then removed from my ankle following a particularly nasty break at the end of August last year. You may notice there is still some swelling and bruising around the ankle; I'm reliably informed that this could take 12-18 months to go away.

And, if you're particularly interested, you can see what it looked like at the time here. (Linked as it's not safe for the squeamish.) I still have the scar halfway up my leg and a collection of small ones around the break, where the skin looks slightly "older" than the rest of my leg. Oh, and I've no feeling in the skin on top of my left foot thanks to the damage done to the nerves in my ankle. Apparently, if the bone you can see pressing on the inside of the skin had broken through they would have removed my foot rather than try to repair it, which is comforting to know.
( S tr app y, Mon 7 Feb 2005, 12:28, Reply)