slipping away from me - or - slip sliding away (Paris)

You can choose your title for today.

Now, dear reader, if you are thinking, "well Paris must be a lot of fun, because he has been to busy or lazy to blog", you are sadly mistaken. Paris is awesome and beautiful and fun, but, we have had some misfortune since my last update.

After our mammoth 9 hour walking day at the Louvre Museum things went awry. That night, Jayne slipped on the top of the stairs when going to bed and slid down the stairs. Her right leg took the impact as she hit the wall. I knew it was broken as soon as I looked at it. But getting an ambulance proved to be somewhat of a challenge. After several unsuccessful attempts to master the French telephone system, I called on the young people across the corridor and thankfully, one of them, Daytona, speaks English. He was wonderful. He called the ambos, gave them the security code to get and waited to let through the next gate.

The X-rays confirmed the obvious, Jayne had broken the tibia in her right leg in two places. The breaks were diagonal and plaster alone would not be enough. Fortunately, there was no concussion, as she hit head when she fell, and there were no other broken bones, just severe bruising. About 4am they took her from Emergency to the Orthopaedic ward and called me a cab and sent me home and told me not to come back until 1pm. The medical staff were all fantastic and a few of them spoke enough English for Jayne not to use French.

When I arrived yesterday the operation had happened and a plate had been inserted. Jayne was still in a post-anaesthetic haze, but the operation went well as far as the nursing staff were concerned. The doctors do their rounds in the morning prior to visiting times, so all the questions we need answered are hopefully happening about now - in my absence.

No other news at this point. Jayne was not in any pain yesterday, but the anaesthetic had not worn off when I left last night. The only certainty is that she can't return to our apartment because she won't be able to get downstairs to the bedroom. I posted the web address in the last blog if you want to check out the stairs - they are very steep.

So, I am alone in the city of light. We missed our dinner at Jules Verne, that was supposed to be last night. Paris is a walking city. You walk everywhere. Even if you are being lazy and use the metro there is walking involved. So, there is not much for us here when Jayne gets out of hospital.

I shall keep you posted.