Oops, (again)

I knew, as soon as I did it, that I had been stupid again. It's not the first time, and I suppose it isn't going to be the last either. I had leant on the spade with my right hand curled around the handle, wedged against my chest, trying to push it through the soft earth underneath the wire mesh that was woven tightly into the hedge, just to clear a channel for the water to get away into the ditch. The spade moved forwards a couple of inches and then seemed to spring back slightly. I braced my feet harder, and lunged forwards. The blade met something solid, and the knuckles of my right hand were forced hard into my ribs. It felt for an instant as though my hand had actually gone between them.

The pain was intense, not only in the ribs at the front, but also round in my back, below the right shoulder blade. My first thought was "I've got no health insurance", and the second was "it's only a bruise." After walking around for a while it didn't hurt quite so badly. I was committed to getting several jobs completed ready for the concrete lorry and delivery pump that was due to arrive the next morning, and I couldn't get anyone else to turn up in the few hours left to do what I was supposed to do, so I carried on. I know it sounds stupid, but I was certain I hadn't actually broken or cracked any ribs. I hoped that I had simply sub-luxed one of them, just like the last time.

I found that if I bent down and stayed down, I was able to do a little spade work without it hurting too badly. Mostly, though, I just had to fit one last long drain pipe on, cut it to length, and backfill the trench it was in with gravel and clay. I managed to fill five wheelbarrows full of gravel and get them dumped in the trench, and then threw the clay back in by hand. After six hours I had done enough and could go home to try soaking in a hot bath.

The phone rang that evening, and my brother said 'There's a slight change of plan. The concrete lorry will be there tomorrow at 8, but the concrete pump won't. We'll have to barrow it round."

I told him that I although I could manage a wheelbarrow, I wasn't going to be up to the pace that would be required for the two of us to shift eight cubic metres of concrete in the limited time that the lorry was able to wait. "No problem," he said, "I've got three lads with wheelbarrows turning up."

I was still a bit dubious, because the distance between the point where the lorry had to stop and the four pits was over a hundred yards, over rough ground, and also effectively single-traffic for half of its length, but I got there early the next morning, dragged some old flooring chipboard along to bridge the worst point, and cleared the rubble from what I had worked out was the best path for the barrows.

As it happened, it went perfectly, The three lads and brother went backwards and forwards on the double, and I wandered around with a spade clearing the odd bit of spill at the edges of the holes, and fetching the tyre pump and chainsaw oil to deal with a couple of soft tyres and noisy wheels. With two of the four holes full, I went to find a kettle and enough teabags, milk and sugar to give everyone a drink. I found that I could use a saw, and was able to cut up enough timber for brother to shutter around the tops of the holes so that he could tamp the concrete level. There wasn't a single barrow load of concrete left over, so I needn't have dug out the two places I had prepared for surplus the day before. I rigged up the hose so that they could clean out their barrows, and went back to see how brother was doing.

"It's a pleasure to see youngsters work so hard," he said, and I agreed with him. Too many school leavers have no idea how to be useful or how to work at a decent pace, but these three had been absolutely right up to scratch.

I went back home to have a lazy afternoon, hoping that I would improve. Little Petal was concerned, but not too pleased with me. She blamed me for going straight into a hard-working job without building up to it gradually, and also was insistent that I was not eating enough. I told her that since I was obviously strong enough to do that sort of damage to myself there was nothing lacking in my diet. I also told a friend what I had done, and she suggested plenty of Nurofen. I told her I didn't want pain-killers.

"Are you a masochist as well?" she asked. No. I don't get any thrill out of it.

I don't rush for the painkillers as a rule. If the acupressure trick of stroking the web between finger and thumb can't control a severe toothache, yes, I might take a couple of pills, but for sprains and bruises, no. I think as a generation we have gone a bit too soft. If I was experiencing some of the pains that my mother gets from her cancer than I might use them, but this was just an intermittent pain when I moved my arm just a bit too far, or turned too quickly. The only time it was intense was when I sneezed, which was a pity. Sneezing is high on my list of pleasures, and a couple of hundred years ago I would have been a snuff-taker for certain.

I also knew that it is possible to regulate pain by a combination of breathing and groaning. I came across some of these techniques years ago when I was fascinated by the occult and the fringe sciences. There is a yogic technique called prana-yama, breathing carefully from each nostril in turn, that can calm the nerves down and help keep low-level pain in the background. And groaning with a low deep intensity on certain notes also seems to dissipate some of the sharper twinges. I didn't want to use painkillers, because they mask the warning signs when you have gone just a little bit too far, and I intended to work the next day.

And that is just what I did. I didn't try any heroics with the pick or spade, just burnt forkfulls of rubbish in the incinerator and trundled a dozen wheelbarrow loads of hardcore around the house to the new soakaway that brother had scooped out with the digger. As the hours passed I realised I wasn't feeling bad at all, in fact I was feeling quite cheerful. It was only the arrival of teeming rain after six hours that persuaded me it was time to stop and squelch away home.

It's actually the second time I've done this to myself. The first time was about fifteen years ago. I had just moved into the station, and was working at Southampton. Driving through the back roads early on morning, I came round a corner and realised there was a road junction horribly close ahead. I braked too hard, and the car slid up a bank to the left and came to rest. I tried to reverse, but the wheels were spinning.

I got out and went to the front of the car. If I could just give one good push, it ought to roll back down the bank into the road. I tried, and realised that the engine must be wedged on the muddy earth. So I bent my knees, got a good grip on each bumper, and stood up. The car came up with me, and I stood there waiting for it to roll, but nothing happened, and I knew that although I had picked up the front of the car, the wheels had drooped on their springs and were still held firm in the sticky mud. In a fury I dropped the car back down, and something went pop in my back, just below my right shoulder blade. It was so sharp and unexpected that I staggered and fell down the bank, rolling into the road. My first thought was "I haven't signed that health insurance proposal form", and the second thought was "How do I get out of this one, then?"

I got up, and someone asked me if I was alright. A man in a white terry-towel bathrobe had come out to see what had happened. I told him that I had been fine up until I had got out of the car, but was now a little bruised. He invited me into his house so that I could phone the AA to get them to come and pull me off the bank, and then made me a very welcome coffee. As I sat there, testing my still-painful back, he told me that out of all the gardens I could have chosen to slide into, I had picked the very worst one of all. He looked through the window, and we saw that a man was standing looking at the car.

I went out and climbed the bank. I apologised for waking him up so early, saying that the road had been a little slippery around the corner. He seemed relieved at that, but then said "Well, I'm afraid we're going to be claiming off your insurance for the damage to the hedge." I looked at the row of crinkly brown holly bushes, all decidedly dead, but decided not to press the issue just yet. "Of course," I said, "no question about it."

The AA arrived at that moment, or at least, a Land-rover from a garage nearby that took sub-contract jobs over the phone, and put a cable onto the back of the car. It came free and rolled gently back down the bank before he had turned the handle more than twice. The garden owner looked amazed as his dead holly trees all popped back upright one after the other as the car came off them. I was amazed that an AA man had turned up within minutes of the phone call.

"I ought to tell you," he said, as I signed the recovery man's ticket and thanked him, "that we, or ,my wife, well, actually she made me call the police. When we heard the thump and looked out of the window, we saw you staggering around in the road and falling over, and my wife was certain that you were blind drunk. She said you were a maniac. But since you're not, and there's no real damage done, it might be better if you just popped off quickly, and I'll tell them it was nothing important."

And so I went in to work. I could have gone home and to the hospital, but I had realised by now that although the pain was frightening at times, it was also bearable, and there was no sense of anything broken or dislocated. I went to see the doctor that evening, of course, and was told that I'd probably just popped a rib momentarily out of the socket where it meets the spine. Not a good thing to have done, but not life threatening. I didn't need splinting or plastering, and probably didn't even need to take time off work. "Next time," I was told, "put things down gently."

I asked if I could have some painkillers. "If you really must," he said, "I'll write you out a prescription. But I'll be honest, you're the sort of person who can probably do better without them. There's nothing wrong with pain if it's intermittent. Stops you from overdoing it. It might save you from picking up a bit more than you can handle while you're getting over this."

And so I suffered for a few days, groaning and breathing carefully, both then, and now. It's all for the good of the soul, you see. Sometimes you'll be somewhere where there aren't any painkillers, and then this sort of knowledge is useful.