Baby steps..

'Come on...that's it...a little bit further...you can do it...yesss! Mummy's so proud of you!!' Emily's first steps, you heard right people. Oh. my. gosh. I cannot tell you how good it felt. I actually had a little cry. But i didn't feel so much of a loser about this since my friend Tom (a 6 foot 2 rugby player) said he balled like a baby after walking unaided for the first time since he broke his leg. Ok, I'm not doing naked cartwheels quite yet..but on my way. I'm looking forward to the next stage of just walking with a rudeboy limp. I might roll my trouser leg up for kicks. Which one is it? What if I roll the wrong one up and end up getting oozied in a drive by between the village hall and Ted's fish and chip van. I need to research.

Also things are looking up for phase two of my Summer London relaunch. My crossroads signpost (see last post) pointed towards jobsville and I got one!! A proper job, in telly and everything. So after 2 days of gnawing at my own wrists cold calling companies to ask them about thier parcel delivery system ('hello, I was wondering if I could have a minute of your t-...hello? hello?') I can claw back some of my tattered dignity. Just. Although I'm worried I've forgotten what to do, it's been 4 months! And if my interview was anything to go by - I actually went to the wrong company for it(!) - then things don't bode well for my organisational skills. Though if I do fuck it up I can just say, well you knew you were hiring an idiot to be fair.. So although I don't get to go on holiday, it does mean I get to move out of the parentals and be a proper grown up. Shit. Meals cooked for me, washing done, personal taxi service. Maybe I should get developing that munchausen syndrome thing...

Work it baby, work it

As Paula Abdul said back in in 1988 'I take 2 steps forward, I take 2 steps back.' I hear ya Paula, I've been relagated to hopping again, as I managed to fall like a proper OAP down those last few pesky stairs the other day and mangled my ankle. Gutted. Where was that Stenah stairlift when I needed it. I'd started going to the gym and everything. Well I'd dug out my gym 'outfits' from back in the day when I went out with a professional sportsman and pretended I was 'sporty', and joined a local gym for a trial. Mainly I was rocking up looking like I was about to run a marathon then would just sit on various weight machines admiring all those able bodies... Ooh I also started swimming which was brilliant. Especially as I didn't have to use 'The Hoist' as threatened by my induction lady. Anyway fingers crossed I can get back on it soon.

In other news.. I'm having a sort of sliding doors moment (but realising at the same time, so not really then, more of a crossroads. but I was going for a Gweneth Paltrow analogy since i've had my hair cut). I have been offered probably the most harrowing of temp jobs back here. They call it 'market research' but it basically means we sit like battery chickens in little booths calling people who would rather eat their own arm than talk to you. (how would chickens hold a phone?? oh they could wear headsets, fair enough.) All for the dizzying wage of £6 an hour. I had to work it out on a calculator but I think it gives me about 230 a week!! However this would enable me to work up until June and have some cash to go on hols with my friends to Bali (flipping brilliant). But also mean that come June I am jobless, penniless and still living with my parents (oh so bad). The other signpost in this crossroads thing, or tube train if we're back on the sliding doors tip...is that i'm also going to interviews for telly jobs to start asap. This would mean no hol (very sad) but a job and a flat in london (very grown up). So sensible emily is currently in battle with fuck it emily. I'm hoping fuck it emily is gonna kick some ass to be honest. Oh and I met my 'team' today. Oh lordy. A couple of spotty awkward looking students, who couldn't look me in the eye cos i'm a girl, a larger lady who has obviously been doing it for far too long and takes it ridiculously seriously - she showed me a bar graph! And one slightly remidial guy who I'm sure I remember as the weird guy who used to ride the train and threaten to show us his penis on our way to school. Eeek!!

London Calling...sorry, can I pop you on hold?

I've been a little absent from the blog of late as I've been up in London town. Very exciting! I got an actual bus and everything (did you know that us crips ride the bus for free??) I've basically been receiving guests at various locations across town. Much like the Queen. But in better outfits. Marginally... Thank god I have the dynamic of friends that ranges from new mums to out of work tv producers. 'Doing lunch' became my working week - fantastic. I even got back on the fun wagon - and have discovered I'm an even cheaper date than before. I think it took me exactly 0.5 glasses of wine to get pretty smashed - brilliant! So other activities apart from lunching and boozing included a little trip to a sunbed. I know, a bit naughty but I was starting to resemble Gollum from Lord of The Rings so I thought I'd have a go. Easier than it sounds. It was in fact a stand up one, which meant that at one point I was naked with those things over my eyes so i couldnt see where I was going, trying to hobble up with crutches into what is bascially a very hot verticle coffin. Ironically, I thought if I fall this is not the way i want to go. Then I had to stand on one leg for 8 minutes - way harder than it sounds. (Flamingo's - I satute you. )

Anyway, so it was amazing to feel like I was part of society again. Sadly I've been put back to pasture now and am back in the sticks. But after my hospital appointment yesterday have been given the all clear to put 50% weight on my leg. whoop! Although i am currently finding it hard to determine this exact figure as i walk... thats 42...47...50 - bingo. Ooh and I got rid of my boot! Great, but also just makes me look like a massive faker, now i've got no boot or cast. I'm thinking when i get the tube and need a seat i'm gonna have to wear a t shirt with my xray on it. Or get a small but slightly righteous badge like the baby on board ones. 'I am crippled and sad and all alone.... MOVE you fat lazy shit. It's not like you havent sat at your desk all day playing online poker.' Not sure if it would fit though...

Exciting things are afoot tomorrow, I'm heading to bluewater - eek! My mum wants to put me in a motorised scooter that they have there but i'm determined not to look like an elderly lady on her way to John lewis to look at soft furnishings and toasters. Which is exactly what i'll be doing...

Equal Opportunity Knocks

Why do good things happen at the most inappropriate moments? I get a call the other day from BBC Music, who I've been emailing (/boardering on harassment) for roughly about 3 yrs...about what is probably my dream job. And great news, they want to get me in for an interview...bad news - oh yeh I'm a total crip. And very much not able to run around with a camera making telly, let alone also up to my crutches in mud at Glastonbury et al. Gutted. But not one to accept defeat, I decide, like a responsible, grown up, mature woman, to make it up there anyway....er - with my mum. She might as well have given me a lunch box and tied some mittens to my coat. But bless her she chaperoned me all the way up. On an actual train. With actual commuters. It was all very strange. But glad I went. It went ok, even though I felt like a massive try hard..'yeh I'm really passionate about music'...eurgh. As I hobbled into the interview I breezily waved off my broken leg, and claimed Jesus-like revelations of being able to walk in a matter of weeks. However since talking to my friend who works there, I may have massively missed a trick here. They have BIG equal opportunity quotas to fill over there and I am one proud owner of a red cross wheelchair circa '76. This friend was in a meeting the other day and a blind person was guided into the office...by a midget! Damn.

All this work stuff got me thinking, I really need to be earning some sort of cash back here in the sticks. And my mind turned to all those shit jobs me and my mates had back here in the school/uni holidays. These ranged from Christmas Hamper packing (I was on straw and jam...until I developed a rash from the straw and was moved on to pâté), to packing pants for the larger lady (Vanessa..a particular highlight?). And one other fav was envelope stuffing at the local hall. Me and Kath were pretty much regulars...along with Harold, Marge and the other OAP's who we were in direct competition with (they did a count every hour and named and shamed the worst offenders). Obviously me and kath were shit and I think ended up getting fired. Can I just say though that they used to bring their own special water pad thing that enabled a faster finger. Unfair. Anyway, I'm thinking it might be time to prove all those paper cuts weren't made in vein... £50 cash in hand a day aint nothing to grumble at in this current financial (and legless) climate. Let me see those fingers!

She's Alive!

My first trip to London Town today - very exciting... that's if it wasnt to have someone stick electrodes into my leg. As mentioned in previous posts, the Doc was worried that my quad muscle wasn't working due to some sort of nerve damage, so I was sent to a specialist... hmmm, lets call him, oh I don't know.. DR FRANKENSTEIN. Who tried to create some life into my pale mutilated stitched up skinny excuse for a leg by way of electric shock treatment. FUN. It was not fun. I do have an interesting fact though people..seeing as I have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than google images of Frankenstien, I have learned that Frankenstein was in fact the dr's name and not the monster's. Every day's a school day. To complete the look please see below for one of my scars. If only I had a fancy dress party to go to. Anyway, it was good news i think, the old doc managed to voodoo me enough to see some sort of result.

Also on the good news front...all fans of Tom from below post will be thrilled to know, not only is there an accompanying slide show and video to Emily: The broken leg years...there is now a theme tune. Oh yes. Lovely Tom has informed me that he has written a song about my leg and is in the process of recording it. In his shed I think. Amazing. So if copyright restrictions allow, I'll get it up on here as soon as poss. Maybe we can release it and I can get on This Morning and talk about how it got me through the bad times. Or maybe it will become a YouTube phenomenon. The power is in your hands!

Right, to bed. It's been one crazy saturay night - just finished watching a movie with the parentals. By the way is it still really juvanile to get embarrassed at scenes of a sexual nature in front of your parents at this age? It reminds me of when I watched Pretty Woman aged about 12 with my Dad. My Dad! I wanted to die right there in my Hypercolour tracksuit. Shit, the hypercolour super technology must've gone into overload with heat actually. Never thought of that. I bet I actually turned a different colour. Ha. Anyway, on that note I sign off... Well when I say sign off what i mean is go on to ebay and see if there are any hypercolour t shirts for sale.

Say 'Fromage'...

Forgive me father for it has been 3 days since my last post. I wish I could say its because I've been SO busy...in training for 2012 etc..but unfortunately I think all the excitement of this blog stuff petered out a bit. I'm back though, no fear, with more mind numbing stories from the crip country. So I got a lovely email the other day from my new bf Gillian. She was in the bed next to me in the hospital in france having some metal put in her broken hand. We bonded through such experiences as 'my first bedpan' and morphine chat...which is much like the kind of chat that goes on at 4am, waiting for a taxi in the street, with the homeless man by the bus stop, where everythings 'amazing', even his 'funny little shoes'. So anyway bless her, she spent her whole week's holiday in this blimmin hospital. And her husband used to come in every day, and not to put the holiday tradition to waste he decided to take his holiday snaps...in the hospital.. So she sent said photo's to me. And I laughed a LOT. I look like i'm having the BEST time. off my head! This is me excitedly pointing at my broken leg...and this is me and Gillian just chillin..chattin breeze (I dont think I'm naked...) And this is the view from our window. Riveting stuff, you may joke. You wait, they are sending me THE VIDEO in the post as it was too big to email...Tom took it on his new gadget that he was going to strap to his head as he weaved down the slopes...but instead used it for our very own mini-documentary inside the hospital. I'll keep you posted, I bet you can't wait!

Zim Zimma...who's got the keys to my beama?

Shower was a success I’m sure you’re all glad to know. Although it did involve being naked in front of my mum for the first time in about 25 years. Very strange. And I actually left the house today and hung out with my new crew. This crew consists of the girls from school who have migrated back to the country to rear children and the boys from school who've persuaded their glamorous london girlfriends to come and live 5 doors from their mum's. Not that I ever didn’t hang out with them, but not as often as I probably should. Now they are my lifeline (thanks for today Kath and Rach). These are the people that used to be easily impressed with my rubbish stories from the big smoke like what D list celeb I am working with at any given time or that I attended a party in a multi story carpark the previous weekend. It’s brilliant, only in the country am I regarded as anywhere near ‘cool’ or ‘fashionable’. It’s like an exchange, they tell me about baking (well this is a lie, I eat cakes that they make) and I introduce new words to their vocab like most recently ‘dubstep’ (what are you doing for nye em? A dubstep night? What’s that, is it like a new dance, like 'doing the dubstep'?) Now, as i'm sat here with a small inidentifiable food stain on my primark tracksuit bottoms I'm worried I'll blow my cover!

Tonight’s highlight is that I’m going to try out a new bit of apparatus. No its not the balance beam. It’s a zimmer frame trolley on wheels (above). Every day mum seems to come back with a new bit of plastic from the red cross that is to aid in my recovery. The first to appear was a commode. This I took one look at and promised that I’d rather break my other leg trying to get to the toilet than use it. Especially as these things are LOANED. Other gadgets include the getting off the loo handle bars (right), and a snazzy wheel chair that a large hinge fell off of the other day so am a little dubious about using. So I’m not sure how this zim zimmer’s going to work as I’ve got to use crutches and hop at the same time. Maybe I can sit on it and push myself round with one leg, and balance my tea on the lower tray. I’m really not sure. Ideas welcome.