I'm thankful today is my last day of no heating. I made a pledge to myself at the beginning of October that I wouldn't start using the heating until November, to save money and not burn gas. Of course, during the last week the temperatures at night have gotten down to freezing, just to make me suffer a bit. Tomorrow being the first day of November the temperature decides to climb 5 degrees celsius. At least that might save me from having to turn on the heat for another week or so.

Well the football game is over. The Saints won 37-32, which shows it was a high scoring game with no defense. Still, it was full of exciting big plays and touchdowns, so I imagine the British fans were pleased. I wonder if they'll do it again next year.

I'm now watching something you never see on TV in England - an NFL game (Saints versus Chargers). It's being played live in London, which is also quite unusual, and it's being shown on one of the main BBC channels. They don't know what to do with all the stopping and starting though, as there are no ads on the BBC. So they seem to have a lot of breaks to the commentary room to see them discussing the plays. I think British people would be more used to that format anyway, because all of the regular football (soccer) games' broadcast rights are owned by private satellite companies. So what they normally do is have a live radio feed with commentary on it by people in a studio, though often this is just highlights or key points. It's also what happens during half-time when some of the international and European games are shown on broadcast channels. It seems to be quite popular, as they have filled Wembley stadium, which I think is the largest in England (80,000 seats), and where the international soccer matches are played.

Today was the end of daylight savings time in the UK. I think it is next week in the US. It's nice to get another hour in the day, especially when you forget as I did this morning. However, it is a little disorienting as well, since your body thinks it is a different hour than the clock does.

My foot is getting a little better. I can now wiggle my toes. It's still a lot of effort to go around town though, so I am keen for it to all get better. I still have about two and a half weeks before the boot and crutches go away. Otherwise not too much to report, mostly quite boring due to mobility issues.

Bill and Strange Panda's blog has been updated again to include Central Europe and Scotland.

Oh, by the way I haven't put many photos up recently, because I have started putting them on facebook instead. It's much much faster and easier so if you want a link to any from my trips, please let me know and I will email them to you.

I also updated the only website I have done recently to move it to Google Sites. Woodlands Guesthouse in Norfolk. Thankfully the new host doesn't have nearly as intrusive advertisements, so the site is cleaner and it's always easier to edit.

I thought people might like to hear about my surgery, as I haven't written much for the past couple weeks. I have mostly been sitting around my flat a bit bored, watching tv and checking email for the past two weeks, so not much to report. However, yesterday and today I managed to get out into the city for an hour or so and hobble around slowly. I'm not used to being passed by old ladies, but I guess that is just the way it is right now. At least people open doors for me and stuff.

So the day of the surgery I had to go to the hospital at 7am, and I joined a very crowded waiting room of people having surgery that day, regardless of what type of surgery they were having. Then I was called pretty early to B ward, where I was bed number 3. I sat around for about an hour before anyone really talked to me. They had me undress and put on one of those fashionable surgical gowns. Then the nurse hooked me up to an EKG, so they could check my heart rate while I was on the anesthetic. The anesthetic turned out to be local, so I wasn't put under as I was expecting. The anesthetist said it was much safer to do local, so I agreed though I was a bit nervous. I had an emergency IV in my arm which they never used, but had put in ahead of time just in case.

When they put the IV in my arm I got really hot all of a sudden and my heartrate dropped a lot. I broke out in a sweat all over my body and had to lie back and rest. The anesthetist was a bit worried, but he did say it the temperature had risen sharply in my little cubicle - it wasn't just me. Eventually everything returned to normal and I felt ok for the anesthetist to come back.

He put anesthetic in around my right knee, which numbed much of my lower leg. He had to use ultrasound to find the right nerve thing to inject, which appeared like a little round circle on the viewscreen. While that was taking hold, the physiotherapist came by and gave me crutches and had me practice using them on the floor and stairs. Since my leg was a little numb it was a fairly accurate sensation, though without the big shoe I now wear. I had crutches once before, though those were shoulder-length, and these are hip-high ones instead.

After 30 minutes or so they came back and put anesthetic in about 10 places on my foot, which hurt the most of anything that day. I found out at that point I as number three on Dr. Blundell's (my surgeon) day surgery list (out of three people). The first lady came back and she was happy with the results. It turns out she works at the hospital and watched her whole surgery. About 45 minutes later the second guy came back and he had watched his too. I was not so keen on that idea after the getting faint with the IV thing, so I had them put up a screen in front of me.

They put a tourniquet on my leg to prevent too much bleeding and then started the surgery. I could feel a lot of pulling and tugging, plus the obligatory sawing sounds (they were cutting out some extra bone that was blocking the joint of my right big toe and causing pain). Mostly one of the nurses kept me distracted during the procedure and then 45 minutes later it was done (finishing around 11:30). The surgeons (the doc and two intern surgeons) were happy with the procedure and said they had given a lot of the flexibility to my joint again. They also shortened the bone below the joint and put in a staple to hold that together, as I have naturally bad flexibility in that joint and they thought it would help.

Then it was back to my bed for the next three hours or so, finally being able to eat some toast and have some tea once I got back to the ward (I couldn't eat anything all morning). I spent the rest of the time chatting to the other patients and reading. I even had lunch on the ward, and got to leave around 2:30. Helen from work picked my up and dropped me off at my flat. Then I spent the next couple weeks with my foot up. The worst part was when the numbness wore off and I had a lot of pain and swelling for the first couple days. After a week all the swelling was gone, and this week they took out the stitches and I now have a much smaller bandage. I can put weight on my foot by wearing a special shoe that puts all the weight on the heel. It looks quite funny and I mostly hobble around though. Four more weeks or crutches, hobbling, and toe exercises and I should be fine I think.