A couple of weeks ago Emma and I took a holiday to my parent’s new pad in a little place called Luz, near Lagos, on the southern coast of Portugal.

A bust wrist

We arrived nice and early in the morning, after our parents met us at the airport, and between all of us (Em and I, my brothers and parents) we all began the task of setting up home - building beds, moving furniture, unpacking boxes etc. It was during this that a lone footbal on a tiled floor proved far too tempting. I took a small runup to boot it at the wall and went arse-over-tit on the slippy floor. My wrist was not chuffed about being landed on.

Three hours later, an x-ray and some pretty good painkillers and it turns out I’ve torn some ligaments in my right wrist. A pretty crappy start to the holiday and put a bit of a downer to mine and Emma’s planned PADI open water diving course we were attending in a weeks time. However, after eating plenty of painkillers and the work of the local doctor as was able to being the course.

Scuba Diving

For years, Emma and I have wanted to learn how to dive, ever since visiting Australia years ago and since we’re off there again in March I thought it’s about time we sort it out. So, we booked ourselves on a course.

The day of theory (videos and exams) was pretty straight forward although lots of alarming stuff about decompression sickness and lungs exploding. The second day was spent in the coldest swimming pool I’ve ever been in. Even with 7mm of wetsuit (hood, gloves and boots) we were all bloody freezing. Lots of exercises was the order of the day - everything from removing your mask underwater to what to do with a bust regulator. Despite trying to be careful with my wrist, this day completely knackered it again. So, that was that.

My brother and his mate went on to complete the open water dives and Em and I will complete these in Australia in April (should be a tad warmer than the Atlantic in December!)

A photo gallery

I’ve finally got myself sorted and built an EE photo gallery. It’s pretty barebones at the moment and exists mostly for me and my family, but have a look if you fancy.

The road to recovery

I started physio today (acupunture too, which was a bit odd), so hopefully my wrist will be ok for snowboarding in France in four weeks time. Then in only six weeks before SXSW…