Day 11: Visitors return

I spent a difficult night in quite some pain from my leg after hurting it yesterday, and didn't sleep well at all. At 3.30am I was genuinely wondering how we were going to get back to Helsinki if driving proved too sore, as I couldn't imagine pressing the clutch pedal would be anything less than agony. By 7.00am I was up and searching the internet for local physiotherapists that I could call to get advice from. By 8.30am I had spoken with two separate ones, both of whom had listened carefully and given me the same advice. Rest, elevate the leg, use ice to reduce swelling and get something to compress the calf, like a tubigrip. I had also spoken to a local doctor who said I could come along to be seen, but I might have to wait for a while.

So, Anna and I set off to Vaajakoski, and I was relieved to find I could actually drive and it wasn't as painful as I thought it might be when using the clutch. This made me feel a lot happier, and in the end we didn't go to the doctor, but only as far as the chemists, where I bought a couple of tubigrips. We also got some things from the supermarket as our German friends, Gabi and Carsten had agreed to come up to see us today with their family.

In and around the hot-tub with our guests!

Our guests arrived in time for lunch and we showed them around and enjoyed good food and great company for the rest of the day together. The day had been decided as it was supposed to be the warmest of the week, but in fact this morning turned out to be quite grey and cloudy, as well as disappointingly cool. I read on the YLE Finnish News website this morning how this year is turning out to be one of the coolest and wettest in the last 100 years in Finland, so we had to be content with a couple of nice hours of sunshine later this afternoon. Gabi, who is a children's doctor, looked closely at my leg and confirmed that the calf muscle has a couple of significant tears in it, and that I will be struggling for a while with it. She thinks it'll be ok, but did say I need to see a doctor if it swells up much more.

Time for dinner.

Our guests left after a great day together at 8.45pm for their drive back towards Lahti, which will take them a good couple of hours. For me, immediately afterwards, I got the leg up on the sofa to settle down to write this. I hope I have a better sleep tonight!

About to say goodbye.