Pet Portraits by
Sally Jane Photographic Art
Beautiful Images Painted by Camera

All images mounted and ready to frame.

Prices from £50

Visit www.sally-jane.com


Flickr

SallyT.. Get yours at bighugelabs.com/flickr

My Tweets on Twitter

01 October 2007

Just what the Dr. wouldn't have ordered!


It was our wedding anniversary last weekend so we decided to take a long weekend away. We didn't finalise where we would go until Thursday as the weather was so unsettled everywhere. Finally we decided to fly ourselves to Tours just to the south of Paris on the Loire. Friday morning was dismal and cold here and I really wasn't expecting much better in France but I could not have been more wrong. We flew through loads of cold wet clouds but they all cleared away just before we landed and the weather for the whole weekend was glorious.
Tours turned out to be fantastic for a city break. The old part of the city is medieval and packed with restaurants and bars. There are plenty of museums to visit but best of all the region is crammed with fantastic old Royal châteaus. These are all out of town but you can hire a minibus for a day or half day to take you to them. We visited two, Chenonceau, pictured above, and Ambois.
Typically with any city break there is always plenty of walking to do. Since I got kicked I had been using a walking stick whenever I went for a walk of any distance. Without it my leg would ache so much and my limp would gradually get worse and worse. I forgot to pick it up as I left home so had to endure walking around Tours without it. By the evening of the first day, Friday, my leg was really hurting and I was beginning to wonder how I was going to cope for the whole weekend.
That evening we found a busy square with a bar selling Champagne cocktails. We indulged whilst watching the world go by. Later we wandered off down the road checking out the menus of the various restaurants until we found one we liked. We ordered a bottle of the local Touraine wine and notice there was a drink on the specials board being sold by the glass. We asked what it was and was told it was a local speciality of fortified wine and honey. We ordered some of that as well out of curiosity. By the end of our meal our drinks were all gone and needless to say I was feeling a little the worse for wear. Time to wander home. As we made our way back to the hotel I suddenly realised I couldn't feel any discomfort in my leg. We joked about it and I felt sure I would feel the full force in the morning.
Next morning, not only did I not have a hang-over (much to my surprise) but my leg still felt fine. In fact, it was not until that evening after another full day of walking that it started to ache again. Easily solved by another bottle of win at dinner:-)
OK so the weekend and the indulgence had to come to an end but even now, a good day and a half after the last bottle, my leg still feels fine. Not completely back to normal but a good 90%. I can't imagine any Dr. prescribing getting plastered on wine as a remedy but it certainly worked. Unfortunately it had no effect on my shoulder but you can't have everything.

4 comments:

Mim said...

Note to self: Wine cures everything!

I want to live in Europe so badly. Just so I can go visit all those cool places whenever I felt like it.

Sally T said...

I think that's a touch of the 'grass being greener...' Where ever you live it is natural to think that all the best places are somewhere else, So much so that you probably don't go visiting the wonderful things you have close to home.
I guess the advantage that Europeans have over Americans and Australians is that we have so many different countries close at hand where as you have to travel a long way to go to a different country but, America and Australia both have an abundance of wildlife and fantastic countryside much of which is unspoilt.
Wouldn't it be lovely if we could simply 'teleport' like they can in Startrek? Here's dreaming :-)

John Bryson said...

maybe if we were continually drunk, we'd never have any pain!?!?
john

Sally T said...

Ummm, not sure about that one.
I think my leg was hurting because the swelling was effecting the circulation. Alcohol speeds up circulation and since the weekend the swelling has certainly reduced to just a small lump now.