I'm back!

Saturday, 21^st January

So, my hand is healing well, I can type well enough again. The last 2 weeks have been a strain, Ben can surely tell you better how much a hindrance to daily life having at least one hand out of action even slightly can be. You will want to know what exactly happened:

I was discussing some plans with the foreman, they had discovered some rotten beams. I thought to prevent finds like this we had taken the building apart before the plans were made, it seems they got damaged then and deteriorated during the winter. Great, can I sue the old builders? Well, so we were looking over the plans, I had my left hand flat on the table, when a toolbox feel through the ceiling, onto my hand. Luckily it was not that full, but of course bad enough to cause my middle 3 fingers (metatarsals, the ones that are the flat bit), to break clean. The foreman drove me to hospital, where they managed to do the operation straight away, under local anaesthetic. The pain kicked in later, and it swelled up a lot as well. I was able to go home with Ben later that day. The poor boy, he has been quite flustered, does not know how to behave. I have been very cranky and do not like having to rely on him to help me get dressed, he has to cut my food, get shoes on, incredible, fingers are very useful. After the worst of the swelling had gone down, I was able to use my fingers again, the sooner one does, the better. But I was restricted with carrying stuff or putting pressure on stuff. Holding a knife to cut my meat still is impossible. It is the stuff which requires fine motoric, like lacing shoes.

I will have the wires out next week or so, they will have to do an x-ray to see how well my bones have healed.

We have stayed at the flat, we, well the boy, has brought more stuff over. I am glad to have the car, although I cannot drive at the moment. It is handy to get to the building site, the boy knows the route very well. The accident happened on a Thursday, we went over on the Monday. I introduced him as part owner, so they knew not to mess with him. Those rotten beams are luckily not holding up the work too much, they can continue with other work, but it is quite a cost. It has been decided to replace one beam with steel. The boy is surprisingly knowledgeable, but then he used to help Robert, who did odd jobs and carpentry in South River. He manages to convey his knowledge and no-nonsense to the builders, but at the same time he refers to me. Last week the foreman wanted to discuss something with us, and he looked more at Ben when he explained the problem. Ben asked him to address me, I was the boss. The foreman was slightly confused. I sent Ben to the car to wait for me, and I explained our set-up to the foreman. He is a man's man, I think he can just about deal with a gay couple, but M/s, that was going over his head. As long as he does his work and respects us, I do not care what he thinks about us.

We have managed to have some bondage, we have to adjust a little what we are doing. The boy has brought everything from his room to the office, so he can stay in his cell again. It took him several days, as carrying boxes like that is causing him pain. I do not know why we did not put everything in the office in the first place. The first few nights he slept in his cage, then he brought his mattress into my room, as I said, now he is back in his cell.

For other people it would be very odd to have a grown man crawl into a cage every night, for us it is normal. So why did he change to sleeping on his mattress? Because I was getting tangled in sheets and I frequently woke him to help me get the sheet of the wires, until we developed a system to cover the wires at night.

We have used a cage a lot during the last 2 weeks, along with the bench. I can just manage to tighten the belts sufficiently. He is a happy slave.