The Norths in Lunel and elsewhere: I'm out of here!

... or will be tomorrow morning. So before I leave, some final thoughts further down the page, a few photos of moments along the way, but first a roundup of the last 10 days:

20 March - Another week through, three weeks since my operation. Things really seem to be progressing now they have the anti-pain cocktail right. I'm walking OK with a stick, and now I am really looking forward to a weekend at home with Mary, and to seeing Tom and Gill on their visit to Lunel.

23 March - First ten minutes on the exercise bike this afternoon. Progress...

25 March - Very good news this afternoon. I already knew I'd be going home a week tomorrow - this will be confirmed by the doc tomorrow - so today I asked my physio Patrice what I should do to prepare - contact a local physio perhaps? He said he thought I wd probably not need any further physio after 'release', and could concentrate on exercises at home including exercise bike which I have already started. Still pain associated with learning to completely straighten the leg but this is normal and Patrice says the leg is now at least capable of straightening fully, and it bends easily to 125° Feeling fairly chuffed only 4 weeks after the operation!

26 March - Due home next Tuesday [2 days earlier than predicted yesterday] - hooray.

27 March - Goodbyes began today. The nice gentle giant Benoit [Gardinal], student physio who has manipulated and massaged my knee each morning, finishes his stage here today. He is in his final year so will qualify this summer. A big vote of gratitude from me

28 March - So great to be home in the sunshine eating simple appetising food and looking forward to a quiet afternoon in front of the telly

30 March - Unexpected extra this morning, after my 'collective gym' up and down stairs at 9 this morning. I'd understood that nobody would replace Benoit, but lo a new young man, Christopher, approached me while I was doing some leg straightening exercises and said he was taking over the 9.40 slot. So he did all the usual stretching, bending and kneecap wobbling tests and then tried to start the electric shock therapy, but the machine only worked for a couple of minutes then packed up. I thought maybe he had connected it wrongly, but Patrice tried again after lunch and it turns out my (personal) electrodes are shot - overworked I daresay. Not worth providing a new set so voilà, that's the end of electrotherapy for me. Then another farewell, shook hands with Patrice who has supervised my treatment and who proved in the last session this afternoon that there is still no gain without pain. I feel I have been really well supported by him in my recovery. Now it's just a bit of ice and the last rites tomorrow morning.

Final thoughts - worst meals here, pallid chicken with unseasoned noodles, no sauce; and another that sticks in the memory, yet more pasta with pieces of leftover sausage in a meagre sauce one lunchtime. Best undoubtedly pieces of meat - beautifully cooked steaks 2 or 3 times and a heavenly meal of duck breast, perfectly pink. How can they do both extremes in one kitchen?

The basic manipulations of physiotherapy, and the tools they use, are really low-tech and therefore probably of longstanding origin, though I guess they are all too glad of treatment tables that purr up and down at the touch of a button since they need to work at very varying heights. I had little idea how physiotherapists worked before I came here, and I have been very impressed by the professionalism and sensitive care of all, both qualified and students, who have looked after me.

Everyone told me I'd love working in the therapy pool but I never got to go in, I just recovered too soon!

Having checked each and every drug carefully for side-effects, I missed a trick when I switched to codeine and failed to realise I'd become constipated - it is, as Mma Ramotswe says - well-known. I stopped it quickly after it stopped me for a while!!

This is the first time I have been in an exclusively French environment for a long period, and it has been good for me. I have found it easy to communicate and (except when my ears were blocked for a while) I could understand most of what was said to or around me.

But while filling a silence with conversation is sometimes a good habit, and not a universal French reflex, but it is very common whenever a few French people are together, and sometimes a little de trop. Someone I had scarcely met started calling to me as we passed in the corridor, and once I could hear, her words turned out to be 'appareil photo', seeing the camera round my neck. Followed by 'vous allez prendre des photos?' And more than once I saw people who settled quietly with their book while the ice was applied after exercise, to be greeted by those around by 'de la lecture!'. Both men ans women do this, and the flow of talk is non-stop once the other person responds; reflective silence is not apparently normal in their experience.

I thought my main need would be to learn to bend the knee again, but it turned out that I needed, and still need, to learn to straighten the leg fully.