Bike Smash

Nat has been complaining she doesn't get enough exercise these days, so decided on Friday that she would ride to her work at Gungahlin (for those who don't know Canberra, Gungahlin is the northern extrema of Canberra, about 15km from Cook). I came home with Ella & Katy just in time to make dinner, when Natalie arrived at the bottom of the driveway, and staggered up from the mailbox like a drunken sailor. Turned out that she'd dropped her chain on Redfern St, and her pedalling inertia caused her to crash onto the road, right where passing cars would have been driving if they had been around. So, it clearly could have been worse, although Nat was too preoccupied about whether she had torn her brand new fluoro yellow cycling jacket (she hadn't) to worry about the physical trauma.

Nonetheless, Nat has struggled with her injuries since the crash, and there have been 3 distinct phases. The first phase, once the jacket had been checked, was dealing with the blood on her right knee, which hit the ground hardest. I made an emergency dash to a late-night chemist to buy the biggest bandages they sold and we put them on. It continued to bleed, but at least she could go to work on Saturday. Phase 2 was the bruising on her knee which, strangely enough, seemed to be exacerbated by digging the entire vegetable garden through with compost on Saturday afternoon. But the most intriguing has been phase 3, which occurred suddenly in Belconnen Mall this afternoon -- Nat picked Katy up, and suddenly discovered that her chest (which was a bit bruised from the crash) was so painful she could hardly breathe, let alone stand up. Since then she's been a little subdued; I think if she was riding the Tour de France she might have pulled out by now... We shall await the doctor's verdict tomorrow.