Later today I have a discussion with my doctor on my right knee, which continues to be stiff, swollen and achy after very nearly five weeks. I can't walk naturally at the moment. Perhaps in recent days my knee has been showing some signs of improvement, but the fact remains that if I stand or walk on it for more than a few moments my knee begins to ache. The pain is most at the sides of the joint, and in my shin. It's a steady dull sort of pain, not intense, not sharp, and can't explain it from anything I've read about online. I'm no anatomist. I still suspect it's indicative of protesting muscles or ligaments, which I know are slow to heal if in any way damaged. And not, for instance, of a dodgy cartilage. But of course I do not really know, hence the consultation.
I want to be told that yes, the aching with go on for a while yet, but no, it isn't serious, and careful daily exercise will assist eventual recovery - light walking, for instance. And to that end, I've been making a point of going for a short afternoon walk, with a walking stick. A half-speed way of getting around, to be sure, but an older person with a walking stick is no strange sight, and so in no way do I feel odd or embarrassed. The stick certainly keeps me steady, especially on undulating ground, and takes weight off that knee at the right moments.
Here is my prop:
And here I am, in shots taken last week, about to venture forth with it:
That incidentally is the technique for taking a one-handed 'portrait' shot of oneself in a mirror with a Leica D-Lux 4, or indeed any small camera. My thumb is on the shutter button. You don't get physical shutter buttons on phones.
Hmph, I can hear. It's an old-fashioned ash-wood stick with a crooked handle! Why yes. The best kind: lightweight, strong, easy and comfortable to hold, and that crook enables one to hook the stick onto an elbow, and use both hands for a moment. It does scream 'old person', I agree, but that's only the truth, and I don't want passers-by to think that I'm merely aiming for a vintage effect. I want them to think 'hey, this person has walking difficulties, and needs a wide berth'.
It may look rather like NHS standard-issue, but I don't mind. It has proved to be a good friend while I limp around, and I've grown rather fond of it.
I don't think it's one of my own sticks. Or at least not one from my first run of stick-purchases. Back in the early 1990s, I began to buy traditional walking sticks with crooked handles as stylish accessories for rambling. They could bash brambles, and fend off maddened slavering sheep, and hungry cows with fearsome dentition, but their prime purpose was to exude 1930s-style charm as I was coming round the mountain. The days when they might truly be needed as a walking aid were far off back then. Not so now. In 2022 I wouldn't step out onto a forest track or any kind of footpath without a stick. I want a 'third leg' just in case. And more often than not, a stick proves to be vital. Snakes, giant eagles, mutant carnivorous plants, and lurking men are all possibilities, and a stick can be a good weapon, besides being handy for vaulting streams and skirting muddy patches. Although at the moment I am not capable of vaulting anywhere.
Getting back to the origins of this particular stick, I looked through my pictures of the sticks in the pot in the porch. I still have quite a collection, including a shepherd's crook I bought in Northumberland last year, just in case a herd wanders onto the front lawn of Melford Hall and needs to be rounded up and chivvied elsewhere. The earliest shot I had that showed my current stick was dated 16th March 2014. There it is, the one on the right hand side:
So I had it in early 2014. But I've no memory of its purchase, nor of ever using it. Well, if it isn't a stick I bought for myself, was it one I inherited from Dad in 2009?
More delving in my Photo Archive produced no shots of Dad using this stick. In fact he'd long been using another stick entirely, the one with the dog's head and metal collar, next to 'my' stick in the picture above. The pictures I found always showed him using this dog-headed stick and no other. Here's a selection. First up, Dad on holiday with Mum in Austria in September 1988, with that stick propped up against the seat, bottom right. (His camera, not mine: I wasn't there)
Dad at Leonardslee Gardens in Sussex in August 1989:
Dad at Rhodes in 1993. It must have been late in the year, because earlier in 1993 he had a double knee-replacement operation to fix the severe arthritis that had been troubling him (he was then aged 73):
Dad at Rhossili in South Wales in November 1993 (I took this shot). It's still the same stick:
And, jumping forward a bit, here's Mum and Dad having a joke at Ouse Cottage in Piddinghoe in September 2007, with Dad leaning on that favourite stick of his. This was the Cottage that caused me so much financial grief. M--- and I had just bought it, little knowing how ownership would strain our friendship. It was a very nice property, but a disastrous investment, although its value has since recovered. Poignant also to think that within a year and a half both my parents would be dead. They seemed indestructible then.
Could my stick have been Mum's? But then I never saw her using a stick. The cancer that got her acted swiftly. One month she was mobile; the next in a hospice.
No, I must have bought it myself in 2014 or sometime before, and had just forgotten. Well, it was now at last coming into play.
Jackie next door has a couple of modern adjustable aluminium walking poles, and swears by them. I agree that they avoid that 'shuffling old person' image. Poles are designed for serious and strenuous walking at speed, bringing the power of one's arms into the business of getting from A to B super-efficiently. However (a) they have no crook, so I can't 'hang' them onto my elbow while I take a photograph; and (b) they are too functional and too sporty for my taste. I want something that does the job but is still dripping with nostalgic, old-fashioned charm and style. Like my fountain pen, you could say.
