And here we are again. Let's see...

Well, the permit application - for both Iveagh Gardens and the Phoenix Park - was refused. This is actually old news, but I don't seem to have said it here. My friend Michele, who is a solicitor, says that we should re-apply, and if it's refused again, threaten them with a judicial review. Given that the main reason for refusing seems to have been that we're a bunch of weirdos. (Not, of course, that they said that directly, but it's readable between the lines.)

Anyway, that's on hold at the moment, and we went to St. Anne's Park on Sunday. Found a good spot, only slightly discommoded by the three local skangers who watched us for an hour or two, occasionally asking stupid questions. And the family party wandering through; a small child was heard to say, "Mammy, can we watch the film?"! But we had to stop early when Brian broke his leg.

Nothing to do with the rubber swords, by the way. It could, as my mother says, have happened to a bishop. We were divided into two teams, fighting against one another. Brian (he of the chain-mail, not my bodyguard) wanted to avoid the melee in the middle, and so ran around the side and jumped over a log that was there. When he landed, he says his foot went down rather further than he'd expected, while the rest of him kept going. He turned a bee-yoo-tiful somersault and landed flat on his back in the mud. Of course, we all ran over to see was he all right. He lay there in the mud and said matter-of-factly, "I've broken my leg." He was, in fact, so calm about it that none of us believed him!

But he insisted, "No, seriously, I've broken my leg." So I - being the first first-aider to move; I think there are one or two more with some training - went to check. Checking for a broken leg on someone who actually has broken it is very different from practicing on a perfectly uninjured person. I was very worried about hurting him and, of course, I had not previously actually felt a broken bone. I was a bit nervous. But at the spot where he said it was broken, I could feel a lump on the bone where no lump ought to be, so I was fairly sure - given that he'd heard the crack when it snapped - that he was right and it really was broken. I gave instructions to call for an ambulance, and treated Brian for shock.

I did consider strapping the leg up, but once I'd explained to Brian what a natural splint is (strapping the injured limb to a convenient uninjured part of the body - in this case, it would have been tying his legs together), he seemed very unhappy with the idea. Since he'd remained very calm up to that point, and since he showed no inclination to move the leg, I decided not to risk upsetting him by insisting. I just covered him with someone's cloak, requested something to lay his head on (got a nice quilted bag that Andy and Darren carry their swords in), and gave him water to drink.

Cillian was rather upset, and was dealing with it by trying to be mondo helpful. He was helpful in such instances as getting Brian's armour off (he was wearing the infamous chainmail, as well as heavy leather greaves), but I had to restrain him from giving Brian sweets or crisps to eat. (As it later transpired, Brian wasn't operated on until Tuesday, and was not given a general anaesthetic anyway, but you never know!)

Then the heavens opened. Fergal eyed the rain and then said thoughtfully, "I think this is what you call a pathetic fallacy." Luckily, the cloak over Brian was wool, and Rory crouched to hold an umbrella over his head. But it was a very wet group that finally greeted the ambulance. The first reaction of the ambulance guys was, "It couldn't have been one of the smaller ones of you, could it?!" (Brian is not much taller than me, but quite fat - though he can still run faster than I can!) It was vaguely gratifying to see them directing some of our largest lads in helping them to lift Brian onto the stretcher, using a lift I learned in the Civil Defence.

So, Brian was carted off to Beaumont Hospital, complaining that it's miles from where he lives. It subsequently transpired that he'd snapped his tibia and had (we think) also a hairline fracture of the fibula. They decided to operate and put a metal pin in, but since he suffers from sleep apnoea, they couldn't use a general anaesthetic, and gave him an epidural instead. And he kept getting pushed back down the list by emergencies, so it was Tuesday before they operated, and they only let him go home yesterday. He spent the week complaining of boredom, I gather. Don't blame him.

Anyway, he's home now, and fine, but won't be back to training for a while, since getting from Tallaght to Raheny on crutches is liable to be a monster pain. Meanwhile, he's using the list to berate those people who had an attack of the guilts over the whole episode. It's not anyone's fault, just a stupid accident, but one or two of the lads are rather upset. But we're back in St. Anne's tomorrow.

In happier news...

My dad came over today with cuttings from his rose hedge; he has three different rambling roses making a hedge between his back garden and the next. Having successfully grown roses that I bought in the supermarket (just bung them in, water them, and hope - they grew!), I've become ambitious, and want to try to grow roses from cuttings. I like roses. They're pretty, and many of them (certainly Daddy's) smell nice, and they will cover our ugly concrete block wall, and they seem to be easy and non-messy to grow. I don't like gardening in general, because it makes me all dirty. But roses just have to be pruned every now and then, and I can do that! Well, I hope... Anyway, we put the cuttings in, and watered them, and now we wait and see. One of them is one that Daddy grew from a cutting that he took from a wild rose on his honeymoon. It's lovely, and smells utterly gorgeous!

The rain on Sunday caused me to start thinking of all the things that fantasy writers seem not ever to have done themselves. I have read more than one book in which characters shelter from the rain under trees. Anyone who has tried this will know that trees merely concentrate the rain, so that it lands on you in great dollops, usually down the back of your neck. But there are other things.

Some fantasy writers seem not ever to have ridden a horse, been bitten by a flea (odd, when you consider how many of them keep cats!), tried to light a fire with flint and steel, been in a battle, slept on the ground, or done a great many other things that their characters do and that they could do if they bothered to get off their arses. I have done all of the above, for instance, except the fire lighting, and that's only because I'm not sure where my tinder box is just now. I do actually own a tinder box with flint, steel and tinder. But even without trying it, I know that you do not strike the flint off the tinder (as I read in one book!). And I believe it's an extremely lengthy and frustrating procedure.

Anyway, I'm firmly of the opinion that all fantasy writers should go to the Gathering or some similar event. I know what it's like to sleep on the ground - not as uncomfortable as sleeping on a flat floor, but colder than you'd expect. I have been in battles - they're very noisy, very confusing, and even worse at night. I know what it's like to hang about for hours before the battle begins, wondering what the hell is going on. I've had everything in my tent get damp from condensation (possibly, admittedly, more of a problem with modern tents than the ones your fantasy characters would use). Now, if I only wrote High Fantasy rather than Urban Fantasy...