Two weeks since my last entry - there's just no spare time out here, so even this is going to have to be a short one.

Last week started badly - AJ went to get the horses on the quad bike, and the throttle locked on, it was too dark to see the emergency stop button so he rolled off, but his spur got stuck and he got dragged a short way before the strap broke. The bike meanwhile carried on through the fence took off up one bank of the creek and landed nose first in it (though it's pretty much dry at the moment), completely squashing the front end. AJ was pretty sore so Anne managed to convince him not to ride and take the car instead. Just as well he did really, as we were going along fine until just before lunch, but Grumpy was having a strong day and while I was chasing a beast the nice wide turn I planned to avoid the tree didn't happen and I hit it hard on my right side. Anne heard it and she was about 50m away in the lead of the mob! Needless to say I fell off and landed pretty hard, Grumpy pulled up right next to me and stood looking confused while I was surrounded by Kev, PJ and AJ who all thought I'd broken my shoulder! I was sore, but after staying where I was for a couple of minutes I managed to get up with help and take the car just along the fence to the lunch stop. I rode home with them, although I was sitting very crooked as all the inside of my right leg and my left lower back and buttock were very painful, so I didn't go above a walk. Getting off was a bit of a challenge - PJ tried to pull me off with an arm around my waist but that hurt to much, so we ended up parking Grumpy next to the yard fence and I pulled myself off onto it. I was very stiff for a couple of days and I was walking like an old man, but thanks to the painkillers I was pretty much on the mend by Thursday. They kept wanting me to go and have rests but I knew I'd stiffen up and get more sore if I did, so I kept working right through which distracted me as much as anything else. My bad luck wasn't over though - on Thursday we were at the yards in Big Lagoon and I was bang tailing (basically cutting the end of their tails so it's straight and you can tell which have been done) cows which Anne had innoculated in the crush. I was going pretty well as it was my first attempt, then second crush load one cow went up backwards. She was a quiet thing, but the one in front of her was very cranky and was trying to kick everyone. There was a big gap between the two cows backsides when I reached in for the quiet ones tail, but the cranky one still managed to kick me across the left hand. She cut my middle finger and my thumb was sore but I thought nothing of it, and although it was sore I carried on. Next day however, my thumb had swollen up to almost twice its normal size as had the bottoms of my index and middle fingers. It was very sore if I moved it, but so long as I kept it still I was alright, and since we were on the yards I could work one handed. AJ and Bev were due to go into town anyway at the weekend, and they decided I should go with them, as everyone reckoned I'd probably broken my thumb.

So we set off for Mount Isa bright and early Saturday morning (6am) and arrived about 11:45 at the hospital. They dropped me off as they had things to do and were going to an anniversary party, and I had organised to stay the night at Polly's backpacker's hostel. After a lot of paperwork and over an hour's wait, I was seen by a doctor, who again thought it might be broken and took me for an x-ray. However, on arriving at the x-ray department we were told that they weren't x-raying today unless it was an emergency, and I had to come back tomorrow between 9am and 12, which was a bit of a b***** as we were meant to be leaving at 7am. Anyway, they decided to put a half cast on my arm as a precaution, which looked rather over the top, but kept it still which was the main idea. I managed to get in touch with Polly to try and get hold of AJ and Bev to say I needed to stay later for the x-ray, and she was brilliant and managed to leave messages with a few people to make sure it got to them. She then took pity on me and I spent the afternoon at her house, and she gave me dinner and I watched Charlotte's Web with her and her daughter Amy before she took me back to the backpackers. It was so kind of her, and we had a good chat. Sunday at the hospital was a nightmare - although I had a slip of paper to walk straight through to X-ray, which I did, I then had to go back to A+E and get re-triaged so I could get a doctor to look at the x-rays, which took 3 and a half hours!!! And even then they couldn't decide whether it was broken, so they took the cast off, put a splint on and said I should come back on Tuesday when they'd have the radiographer's report. It took a while, but eventually I managed to convince them that since I lived 400km away it wasn't going to be possible for me to just "pop in" for my results so it was decided that I could ring them on Tuesday instead.

As we were late getting back we had a quick turn around and went out to camp at Big Lagoon that night, which is very basic compared to No3 - just a roof on legs and a big water tank with a pipe coming out of it for a shower. I managed to ride on Monday and Tuesday one handed with a big bandage over my thumb to keep it clean, and only walking and trotting and riding O'Reilly as she's my most chilled out horse. I came home on Tuesday to ring the hospital and they finally decided my thumb wasn't broken and I should take the splint off, take ibuprofen and begin to move it gradually as I had some soft tissue damage. It's improving all the time, especially over the last couple of days, and I can almost grip things properly again! There was 2 or 3 days initially when I couldn't hold my fork to cut up my food so people had to keep taking pity on me and doing it for me, which was really nice of them.

This week has been a lot better - I've been lot less accident prone, except for managing to bump my not inconsiderable bruises on my leg and back at pretty muche every opportunity! We had a few good days mustering, and I think I'm improving - we had a bit of a mad yard up at No3 the other day when the cattle all took off in one direction so the other 4 went to block them, at which point they all turned and came straight back at me so I was galloping about wildly on my own trying to block them before the chopper came to the rescue.

Hopefully I'll stay injury free for a while now, but who knows! Despite all that, I love it out here, the job is brilliant and the people are lovely - I can't believe there's only 3 and a half months left.