Right, well, that’s ruined my plans for the forthcoming days. I’d got all ready to go climbing tomorrow as it seems finally the grey grey greyness and damp hovering-around-zero has broken, and I was itching to get back on my local wall and yes, also rehearsing today, and even going out to Unbezahlbar tonight. Ruined. Ruined and awash in blood. My blood, that is.

Fucking cleaning.

And how fucking sharp can a kitchen sink be? Really, who’d ‘a thought a kitchen sink could slice through a finger like a gritty butcher’s knife? Conceptualise a kitchen sink in your mind, and the words ‘razor sharp’ don’t spring to mind as a synonym, do they? No one ever said, “Sharp as a kitchen sink”, or “Cut like a hot kitchen sink through butter”. But oh, yes, Frances will find the one scalpel-like edge on said kitchen sink and attempt to sever fingertip from rest of said finger.

And for a small cut it really went totally Slayer Raining Blood from a Lacerated Sky just everywhere. New shoes are probably required because one of them was, “I’m a Sponge! Drinking Blood from a Lacerated Sky”, and I think that doesn’t come out in the wash.

Anyway, I went all “First Aid! Compress the wound! Where’s a fucking bandage? Ah these clean underwear will do until I find the bandages!”, then found the bandages and soaked them in blood – it’s comically difficult to do anything dextrous when it’s your left index finger that’s doing an impression of a tap and you happen to be left-handed. Then had a look, all the while swear-laughing, and it was grinning right back at me, and I thought, “Ooo! That’s going to need tailoring.”

So I jumped on my bike and rode to the hospital.

And took a book because I was expecting to be there a while, you know, emergency rooms tend to be long, drawn-out affairs. But I barely got through one paragraph and was off to get taken care of, by two very lovely and friendly doctors.

I’ve been watching a lot of Vin Diesel films lately, and they get bashed and shot and barely a spritz of the red stuff, and yet here was I, half an hour or more later and my finger was still intent on painting any near surface red. It was leaking like the mouth of a drowned person exhaling water. Well, it was probably not more than a couple of tablespoons worth, but it was attempting the elevator scene from The Shining for all it was worth.

So it was washed, and examined and decided a sewing kit was needed, and fuck do anæsthetic injections hurt. I got to lie down, even though I wanted to be all Vin and get stitched up without anaesthetic and swigging on beer. Lucky the anæsthetic only worked properly on half my finger so I got to act all stoic while the tiniest of tiny needles bored through the most superficial depths of my finger tip and I just went “Ow! Fuck!”.

So now my finger looks like a white clown’s nose with its dressing, and has Four! stitches. And hopefully no infection because it was nasty dirty what I was cleaning when my kitchen sink went all meat cleaver on me. Which I had to finish reassembling the drainpipes on when I got home; it smelt like a swampy trench down those pipes.

And no climbing with this finger for at least a couple of weeks either.

Not to worry, I have Vin Diesel films. I’m watching The Fast and The Furious series in reverse, which I think would be a good name for one of them, “Fast Reverse”, and they do all their stunts going backwards, and have swapped over their rear difs so they have five reverse gears, and pop their back wheels when they hit the nitro doing 300 on the Autobahn.