1. The Trip of a Lifetime?

We made the decision to move to Greece in October, 2007. We booked the removal man, bought a lot of new furniture, sorted the flights and car hire and started counting down the days to the big event.
And then, 10 weeks before we were due to say goodbye to the UK, I tore my achilles tendon running to get out of the rain. As we were going to a party at some friends, I bravely shrugged off the pain with the help of copious amounts of Jack Daniels, but, 24 hours later, was forced to admit that this particular type of self healing was not going to work.
A trip to the local casualty department saw me admitted overnight for a consultation with a specialist the following morning. The diagnosis was not good. 8 weeks in plaster, complete with crutches, and possibly 6 months of physiotherapy and excercises. Margaret, of course was not well pleased, and soon mastered a very good version of Victor Melldrew's "I don't believe it."
If you have ever moved house you know what is involved; the amount of stuff you have to sort through, and the packing is endless. It is also well nigh impossible when you have to do it on crutches; everytime you want to pick something up or move it you have to let go of at least one crutch, and then you usually fall over! But human ingenuity knows no bounds and, slowly but surely, my tendon healed, the plaster came off 6 days before our departure date, and all the packing was finished.
We had 2 parties (1 for family and 1 for work colleagues and friends) to say goodbye to everyone and, 48 hours later, there we were at Manchester airport ready to fly off and put the recent traumas behind us. But life has a habit of throwing sand in your face when you least expect it; and I didn't expect to trip over a small stainless steel buttress at the base of a wall when exiting a lift. And I definitely didn't expect the shooting pain above my ankle as my tendon tore again!!!!!!!!
At this point Margaret's Victor Melldrew impression was perfect. Faced with no option other than cancelling the trip I limped onto the plane, the only consolations being that it was a scheduled flight with good leg stretching room, and that things couldn't get any worse.
Could they...............................?????????????