Hey Laidlaw!!!

As usual, Tilly and I are over achievers. We recently accomplished our Vancouver bucket list so we had to go above and beyond and achieve some side quests which were not originally on the bucket list too. Today we got to ride a helicopter, ride an ambulance and eat mango with a man who got beat up in the pub. Unfortunately Tilly had to sacrifice her ankle for these experiences (it is indeed broken). She is such a good friend!

The start of the week was very normal. I went to dance, Tilly ran, we did some work. We had planned a 3 day camping trip for the weekend. Unfortunately i got the flu the day before and had to cancel going on the trip. Luckily I hate being ill so 15 minutes before Tilly was getting picked up I decided I was feeling better and had the fastest turn around ever (showered and packed all my gear + meals for the trip). This speedy turn around did have something to do with this man called Eric texting me 15 minutes before departure time, trying to convince me to come on the trip by arguing that being outside would cure me. While his argument was convincing, my change of heart was more so caused by the fact that I was very intrigued by this Eric man. He dated my best friend ever Lucia while she did her year abroad in Vancouver this year and spending 3 days with him seemed like the perfect opportunity to better interrogate him.

Eric was right about me. Being outside did cure me! However, it almost killed Tilly. After a pretty scary scramble up the mountain, a massive rock decided to put our egos back into place by smacking Tilly’s ankle and knocking her over.

Two of the boys in our group ran down the mountain to collect a stretcher whilst the rest of us put our best first aid skills to practice. Mine mostly included feeding Tilly trail mix. Once the boys got back, we STRAPPED her onto this plank of wood and took turns carrying her down the mountain. I thought walking up it was pretty difficult but going down some pretty serious elevation, on uneven floor and through many, many, many bushes and even more puddles was epically harder. It took us 5 hours and Tilly was shivering the whole time. Luckily we had plenty of emergency blankets with us to somewhat heat her up.

Upon arrival to our camping spot, we saw a HELICOPTER awaiting us. That was one of the coolest experiences ever. We were flying through the most beautiful mountains the entire time and the pilot kept on pointing out the views to us. They dropped us at an ambulance, which took us to hospital where Tilly got told her ankle was broken which was obviously very upsetting, especially for someone who is literally never still ever. Luckily we have already come up with many, many activities which do not involve her ankle, including kayaking, her sitting in the baby seat of a bike whilst I cycle around, and of course handstands. Oh and obviously camping. Don’t worry Laidlaw, many more epic times will be had.

This brings us to now. We are sitting in the hospital waiting room, sharing mango with a man who KEEPS escaping his ward and waiting for Joseph (mentioned in last week’s blog) to pick us up. This is incredibly kind of him seeing as we are 2.5 hours away from our accommodation so he will be driving for over 5 hours just to help us out (we met twice) (although I did put up with a night of his farts so maybe he owes me a tiny bit). We have bought MANY snacks to thank him although I’m not sure we ever will be able to to be honest.   

I don’t really have a conclusion to this blog. You might have to wait and find out for next week. I am too sleep deprived to think really. I think my conclusion is just that I love Tilly lots and lots and we should all pray her ankle gets better very soon.

Sorry for not talking much about work. I will have more thoughts on it next week. This week I spent a lot of time reading about fungi (for fun, not work) so I have been pretty busy thinking about that instead. I shall lock in harder next week. I do love fungi though. If you have any fungi related questions let me know I’m pretty sure I have at least 72 % of the answers. But that is only because we know so little about them that my knowledge on them actually spans a large proportion of it. Bye!