Retail therapy.
It beats any sort of painkiller and is a powerful and addictive drug. In my defence, I'd planned to buy some ski boots anyway - I generally waste the first day of a skiing holiday trying on various hired boots and contracting a case of athlete's foot in the process. So a custom fitted pair of my own, replete with a boot liner moulded to my foot seemed a good idea.
Oh, and the fact that the selected boots were shiny, black and had sparkly bits had no bearing on my purchasing decision...
I was also the question I've been asked at least a thousand times over the last couple of days: "Are you ok?"
Initially I responded with the expected "Fine, thanks" but after the first hour of questioning, my already fragile patience collapsed entirely:
"Oh, hi Newly. Hey, that looks nasty - are you ok?"
"NO! I'm not bloody OK! If I was OK, would I have a comedy bandage around my hand, and the same hand tied to my shoulder in a really uncomfortable sling? Does that look 'OK' to you? If so, you need your head examined..." (and so on, until the person in question retreats and warns his friends that I'm in a 'funny' mood)
Spelling error of the day. I saw a product at the ski shop designed to improve the performance of one's skis. One brand I've seen before is "Kunstpiste" ('Kunst' being the German for 'Art'.) Unfortunately it appeared that a minor typographical error had occurred, and a critical letter omitted. The product had been labelled "Kuntpiste", which my friend and I found to be funnier than a whole bucket of monkeys.
