Don't trash your arm before a massive trade show...

Just back from four days in sunny Germany - Würst, Kartoffeln, Würstkartoffeln, mit Speck, you know, sausages, more sausages and meaty things with potatoes at various prices. Anyway, always good to catch up with people in the outdoors industry, but this year I took my mate 'Crunchy', my interestingly swollen and slightly yellow and audibly creaky right forearm...

I crashed a couple of times riding 10 at Kirroughtree with a mate last weekend. I figure one injury was impact, the other was more of a sprain, both the right forearm sort of area. Anyway, to cut a dull story short, it was a great weekend with nice people and my arm got a bit sore.

The trouble with having a very delicate right arm, of course, is that you can't shake hands with it. So you end up using your left hand. In a weird, Freemasonesque reversed grip sort of way. And then the obvious question is: 'Oh, what happened...'

My favourite brand stand - Dong Garment, one of the big swinging, erm... anyway.

I reckon I told people I'd crashed a mountain bike around 50 times in two days. Oddly, though the arm was uncomfortable, it wasn't sharply or searingly painful. Just a bit sore and ouchy if you twisted your hand too much. But loads of people seemed convinced that it was broken. I don't think so. It seemed to pain them more than it hurt me. Which was odd.

I once interviewed Joe Simpson and he explained that the endless repeated telling of traumatic events apparently helps post-traumatic stress sufferers by making the actual events feel like story that happened to someone else. Ironically in my case, repeatedly telling the story, gave rise to sort of post-traumatic stress of its own.

Eventually I chose to shake hands a risk real physical pain rather than suffer the horror of telling the story once more.

Other things, a small box of Ibuprofen costs almost a tenner at the pharmacy in Zurich airport. At Tesco in Glossop, the same box retails for 42 pence... I've decided not to emigrate to Zurich airport any time soon. And no, I didn't buy them.