The Case of the Igenlode's Thumb

I've been reading Sherlock Holmes again. You can tell, can't you?

Unfortunately, the deep wound in my thumb is still not healing up the way it should; I had to walk a couple of miles in to hospital today (this on top of a thirty-mile bike ride — the reason why I wasn't cycling; I'd had enough!) to get it looked at again, as it had been gradually swelling up to the extent that the half-healed edges had started to split open.

The nurse who saw it said that she didn't think it was infected, but that for whatever reason the layers of skin below had started to separate. Anyway, it's a confounded nuisance, and I now have it done up in an immense dressing all over again, and have to take baths with a plastic bag strapped over my hand again and so on...

The rats, of course, think it's all a tremendous mistake, and either sink their little teeth into it in the hopes that it might be edible, or else kindly try to groom it off for me!