Aside from resting, and not doing any heavy lifting or exercise, I'm hopefully now done with the medical professionals. The nurse at my GP just took all the staples out, thirteen as it turned out (I guessed there were a dozen when talking to the receptionist earlier in the week, so pretty close!) That was probably the most painful part of the entire process, but it was minimally annoying.
I forgot to ask her what the bruising on my side was, mainly because it's pretty much entirely gone. In fact, most of the bruising has gone, although I suspect there's still some internal bruising, since it can very occasionally feel slightly annoying, although less now than last week, so it's clearly getting better.
So, just under 51 days and 8 hours, and I can be back on my bikes. I'm being conservative and waiting two months from the operation. Various people have said eight weeks and six weeks, so I'm going with the more conservative period, and actually saying two months instead of eight weeks. I really don't want to do it all again!