1. A method of loading a sequence of unaligned words starting from a first unaligned word address in a memory, said unaligned words comprising a plurality of indexed portions crossing a plurality of word boundaries, the method comprising: loading a first aligned word by executing a load instruction, said first aligned word commencing at a first aligned word address rounded from said first unaligned word address; identifying an index representing the location of the first unaligned word address relative to the first aligned word address; loading a second aligned word commencing at a second aligned word address rounded from a second unaligned word address; combining indexed portions of the first and second aligned words using the identified index to construct a first unaligned word; loading at least one subsequent third aligned word commencing at a third aligned word address from a subsequent third unaligned word address plus a second offset; and combining indexed portions of the subsequent third aligned word and the second aligned word to construct a subsequent second unaligned word.