Spent yesterday shopping, getting in food for when the family – 1 Son, 2 Daughters, 1 (honourary) Son-in-Law – arrive on Sunday.
Got home, knackered. Went to the garage to put stuff away in the freezer, turned around and tripped over the wood-chopping block. Went cartwheeling, landed with a crunch in front of the coal bunker. Hit my neck on the sharp edge of the coal shovel, which jammed up against the garage door. That bit could have been nasty, but I was still wearing my jacket with the collar up, so the shovel-edge dug into that instead.
Lay there like a stunned fish, flapping a bit as I deciphered status messages from distant limbs. There didn’t seem to be anything badly broken, so I decided I didn’t especially want to lie there in the coal-dust when I didn’t have to. Tried to get up – knees totally useless for the job of getting me upright, as they always are these days. Started swearing – at the chopping-block, at the gods, at fate, at my useless eyesight, at my useless knees. B heard me and came rushing in, pulled me up, rushed me into the kitchen, cleaned me up, inspected my emerging bruises, made me a cup of tea, made me sit down.
I’ve been falling over like this all my life – I’m nearly blind in my right eye and my left eye is fairly hopless as well. So things like steps and kerbs and lamposts tend to leap out and snag themselves on me. It didn’t used to matter when I was young and healthy – I would simply get back on my feet, brush off the mud/blood and carry on walking. But now, it’s not so nice. I was shaky and aching all evening and still am aching quite a lot, all over.