Fumblefeet

I ache all over. Yesterday I jumped out of the bath to answer the ‘phone, slipped in the hallway, fell hard on my bottom, bruised my leg, scraped my foot and bashed my head against the wall. I saw stars for a minute or two.

In the afternoon I went to see Claire Gordon, a healing fairy who practises craniosacral osteopathy. I don’t know how it works but I find it a wonderfully uplifting treatment. Every time Claire lays her hands on me I go into ‘the zone’ and start snoring and dribbling. This visit was no exception and I was zizzing away when Claire brought me gently back to consciousness. As I sat up, she took my head in her hands. “That bang on the noggin has got your skull all twisted around,” said Claire. Then she deftly cracked my neck, in the old fashioned way.

This afternoon I tripped over a box of orange juice in the corner shop and stumbled wildly down the aisle, only just managing to avoid pulling the entire shelf of laundry detergent down on my head. With a badly bruised ankle and worsely bruised pride I limped straight home for a little lie-down.

I put all this clumsiness down to peripheral neuropathy. That is to say, numb toes.