I'm back. It's taken three years to produce this difficult second entry, so I'd like to thank you, dear imaginary reader, for your patience.
How am I? Why, thank you for asking. What a very polite and well-bred imaginary reader I have imagined for myself.
I'm actually not feeling too well at present. This is the end of my second day of absence from work, on the 'pat and mick', as they say (or 'le patrice et michel' for my imaginary French reader). You see, I've been a victim of gravity. And a cold virus. Mainly gravity though.
I was going to work on Sunday morning to catch up with some urgent stuff and work off a bit of flexi-time debt. It was a lovely sunny morning, all blue sky, fluffy clouds, and a few inches of freshly fallen snow. Freshly fallen onto a layer of ice, that is. So a cheery old Bison walks down the path toward his car, striding out confidently on the white stuff, a veteran of forty-odd winters and wearing sturdy walking boots. I bastard slipped, didn't I? My recently confident feet went flying into the air in front of me, and for what seemed like ages I was suspended in mid-air like a cartoon coyote, while gravity got its act together and decided what to do with me. Time enough to think, while already assuming the lying down position, that this wasn't going to be a good landing, and it wasn't. Square on my shoulders and neck is how I came down, also jarring my elbows for just a tiny tiny bit of weight distribution. Now the usual first response after landing, before even wondering if anything is broken or hanging off, is to look around to see if anyone saw the ridiculous slapstick fall so that one can then quickly regain feet and do a 'Tchuh! Ice eh? I'm sick of this weather, etc' routine. But this one was a bit more serious, and all I could do was to lie in the snow like a snapped pensioner while pain of various sorts built up and zinged around my carcass. Eventually, dazed, I rolled over and got to my hands and knees, then slowly back on my feet, and shuffled back to the house (though not before taking a couple of steps towards the car, then dimly realizing I was about to try and open it with my house key). Gone was the cheerful, striding chap with a tune on his lips, replaced by a sad, broken, hunched figure shambling home like a disappointed beggar. Bastard gravity.
If I lived on the moon I'd have had a slower and softer landing, and as a child of the 1970's I'd always been led to expect that by now (in fact by 1999) I'd be living on Moonbase Alpha. So maybe I'm wrong to be blaming gravity for my injuries. Gerry Anderson - it's his fault.
If I lived on the moon I'd have had a slower and softer landing, and as a child of the 1970's I'd always been led to expect that by now (in fact by 1999) I'd be living on Moonbase Alpha. So maybe I'm wrong to be blaming gravity for my injuries. Gerry Anderson - it's his fault.
