The essence of blog is to report about occasions when one's Significant Other (who shall remain nameless to limit his shame...) forces one to go to the pub and forces one to ebriate. "You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink," he says. Well, Jimmy, have I got news for you. I'm not a horse, and it wasn't water.
So really quite late last night, perhaps even after half past ten, I went into the kitchen. My objective was to put a cup of warm milk into the microwave as a bedtime drink to enjoy during the final act of Simon Boccanegra I was watching on DVD.
From my dining room is a step down to the kitchen. Not a big step. Perhpas one centimetre; certainly no more than two centimetres. As I was negotiating my right foot entirely disappeared from beneath me, and I went over on my ankle, banging my knee in the process. Expletives that I didn't know I knew came issuing forth. Winded and not a little nauseous I had to sit down, but finally concluded that the injuries sustained were only to my pride.
Then I woke up this morning! I have a tiny area of tenderness at the top of my knee cap. Frankly, my knees are so knobbly and scarred it is difficult to tell where the new damage is. However, I discovered that stairs present a whole new set of challenges. They have to be negotiated gingerly, shuffled, one foot forward, the other following. Rather than a hearty left right left right. I have discovered that sitting down for a while causes a certain stiffness in the kneee so the first steps have to be limped. That does funny things to the thigh muscle. Eventually, it eases up and I can walk normally, feeling only a soupcon of twinge. But in the meantime I have attracted strange looks, some of them sympathetic. So I feel a bit of a fraud explaining that I'm not really injured at all, it's just a tiny knock on my kneecap.
And, of course this was the day that there was heavy traffic congestion in Brixton. This caused over-crowdedness on the bus going down the hill to the Tube, and may well have been the reason for over-crowded buses from Vauxhall to work. In consequence, my journey, which I can do in thirty-five minutes (at a pinch) took over an hour, of which only about five minutes was spent sitting.
I wonder what the incident was. Previous such congestion has been caused by, inter alia a shooting at a nightclub and a stolen van. On the other hand, I have also known them to be caused by a tiny utility hole in the road, or by a thoughtlessly parked car. I suppose I will never know. And very soon won't care.
