That’s my deckchair with about two pounds of water in it. Now the window is open and that delicious smell of wet grass and soil is wafting through the house.
June started last week and it was cold, still and miserable. It looked a bit like October minus the red leaves and the bonfire smells. Then it turned crazy blue and delicious, like a freak version of our August, and I spent nights sleeping on top of my duvet, because 23C degrees in my bedroom qualifies as warm. By the time I had decided to wear a silk dress to Eva’s baptism, it all returned to a Mancunian normality of low-level clouds and, if not rain, at least the promise of it.
Today has been a painful day, as days often are when I wake up and my back isn’t quite ok and my arm, following my shoulder injury, isn’t quite ok either. I don’t think I’ve ever taken my mobility for granted, but I must admit that, dipping into and out of, acute painful phases due to my discs and, more recently, my shoulder, has made me very short-fused and angry with my body.
Yesterday I didn’t mean to take funny little steps, almost stooped as a big weight was pressing on my shoulders, but the truth is, I had no choice. Today I tried to do as much work as possible, and God only knows how much I need to be present in this sense, but it was extremely hard going. Funny how painkillers are supposed to help you ‘get on with things’ except they stone you into a light-headed stupor. Sometimes I wish I could access my spine by pulling down a zipper on my back, and then I would be able to slide out what remains of my poorly discs to be replaced with fresh, soft ones. Yes, imagine that, it would be like a vertical CD player, minus the tunes.
