I was walking down the street on my lunch break, walking at my usual unfeasibly fast pace, when I tripped and landed on my knees.
My first thought was, ‘Oh no, not again’. A bowl of petunias moment if ever there was one, for those familiar with the works of Douglas Adams.
I have done this so many times over the last ten years, I am beginning to lose count.
I just lay there for a while, stunned, annoyed. A man hurried over asking if I was alright. I didn’t answer - too shocked. He was joined by a construction worker from the site on the other side of the road, who asked if I had fainted. (I suppose that’s what women do.) Looking concerned, the first man repeatedly asked if I was alright, and after a while it eventually occurred to me that perhaps I ought to answer him.
Yes, I was fine. But how the hell was I going to get up? They offered to help me, the construction worker, surprisingly gallantly, taking off his glove before he held out his hand. It took them a little effort to pull me to my feet, effort, which I couldn’t help thinking, reflected badly on my weight, rather than on their lack of strength.
I hope I thanked them.
I hobbled back to the office humiliated and angry with myself, and, moreover, lunchless. I limped up to the first floor – kind of hard to do when both legs wanted to limp - and announced that I couldn’t believe it, I’d just fallen over on my knees again. I sat down on my chair and began to tremble, and when someone asked if I was alright, I found myself bursting into tears.
More self-humiliation.
Everyone gathered round, and inspected the two large angry red marks on my knees where blood was beginning to seep out. At least nothing seemed to be swelling up too much this time.

One time, I was on my way home, rushing to catch my train, when I tripped over a metal stand outside the shoe mender’s. I went straight down onto the concrete floor of the threshold of the station, nothing to break the fall, and landed hard on both knees. I somehow managed to get to my feet, and slowly, agonizingly, hobbled down the steps to the platform, and got on my train. In the 20 minutes it took to get to my stop, I watched with horrid fascination, as the bump on my left knee grew into something the size of an apricot. My knees had pretty much given up doing what they were supposed to do by then, (bending, mainly) and I realized I was going to have to get a taxi if I was going to get home in the next few hours. When I displayed my injury to the taxi driver (I felt I rather needed to justify a ¼ mile taxi ride) he was gratifyingly horrified, and offered to take me to A&E. I smiled bravely and said I would be alright. I spent the evening wearing bags of frozen vegetables on my knees.

At least that time it wasn’t my fault. Although that’s a moot point. My mother always says it is my fault, because I walk too quickly.

The first time this sort of thing happened, I really had no right to any sympathy, even had it been offered. I was, I have to admit, a little bit the worse for wear. I’d been out helping someone celebrate their 30th birthday. Helping a bit over zealously, perhaps. On the way home, when the bus reached my stop, I’d stepped off it and fallen flat on my face, scraping my upper lip, bashing my nose, and, of course, my right knee cap. My hands had been in my coat pockets at the time, and my reflexes weren’t fast enough to remove them in time to break my fall. I lay on the pavement, motionless, for what seemed like a minutes, but were probably seconds, feeling blood trickling down my face, out of my nose. When I finally managed to get up, there were big spots of it all over the pavement, and all over my coat. In fact, I never got round to taking that coat to the dry cleaners. It was black, so the blood didn’t show up much. But I knew it was there, and it retained those stains, as an admonishing reminder of my foolishness until the day it was finally thrown out.
I couldn’t bear to go to work the next day. I was in some shock, but also excruciatingly embarrassed by the unsightly scab that was developing on my upper lip.
Not to mention the black eye.
This didn’t stop me from gingerly going out to see if the spots of blood were still there though, out in the public domain.
For the next few weeks, I had to live with the scab, as it cracked every time I smiled or opened my mouth too widely to yawn.
Sandwiches made with baguette were out of the question.
The odd thing about these falls is that other, seemingly unrelated, bits seem to get injured too. During the latest incident, I had fallen on both knees hadn’t I? There were the grazes and the small bump on my left knee to prove it. Then how come I had a big blue bruise the shape of Africa, and several scratches on my upper right arm? Even the time I tripped over an irregular paving stone in Tooting, when the few seconds it took to hit the floor (right knee took the brunt again this time) had seemed to stretch out, with horrid clarity, into minutes, - when I seemed to see the minutiae of what was happening as I tottered on the brink between up righting myself and falling flat on my face - even then, I sustained injuries that seemed to bear no relationship to how I landed.

I don’t think of myself as accident prone, but, then when I think about it, maybe I am. I’ve chopped the end of my finger off with secateurs, while pruning lavender. It grew back .The finger tip, I mean. In fact, it grew back big time. I ended up having to have some of this miraculous growth burnt off with silver nitrate sticks before it got out of hand (so to speak). Not something I would like to experience again. Although, God knows what would have happened if they hadn’t done it. Maybe I’d have a famous record-breaking 5ft long finger. I could have made a career appearing on chat shows, touring the country, a modern day freak show.
I also managed to slice through another finger (well, not right through) whilst cleaning a kitchen knife. I still have some loss of feeling from where I must have severed the nerves. Oh, and there was the time I walked into a lamppost and gave myself a black eye. I’d been pointing out some interesting architectural feature on the upper story of a building, and failed see the obvious coming.
Still, I’ve never had stitches… although perhaps I ought to have done.
Perhaps I should slow down a bit.

Still this time, it wasn’t so bad. The pain lessened in about an hour. My legs stopped battling it out for which one got to limp, my left leg winning on account of it having a bump and a graze on it’s knee as opposed to a mere graze.
But do you know what the worst of this latest incident was? Now everyone in my office knows that I sometimes wear pop socks.

Addendum
I just did it again….