Even lying down is becoming a challenge

THIS whole lying out in the sun business just doesn’t suit me anymore. I am completely two-tone. It’s all down to my various aches and pains. I’m beginning to wonder if some of them are psychosomatic. I have no problem lying on my back. I can hear the bawdy comments from some of my friends already. But I have a serious problem lying on my stomach. So I’m brown on the front of my body and my back is pearly white.

Lying on my front is a nightmare. I had whiplash years ago after a car crash and I can’t hold my neck up unsupported for any length of time so that precludes reading. I find it difficult to go to sleep, because basically I’m pivoting around on my tumid stomach and it’s uncomfortable. And it takes me ages to turn over or get up. There wouldn’t want to be an emergency. I would be no help.

The days of bouncing up in one swift movement are well and truly over. A hoist would be handy. And, if the truth be told, lying on my back is no great shakes either. If I lower the straps of my togs, my boobs make a bid for freedom and are under my arms within no time.

I don’t know if my sun lounger is lower to the ground than others but when I’m sitting on it I can’t get up unaided. Sometimes, if I have nothing or nobody to grab on to, I have to rock for quite a while to get a bit of momentum going and then I could end up at the other side of my little courtyard such is the forward propulsion. I have quite an exposed back garden, so I just hope the neighbours aren’t documenting all of this and that I’m not a topic of conversation over their nightly dinners.

I can always give them much more to talk about.