This walking lark could be bad for me

I’M turning my life into a lottery. Much to the worry of my offspring. I went for a walk to the supermarket the other day. As part of my fairly weak attempt at being some way fit. I wasn’t walking slowly but I wasn’t actually running either and with no warning at all I ended up flat on my face on the pavement. Now I managed to save my face. After all I’m a monument to pulchritude. But I didn’t manage to save my mobile phone in my pocket. Or my knees or wrists. Or my dignity. People pulled up in their cars to help the auld wan who had hit the deck. I declined all offers of help and bravely continued on my way. Mortified.

But no mortification could match my experience in Dublin Airport. I was boarding an early morning flight and instead of being able to get directly on to the plane we had to go on to the runway. Now there was a wind and sleeting rain so I had my hood up and was one of the first people to walk out. I had my head down as I climbed the steps. And realised when I was near the top that I was on a set of steps that were just parked there and were leading nowhere. And if I hadn’t looked up I would have walked over the top and landed in a heap on the ground. The fact that other people followed me added to the embarrassment. One fellow was muttering “Jesus Christ, I was following her”.

And straight after I came back from that trip my feeble brain hadn’t readjusted to being back in Ireland and I thought I was still watching for traffic from the left and crossed the road to hear the screech of brakes and a salvo of expletives from a very frightened driver of a van who had nearly killed me. Maybe it’s time to get my head out of my ass.