I may not like it.. but I’m sticking with my stick

THERE must be a better way than this, going everywhere with a stick.

It feels like dependence, and anybody who relies on “the third leg” will know what I mean. It almost becomes part of your body.

And it helps to get by, because people give you more space. Most of them, anyway. But I hate the stick-addiction.

The last thing I hear these days when leaving the house is Mrs R demanding to know whether I have remembered the damn thing. So I sometimes forget to take it on purpose.

It’s only a five-minute walk to the Co-op, downhill all the way (so uphill all the way back, ever so gently) and if I can’t manage that I may as well give up.

Here’s me, then, navigating the narrow footpath, also known as the canine toilet, on a carpet of wet leaves blown down by the storm.

The walk is harder without the prop because, apart from stabilising you, the stick gives a greater sense of confidence when tackling slippery surfaces.

I’d forgotten that, but I got there in one piece and felt right chuffed getting round the store without it.

If you don’t have it, you can’t forget it by the bread counter or the till, always irritating. Leaving the shop, my selfcongratulatory mood was punctured, in the nicest possible way, by a Mirror reader who says he likes what I write.

I thank him, and he jokes “But you’re still an off cum’d un!” This is Tyke talk for newcomer, which I still am after almost 20 years living in the village.

“I was born in Yorkshire!” I reply, and he laughs. For a minute, I’d quite forgotten about the stick. Going home, the body reminded me.