A slip and a trip for being so thick

Well it's the first of the month and although nobody has tried to pinch or punch me yet, I woke up this morning covered in fresh blue bruises as if a whole army had had their first-of-the-month, pinch-and-a-punch way with me last night.

But no. In fact it was my own darn fault for hurrying across jagged volcanic rocks in my flappy flip-flops yesterday for no good reason but that they were there and I wanted to prove that I still could, something I find myself tragically needing to do more and more these days as I approach middle-age - another jagged course - in a hurry.

Still, slipping and falling, as I did, or tripping and falling like this unfortunate chap here, is an education in a) humiliation, and b) hurt, and some of us who are otherwise quite lucky sods really, in tending to land more on our feet than our faces, can probably do with a slip and a trip now and then to remind us that we're not immune to misfortune and that the older we get, the more jagged the rocks.

So although I started this post intending to have a good old whinge about my bad luck in slipping on a sodding rock and falling on my backside, elbow and ribs (talk about OWW!), I have decided in the writing of it that I'm better off looking on the bright side - it could have been worse - and making the most of the lesson learnt, namely: forget volcanic rocks and stick to vodka on the rocks; the fall's generally less bruising.