The world can be a disorientating place, and nowhere more so than when the ground under your feet mutates and bends.
At least, that’s what happens when there is ice underfoot. The recent frosty spells have seen us once more involuntarily skating. It’s infuriating really. It takes away our dignity, leaving us prone to the second worst of all human experiences: embarrassment.
For older folk, it can lead to the first worst of all human experiences: broken bones.
I’ve had a good run recently – touch plywood – but used to fall once a year. I saw it as such a requirement that, rather than waiting for it to come out of the blue, I used to throw myself to the ground deliberately, just to get it over with.
However, I’d then have my annual, unscheduled fall as well some time later, making me realise that the gods who mock us had seen through my ruse. So, my foot would slide up and into the air, and my back or elbows would hit the deck. And I’d pick myself up like an embarrassed dog, for some reason letting on to the world that I had suffered no pain, even while my elbow sent agonising pulses down my arm.
I guess my footwear is better nowadays. I no longer wear winkle-pickers in winter. But, even then, I still appear to fare worse than regular ratepayers. Other men seem to glide along easily. Perhaps it’s a confidence thing.
It’s like these times when the barometer shows it to be freezing outside and you can even feel it indoors. So you look out your warmest anorak and thick pullover, and a hat and gloves. Then you breenge forth feeling vaguely heroic. And the first thing you see is a teenager in T-shirt and shorts.
To be properly clad, you can get special footwear for icy conditions, but you need to take out a mortgage for it, and as a recent letter from my bank put it: “We are going to clamp down on you, big nose. No more loans, mortgages, overdrafts ever. Words cannot say how much we hate you. Yours sincerely, Masterton O’Blenkinsop, Manager.”
Back in the good old days, the same O’Blenkinsop once gave me a loan for a little red van that I drove, in lieu of my sports car, in the Grimland Isles. One day, I was driving too fast on the ice and came off the road, with the wee van tumbling over and over before landing on its roof.
A few minutes later, in the village pub nearby, a toper said: “I see some poor dope has come off the road up there.” And I said: “I am that poor dope. I thought I’d have a quick pint while waiting on my lift.”
Back on terra infirma, my regular walk on the suburban hill has a particularly slidey bit that has from time to time defeated me, prompting retreat and an alternate route.
Still, the hill looks right pretty, and the air is sharp. In the garden, birds come closer. Sometimes, after eating their fill, they fly straight towards me in an unrestrained, spontaneous show of sheer love and gratitude.
Either that or, full of food and mischief, they want to make me fall on my bahookey.