Is this here the season of joy? Or the season to inject?
Recently, I saw a display of cheap inflatables intended for swimming pools. A ring with a horse's head, a dolphin. The seams of the plastic stuck out, rather than being nicely taped flat.
And suddenly I remember standing in the North Sea on seaside holidays, and the feeling of such a seam scraping across legs made cold and goosebumped by the water (my inflatable ring was yellow with a horse's head, from memory, although given the colouring it might have been a giraffe). As sensations go it was actually quite painful, but very distinctive and something which - in a life which rarely involves swimming in bodies of cold water and even more rarely involves inflatables - I haven't felt in years.
I set myself to wondering what other sensations might have got lost in the last few decades. The one that immediately sprung to mind was the feeling of knees scraping over gritty asphalt.
Because the universe has a sense of humour, the following day I fell over while running along a pavement. I grazed one wrist (including the back of my wrist, somehow), the palms of my hands, and tore a big hole in both my clothes and my knee.
Now, my memory of school-era grazed knees is of it stinging and being unpleasant, but after a cuddle from Mrs Ashman[*] it was straight back to running around on the playground. Critically, I do not remember waking up the following morning stiff all over and aware of badly jarred arms where I'd landed. In the days of socks-and-school-skirts I presumably didn't have to worry about a graze too large to fit under a plaster chafing unpleasantly against jeans. Presumably, my knee was sufficiently smaller that it always would fit under a plaster.
And so, during the next week I limped about feeling pathetic and wincing when stairs were involved. And at the same time, thinking disgustedly "it's just a bloody grazed knee!" I remain uncertain whether my increased height and weight makes falling flat on one's face a more serious matter, whether my advancing age means injuries can't be taken so lightly, or whether I have merely devolved into a whinging wuss.
[*] Mrs Ashman was brilliant. She did a strange, hybrid, half-time job whose duties included running the school office, being a dinner lady, and being the chief distributor of plasters and cuddles to the injured or sick. School staff are presumably allowed to dish out neither, these days.
And suddenly I remember standing in the North Sea on seaside holidays, and the feeling of such a seam scraping across legs made cold and goosebumped by the water (my inflatable ring was yellow with a horse's head, from memory, although given the colouring it might have been a giraffe). As sensations go it was actually quite painful, but very distinctive and something which - in a life which rarely involves swimming in bodies of cold water and even more rarely involves inflatables - I haven't felt in years.
I set myself to wondering what other sensations might have got lost in the last few decades. The one that immediately sprung to mind was the feeling of knees scraping over gritty asphalt.
Because the universe has a sense of humour, the following day I fell over while running along a pavement. I grazed one wrist (including the back of my wrist, somehow), the palms of my hands, and tore a big hole in both my clothes and my knee.
Now, my memory of school-era grazed knees is of it stinging and being unpleasant, but after a cuddle from Mrs Ashman[*] it was straight back to running around on the playground. Critically, I do not remember waking up the following morning stiff all over and aware of badly jarred arms where I'd landed. In the days of socks-and-school-skirts I presumably didn't have to worry about a graze too large to fit under a plaster chafing unpleasantly against jeans. Presumably, my knee was sufficiently smaller that it always would fit under a plaster.
And so, during the next week I limped about feeling pathetic and wincing when stairs were involved. And at the same time, thinking disgustedly "it's just a bloody grazed knee!" I remain uncertain whether my increased height and weight makes falling flat on one's face a more serious matter, whether my advancing age means injuries can't be taken so lightly, or whether I have merely devolved into a whinging wuss.
[*] Mrs Ashman was brilliant. She did a strange, hybrid, half-time job whose duties included running the school office, being a dinner lady, and being the chief distributor of plasters and cuddles to the injured or sick. School staff are presumably allowed to dish out neither, these days.