Tasting the tarmac

"I can't push the teabag against the side of the cup."

Then Bert farted loudly. "That's not like you!" I remarked. (It really isn't like him - he doesn't like to show a lack of control.) "I know," he said, "But I'm in pain here."

I've mentioned Bert's physical jerks before. He goes for a long run or bike ride four mornings a week, whatever the weather and no matter how he's feeling. This morning, for example, was freezing and as he was setting off I said, "You really know how to punish yourself."

Forty five minutes later I heard the key in the door and then wondered why Bert took so long to appear. I looked up and saw that his posture was strangely stiff. He said, "You know what you said about punishing yourself...?"

He'd crashed on his bike in a rather spectacular way and had had to phone his brother to come and pick him up in his van. I asked if anyone had stopped and helped. In fact about fifty cars had stopped out of necessity because Bert was sprawled across the middle of the road. One woman had wanted to take him to hospital.

"No, I'm fine," protested Bert. "I just feel a bit dizzy." "You're going to go over!" the woman exclaimed, and Bert said the next thing he knew he was lying on the floor. "Oh my god you fainted!" I said when he was relating this. "No I didn't." said Bert. "I just...lay down without remembering it."

Later, after a couple of hours in A & E where they diagnosed a possible elbow fracture, Bert said "I really wanted to do the skirting board today." You'll be relieved to hear that he is undeterred as ever, and as I speak is patiently doing a one-handed sand of the skirting.

Louise has just come in and said, "Does Dad ever take it easy?"