I wake each morning, prodded in my brain stem by the incessant beeping of a loathsome alarm clock.  It starts off gently enough, then rises to a rapid crescendo of electronic panic, each piercing note jabbing my dulled synapses into a conscious state of irritation, my physical self waking one ache at a time.  My eyelids are often the only things that don’t hurt in the morning as they open reluctantly following sleep that’s been disturbed by pain in my foot and ankle, knee, hip, back – even my ears if I happen to have been sleeping with one of them folded over.  As I eventually sit on the edge of the bed and prepare for my feet to hit the ground and my legs to take my weight, I brace myself in trepidation of which joint, bone or muscle group is going to give way first.

It’s my own fault for allowing myself to reach middle age in such poor physical condition.  The solution to my aches and pains is fairly simple: lose weight; stop smoking; cut down on the booze; stop eating crap; get more exercise.  As for many things in my life though, my own well-being is victim to “can’t be arsed” and I really do need to give myself a kick up the bum with an open-toed sandal or I’ll be reaching fifty in worse nick than somebody twenty years my senior.

Exercise is difficult though when, nine months on, you still haven’t recovered from breaking your ankle in an Irish bog. The resulting lopsided walk transfers stresses and strains to all your other joints and they too click and creak and groan at the slightest effort.   Of course, getting older doesn’t just manifest itself in aches and pains,or no, there’s also the sneezing Russian roulette, whereby I never know whether I’m going to put my back out, pee myself or trump.  My eyesight has also tipped over into varifocal hell, so I’m anticipating spending two weeks falling over and throwing up when I get my new specs in a week or so.

I blame women of course.  When I was single in my mid-thirties, I’d reached peak fitness, was teetotal, didn’t smoke, went to the gym three or four times a week.  I had muscles, I could even run.  Being in a relationship is bad for a person.  Contentment leads to growing waistlines, then the depression of being dumped results in the pursuit all sorts of other self-destruction activities.  Then you find yourself, nearly 46, fat, crippled and half blind, but still single.

It’s not too late to turn things around before I give in to diabetes and the menopause though.  I think it’s time I made an effort to take care of myself properly.  Like any grown up would.

Everybody needs good neighbours

Of course, anybody with half a brain would want no neighbours at all, but without having the resources for living off-grid in the middle of a wood, I’m stuck with having to smile at people on my terrace, or trying to make conversation with them while my stupid fucking dog is barking his head off at them.  I have a new one though! My neighbours of seven years sold up and moved out this week and Mr P has now moved in.  I haven’t met him yet, but I can hear bumping in there as I type.  Do I need to make a good impression?  Should I be friendly?  Or should I just carry on and do my usual thing of avoiding leaving the house until the coast is clear?  I might do a little test to see if Mr P is a fan of the B52s.