On New Years Eve I received a phone call from my sister. She was letting me know that she was currently in A&E with a broken ankle after falling off her bike. After stifling a giggle at the vision which popped into my head, cruel I know but I can’t help it, I sympathised with her as I listened to her tale of woe. Over the last week we have; or, to be more precise, my husband has; kept up with her progress via messages and FaceTime. As she will have to be non weight bearing on that ankle for several weeks the physiotherapist has recommended she has a perching stool in the kitchen and one of our conversations led to her telling me about how she was managing to wash and change her clothes brought to mind an amusing incident from a midweek trip we took to London for our birthdays.
On our first morning we were getting dressed when she let out a loud guffaw. I turned to see what was amusing her, only to find she was pointing at me and gasping between bouts of laughter that she now had proof that I was getting old. Why had she suddenly come to this conclusion? I was sitting on the edge of the bed to get dressed! This does not mean I am old; although, I suppose, chronologically, I am no longer a spring chicken.
Being extremely un-supple makes me an oddity in my family, a high proportion of whom have hyper-mobility and are overly flexible. One of my grandsons, for instance, uses his hyper-flexibility to dislocate his thumbs which enables him to slide his hand from your grasp when holding his hand. My sister has always been super flexible, at school she was quite comfortable sitting crossed legged in assembly, whereas my hips and knees simply refused to comply with what they were expected to do. I still find it uncomfortable sitting on the floor for any length of time.
As a moving and handling instructor I taught about posture and ergonomics, looking at all the tasks you do around the home which encourage you to stoop or twist. One of my favourites was stooping over the sink to clean your teeth and for a good many years now I have had a chair or stool close to the bathroom sink so I can sit down whilst performing this task. However, despite my savviness in the bathroom I continued to hop around the bedroom in the dark, trying to get my feet through my knicker legs, followed by more hopping around as I repeated the process with trousers, tights or socks. The main issue was that, due to my inflexibility, once I had one leg in I was unable to lift the other foot high enough to get it through the hole. Then, one day, whilst watching an occupational therapist teaching one of my patients with poor mobility how to get dressed, I saw the light. No more frantic hopping about for me; ever since that day I have sat on the edge of the bed to get dressed. As am also inherently lazy; if there is an easy way to do something, then that’s the way to go; I have perfected my routine now to the point where all bottom half clothing; knickers, socks, leggings, skirts; are put on before I stand up to pull them all into place. So no, I’m not old, just naturally stiff, and bone idle to boot!
Not forgetting that we used to get dressed lying down when we were sprogs. Not just because we were bone idle, which we were, but also because it was the only way to stay even slightly warm in and unheated house or a freezing cold tent.
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