The day I fell out of bed

All I can say is... thank goodness I live in the UK!

I hadn’t used to barricade myself in bed but I do now. Pillows everywhere! It all started with a fall just prior to Christmas.   

One minute I was dreaming, the next I was wondering what hit me. I had actually rolled out of bed in my sleep and landed on my knees with my face resting on a glass on the bedside table. Fortunately it wasn’t a drinking glass, just a heavy glass container for odds and sods that might be needed in the night: phone, inhaler (a leftover from a cold), indigestion tablets (another leftover), a pen, two mini-book lights, small notepad, and a voice recorder in case I was inspired to compose. Apart from feeling shaken, I was bleeding to death. Or so it seemed by the amount of blood on the carpet and bed. Not knowing what injuries I had I rushed out to get something with which to mop up the blood that was pouring out of my nose. Yes, I’d smashed nose and lip on the glass container and broken a blood vessel.

Joe wakes at this point, senses my state of panic, and comes to help. It was five o’clock in the morning yet amazingly he managed to remove every bit of blood from the cream coloured carpet and the bedclothes.

The bruises on the knees were quite pretty, but it was my face that sustained the worst injury. What a sight! Apart from soreness on the bridge of the nose there was nothing else to see, but the cut on the bottom lip took what seemed like ages to heal. It was quite swollen, bringing about a somewhat distorted effect like something out of a Dracula film.

The incident was a jolt, I can tell you. I mean, rolling out of bed in my sleep wasn’t something I’d ever done before.  I was sober too ... thought I’d better include that to stem any evil thoughts you might have.

On top of the soreness, it was all a damn nuisance. Christmas was approaching and there was I ... injured. A WI Christmas lunch at the golf club had to be cancelled because (a) I couldn’t eat properly and (b) I felt too grotesque to be seen in public. I had just a few days to try and get back to normal. Okay, so what’s normal?

There’s no moral to this story, just a vague suspicion that I’m getting accident prone. Now that IS worrying. Perhaps the trend for falling out of bed has moved from the US to the UK.