I don’t know what Wednesday was like with you, but here it was a bitterly cold day with stinging needles of rain. However, the grocery shopping still had to be done, and so I trudged around the supermarket with my trolley, stocked up, drove home. Then, you know how it goes, I was running backwards and forwards between the boot of the car and the back door, unloading bags, my shoulders hunched up around my ears, cold and tired and not concentrating. When I noticed one bag had split down the side in the boot of the car. So I picked it up with a good heave, swung around hoping the force would keep the contents away from the split and…. wrenched a muscle in my lower back.
Why is there never a prince on horseback in sight when you need one? I had to get the rest of the shopping in, and the cold goods away in the fridge, all in what can properly be described as mortal agony. This story would be an awful lot better to tell if it had some romantic interest in it, or concerned my undercover work against the forces of evil, but alas, it is irredeemably mundane. But the moral of the story is that it is unnecessarily painful to pull muscles in your lower back and I do not recommend you try it, not least because it puts both romance and undercover operations against evil wholly out of the question for several days. I am feeling better now, just a bit thick-headed from sleeping poorly, and I hope to be fighting fit again for the Slaves discussion on the 31st of Stevie Smith’s Novel on Yellow Paper, which has been a surprisingly good companion over the past few days. But I should think it will elicit some mixed responses, so lots to look forward to there. In the meantime, blogging friends, wrap up warm, and if you cannot twist your beloved’s arm into doing the chores for you, never forget to bend from the knees….
Tales from the Reading Room 
Oh, poor you! I hope your men have been princes after the fact and taken good care of you. As for the evil, it will still be around when you are fit to fight.
Sorry to hear about the lower back strain / pull thingy. Sounds very painful. And just goes to show one should never go shopping in the cold without adequate protection, bent knees and ones beloved to help (or something). Hope you’ve been getting lots of bed-rest.
Oh poor you. I’ve damaged my back a couple of times, doing thoughtlessly stupid things, and I know what it’s like. I hope it doesn’t leave you with a long term weakness, which often happens, I’m afraid.
Needless to say if my white charger hadn’t been in need of attention and you had waved your wimple cloth from a high tower, I’d have set off at once, as only today I was putting away the week’s big shop.
Oh my sympathies Litlove. I’ve pulled my back before and it is definitely an ouch. Just watch out when you bend over. The worst time I put my back out I wasn’t lifting anything. I was ironing (which I rarely do) and when I stood up my back was out. There is fluid in the spine that pools when you’re bent and you have to rise slowly to give it a chance to flow back properly. That’s what I found out! It is very cold here, too. But dry and blue skies. High of -10. Brrr.
Dear me, I didn’t mean to suggest you were doing something thoughtless or stupid.
Wow that’s awful.
For the past two days, I’ve been in Pittsburgh PA for a deposition. It was freezing! I flew back last night. It was slowing as we were taking off. They had to de-ice the plane before we left.
Oh, I know exactly what that’s like. If the pain continues, you need to see if you can get yourself a copy of the book Pain Free by Pete Egoscue, a book that worked miracles for me when I was suffering last spring (having wrenched my back while making a bed of all things! We could both be champion contestents on “Who Has the Most Mundanely Acquired Painful Injury?”). It’s been bitterly cold and windy here the past two days, but no precipiation today(actually, we’ve had a week in which we’ve had a little bit of everything, from springlike sunshine and warmth to monsoons to dead-of-winter. Very strange).
I hope your back is better soon. I did something similar a few months ago and felt much better after I got some good pain medication from the doctor. Still, the pain stayed with me for several weeks. I wanted to make up a wonderful story of how I had injured my back but the truth is that I wrenched it when I bent down in my kitchen to clean up some maple syrup my son had spilled!
Ouch! Evil groceries. They’re evil and wrong and bad. You should do something vindictive to repay them for their vileness, like cooking and eating them.
Sorry to hear about your back wrench! I swear every time I bring in the groceries that next time I’m going to get my husband to do it for me. Then I do it again. However, will definitely remember to bend from the knees.
Stefanie – lol! The menfolk have been very good and helpful and I am feeling much better now. I do hope evil didn’t get too much of a grip in my absence, but I’m ready to take it on again now! 😀
Pete – so right, so right. I have indeed been lying on the bed a lot, and rolling to get off of it. Not pretty. You’re a tall boy, so you should be especially careful of lifting. I’ll bet you’re significantly stronger than me, though – and fitter too!
Bookboxed – anyone who offers to put my shopping away for me is the recipient of a HUGE amount of domestic brownie points. You need not apologise at all – it was certainly a thoughtless moment that I could have handled much better if I’d been focusing on the task in hand! I’ve tweaked this muscle before, so I know what you mean about setting up a weakness. But Mister Litlove is making gung ho noises about stretching exercises, and I’m sure it’s a very good idea in theory…
Lilian – a high of -10 is very cold indeed! We’ve had more snow, too, amazingly, but only a light covering. Ironing, shopping, you know these are dangerous chores. Do you think we should ask for danger money? 🙂 I’m certainly thinking it’s worth a try.
Bluestocking – de-icing planes sounds very serious – you are far more intrepid than me! And it sounds like it’s even colder with you. Only January and already I am bored with winter, sigh!
Emily – that is mad weather, but thank you for the book recommendation, which I will most certainly bear in mind. Mister Litlove is keen for me to do more exercise, and I know I ought to…. And thank you (and Lilian too!) for keeping me company in the banal injury department – lol! I’m so glad it’s not just me who does these things. 🙂
Kathleen – thank you for your lovely comment! I am beginning to think that domestic chores are deadly dangerous and we ought to do them only sparingly… The worst injury I think I ever sustained was a burn from spilling herbal tea over my hip. If it weren’t completely outside the ideology of the times, I think I need a housekeeper!
David – lol! You’re so right. They’re sitting in the fridge as if nothing had happened, trying to live in denial. Just wait until suppertime – then we’ll talk retribution.
Charlotte – oh it is so the answer! Mister Litlove is good at helping with groceries when he is around, only we run out of food more often than I find credible. I am feeling much better – thank you! I’m sure the sympathy of my blogging friends has made all the difference. 🙂
Oh, I’m so sorry! Back pain is NO fun. It makes you realize just how much we use those poor back muscles of ours. I do hope you feel better very, very soon!
“with stinging needles of rain”
Wonderful description, LL! and my sympathies about your back. I second David Rochester’s suggestion for punishing the groceries.
Sorry to hear this. It’s amazing how one small back muscle–and the condition it is in–absolutely rules how the rest of your body feels. And why is it that men usually get out of shopping for food? I’ll not contemplate that one too much. I should be reading Stevie Smith right now than messing about on the computer, so I’ll just say hope you’re feeling much better soon!
Just catching up, I’m afraid, LL, but may I just say, YOUCHY, that sounds like a real bugger, and David has of course proffered the perfect revenge.
Oh no how horrible that sounds. I’m afraid princes are all off practising their heroic faces in the mirror when there is everyday saving to be done, but I’m sure Mr Litlove made some fuss over you when he arrived.