Killing me softly...

As I write this afternoon, I am sitting in my new office chair.  Now this may seem small fry to you, but it's just about the most comfortable thing I have ever owned (DFS, take note). But lets rewind a little...

Seven weeks ago, I developed a stiff neck.  Now this is quite a regular occurrence for me, as it's a gentle reminder of the head on car accident I had around thirty years ago.  Not content with almost writing my car off and having no insurance, the driver of the other vehicle also left me with a neck problem which means I look like a meerkat with piles for a couple of weeks each year, until my wonderful osteopath sorts me out.  

This time was different though, and he just couldn't get me straight again, despite a minor adjustment that Hulk Hogan would have been proud of.  Then some bright spark suggested going to the new Thai Massage Salon in town to see whether they could help.  Actually, that bright spark was me, now I come to think about it.  I really should know better that to listen to myself.  At a pound a minute, I committed to £60 worth, reckoning that this was great value compared to my osteopath's twenty minutes for £50.  

I had no idea what to expect, and perhaps a ten minute taster session might have been advisable, but five minutes into the massage, I'm doing silent screaming through the hole in the massage table while some strange woman crawls all over me talking about 'knots' and 'magic fingers'.  An hour later, having been smothered with a good dollop of Tiger Balm, I was released from the cubicle (one of five in a row with other occupants, some of which hadn't received the memo about silent screaming it would seem). But it helped, and I have been back a couple of times since (for a shorter session)  and the silent screaming has reduced down to a stiff grimace, now I know what to expect. 

It's taken me a while to work out why my neck has been so resistant to healing hands and Tiger Balm, but over Christmas, the husband hit the nail on the head.  'It's that bloody family tree you've been doing', he said.  'Sitting in one position at your desk for hours on end can't be good for you'.  I was going to remind him of the Yellowstone binge-fest over Christmas which went on for so long that we needed two separate TV dinners, but decided not to be petty, and I said to him that 'perhaps my seat was on its last castors'.  This was all the husband needed to reach for his tools and turn the chair upside down for a full examination.  'Well, there's your problem', he said. 'your tension tilt is all to cock'.  Now ladies, I am no chair specialist, but that sounded like a death sentence to me, so the chair did the long, limping roll to the tip yesterday.

This Friday, I'm booked in for acupuncture to see if that will help.  

Life is just one long list of new experiences, I expect I'll be hang-gliding next time I check in...