HALFLING: A FAREWELL TO LEGS - Part 3

2nd chapter about my collapse, surgery and subsequent life in a wheelchair, by turns hilarious and horrific, and the attitude of society towards the disabled - not quite humans, but ‘Halflings’.

Waking up on my 66th birthday - my first as a Halfling and a pensioner - you’d think my spirits would have been low. But not only had I had a lovely dream about Morrissey, I had the spectacle of the Labour government I loathe falling to pieces to muse on as I drank my Lazy Ape coffee. I might be in a wheelchair - but I wasn’t Rachel Reeves!

Then my mind moved on to a list of other people I was grateful not to be; what passes for my morning meditation. I know this sounds bitchy, but a lot of them are my friends. I’m aware that they feel pity for me - but it’s a two-way street. I feel pity, for example, for people who call themselves writers but have about as much ear for language as a deaf parrot. For people who can’t get over the result of the Brexit referendum and will take their grievance to their grave. For people who are ruled by their emotions, boo-hooing like babies at the slightest thing, even though they are closer to dying than to being born. The list goes on!