Aurel's laurels

This darned ice. It's a real menace. The nice nursing students supervisor at work had quite a black eye. When we were alone I asked her about. She had slipped on uneven snow and ice in front of her house and bruised her hands and legs as well. She said, giggling, that it had happened on Valentine's day and her husband had refused to take her to the restaurant they had planned on, as people would assume she was an abused wife. They saw Slumdog Millionaire instead.

I came home by train and was deliberately holding onto the rail, as I went down the stairs off the platform. People rush on these stairs and in the tunnel to the car park side of the tracks for reasons I have never understood. Two or three steps from the bottom, the woman in front of me stumbled. She lurched forward and regained her balance on the floor of the tunnel. Crying out, she lost it again and fell, hitting her head against the bottom of the wall. Someone knelt down and asked if there was anyone she could call. The victim mumbled half sarcastically "How about 911?". Within about twenty seconds two nurses had materialised and what they really needed was space, so I said so to some of my fellow starers and left.

It's not just the ice. After all this accident was not on icy stairs, although they are always wet and heavily salted, but it's also big, bulky coats and gloves and the whole frustration of having to suit up to go outside.

The nice nurse supervisor at work and I discussed how often older people actually die as a result of falls and how, from our age onwards, our balance deteriorates.