Along with most of my friends, I'm at the stage of life where signs of incipient mortality, the frayed threads on the carpet as it were, are starting to nip at our heels. Those outliers of decay: uncomfortable blood pressure, bunions, aches and wounds that take longer and longer to heal; there are things to endure, conditions, worries, anxieties.

I'm feeling all of them today, apart from the bunions. At least that's a solace.