Ouch

I have this really annoying (and painful) habit of falling down.
It's just taken hold the last few years - crashing motorcycles, falling down stairs, slipping on wet sidewalks...I'm on the ground grasping at a bruised knee, or worse, at least once every couple of months.
And today yet again; while striding happily with Hamid through the cats-and-dogs monsoon in Kathmandu I went from upright to half-height in the middle of a giant puddle in less than thirty seconds.
My Coach ballet flats, which until now have been a most infallible pair of shoes for negotiating the half-baked sidewalks of Nepal's big city, transformed all at once from sturdy footwear to banana peels and that was the end of me.

I really don't have a clue what I'm doing wrong. For all intents and purposes I really *do* know how to walk - for goodness sake I used to flit around in stilettos all day without a care in the world. But now, I'm like some feeble old woman slipping and sliding onto the ground at every opportunity; providing amusement for bystanders who 'Ohhh' and 'Ahhh' at the spectacle of my temporarily muddled abilities.

Hamid always swoops down on me and gathers me and my muddy wetness up in his arms, cooing at me the whole time while I silently curse the karma debt I seem to be unable to pay back in full. And I limp away from the scene, unable to look anyone in the eye and wondering what on earth I need to do to recover my sense of self enough to be able to navigate the planet's walkways without becoming a victim of them at every turn.

So now we're home, and I'm sopping wet. I'm feeling most sorry for myself and my knee which is promising to be green for a very, very long time and I'm pondering the depth of my despair...is it worth crying over? Probably not. But I'll publish a public appeal for sympathy anyway...