And now….

… a massage from the Swedish Prime Minister, or rather not. Went for my first ever massage a couple of days ago. Generously paid for by my health insurance and told I had to go by my lady wife who’d made the arrangements. Today I am a bit stiff (Not in that way! Honestly, some people.) and creaky. Which is a tribute to the strength of my masseuse’s hands. I hadn’t realised how many kinks and knots there were in my back and shoulders.

Now I went for what’s called a full ‘RMT’ massage, which is massage as a treatment, not one of those wimpy ‘massage treatments’ with hot stones, seaweed douches and suchlike you get at spa resorts. No, this was the full nine yards where someone half my size took hold of a muscle or muscle group and dug their fingers in. Yes it does hurt a bit, but afterwards you stand a little straighter, hold your head higher and motion is less encumbered by all those little aches and pains that getting older leaves you open to. Oddly this treatment also makes your head spin a little afterwards. Not much, but just like the sensation you get after spinning around quickly two or three times. An old Hawkwind number was brought to mind

You also know this kind of massage is working when you get little sympathetic flashes of pain down muscles not currently under assault. For example; masseuse was working down from my shoulders and hit the centre of my back when a little lightning bolt shot all the way down from just under my kidneys to past my right knee. This reminded me of an injury I sustained thirty years ago in my lower back when one of my discs ruptured and healed aged twenty-something. Indeed, every incident from a very physical life popped it’s head up and said “Hi, remember me? You careless bastard.” Ouch. Even stuff I thought was fully healed years ago. Every time I’ve fallen off a motorcycle (Four), every work related muscle wrench (Dozens), every time I’ve been under the surgeons knife (Three) and every sports injury (Two major, dozens of minor). They all dropped by with a stab and a twitch. It was like a high school reunion when all the pains get together to remind you why you ignore or hate them.