They say karma is a bitch and I discovered the truth of this all too graphically this weekend after being less than sympathetic when the housemate tripped while heading upstairs.

An ominous thud is never a good sound to hear especially when it appears to come from the vague area of a staircase so cutting short my pre-bed face wash I emerged from the bathroom to find her on her knees outside the door.

“What are you doing down there?” I asked in puzzlement.

“I fell up the step,” she replied hovering on the cusp between laughter and tears.

“Oh,” I said. “Did you hurt?”

“No. I don’t think so but I did throw my whole cup of tea over the landing wall,” she answered gazing despondently at the empty mug in her hand.

“That’s just wonderful,” I replied looking equally despondently at the rivulets of tea rolling down the wall.

“It’ll give me a good excuse to get the paintbrushes out and touch up the wall we just had decorated to get rid of the milk tea colour which you hated.”

“Well thank you for your sympathy,” she snapped as I headed downstairs to make her another mug of tea.

Two days later I was still attempting to excuse my apparent lack of concern as we recounted the tale to The Mother.

“Well I wasn’t going to admit it but I can tell you now that I fell down in the bedroom yesterday,” she announced, confessing that she’d managed to hook her foot in her electric blanket lead.

“I wasn’t going to tell you because you’d go mad, but now I’m not on my own I don’t feel so bad.”

“We wouldn’t go mad, we’d just warn you to be more careful where you’re putting your feet,” I explained.

As we laughed about the two fallers over Sunday dinner this weekend my sister chuckled smugly how nice it was that we were both able to stay on our feet.

“At least we manage to look where we’re going,” she laughed.

Two hours later having safety negotiated the slippery path down the garden and reached touching distance of the back door, I felt the hedge flying past me and the wall of the house approaching at an alarming rate as I tripped on little more than a patch of fresh air.

Rolling around like a beached whale as I tried desperately to get back on my feet and work out if I’d broken anything vital, I could feel the housemate’s gaze…”What are you doing down there?” She asked with barely a trace of irony.

A short while later having bathed my wounds and assessed that everything was bruised rather than broken, I text my sister.

“I fell down,” I announced…still not quite having slipped into ‘I’ve had a fall’ territory.

“Are you ok?” she text back.

“I think I might be dying,” I replied.

“Have you hurt yourself badly?” she responded in concern.

“I don’t think so, but the housemate is being nice to me so it must have been dramatic and I must be on my way out!”

“ You’re not dying….I just need a lift to WI in the morning,” the housemate muttered from the other room.