Truth and Consequences

So, let's say I'm confused. In 15 seconds yesterday, I went from everything normal to 3 hours immobile on the sofa, packing a bag for hospital and trying to decide if car or ambulance is a better option. After advice, I took lots of painkillers all day and half the night, and shuffled about with extreme caution 

Today I have been in the shed, sorting bee boxes, lifting, rearranging, stretching, bending, twisting, pulling. I've been on a car journey. I've made few concessions to having been in such pain. I have not taken any painkillers. 

This is mildly interesting, a bit of light conversation, inconsequential, forgettable, potentially irritating if I don't move the conversation on. And bloody scary! 

If my body can engage in such an act of betrayal once, how can I trust it not to do it again? What provoked this violence - I truly have absolutely no idea. And what caused it to (nearly but not quite) go away, in such a short time? I equally haven't a clue, or any angle on how to find answers

I spoke to a "First Contact Practitioner Physiotherapist". I was classified as 'lower back pain' ("it's just below my shoulder blade"!); I was prescribed some exercises - ten of them - to strengthen my soft tissues (yes, I'm soft, so OK). They come with scary words I don't understand, and no glosssry, like "Reps" and "Sets" and "Hold". Thank goodness for bodybuilder web sites, who love this stuff

I tried to express my fear. I asked my First Contact what was the root cause of my problem. My First Contact has no idea, but made it clear my question is profoundly uninteresting. I asked how, if I did not know the cause, I could stop it happening again. My First Contact said "do the exercises". I have sympathy for my First Contact: in ten years time their role will be an AI algorithm

Maybe I'll resort to fermented grape juice, and look for answers in the bottom of a glass. The story about a Portuguese distillery doing its bit to solve the latest 'wine lake' problem, by losing wine from two million-litre vats and turning the streets into wine rivers, amused me. I could sense the reporter's disappointment that the quantity was "not quite enough" to fill an olympic swimming pool. Presumably it also came from an area smaller than Wales and the vats were significantly shorter than a London bus. The distillery owner has absorbed the maxim that there is no such thing as bad publicity: he let it be known that the reason the spillage had not created an unpleasant smell was because the wine was such good quality. The reporter was not sharp enough to ask him why it was in a distillery then