Pretty, for a bin shed

In the clean environment of the Oxford Community Diagnostic Centre this morning, waiting for my hand  x-ray*,  I realised quite how deeply ingrained with soil the many ridges, nicks, scars and other irregularities of my nails and hands are. I had cleaned them with a brush, several times, but they looked like I'd come straight from scrabbling for hours for some deeply buried treasure. Embarrassing.

As I sat and waited for my name to be called I uselessly picked at as much as I could, and finally consoled myself that although they'll definitely be in the worst 2%, its unlikely my hands will be the ones the health professionals whisper about in shocked horror.

The technician was lovely, and all she said about them was where to put them on the x-ray plate.

*I was diagnosed four years ago as having carpal tunnel syndrome, because I'd had it before; the diagnosis was later changed to osteoarthritis for which I had a completely ineffective injection, and now the query is rheumatoid arthritis. The fun of incrementing birthdays, eh!

I spent the rest of the day giving my hands as much rest as I could manage, which was probably not as much as they needed - I find it very hard to be inactive.