Lower Back Trouble Leads to Lack of Moral Backbone

So I've done it again, and this year's back spasm paralysis is with me, in reasonably full effect. After a spot of ill-advised dwarf-tossing in the swimming pool, failing to acknowledge my own limitations let alone the fact that the dwarf is no longer a dwarf, I have knackered my back, again, and am wobbling about, John-Wayne-like, only tentatively able to raise myself from prone to unprone.

It wasn't so desperately bad yesterday, until Lyra swung by to say goodnight and took me by surprise while reading Harry Potter to Eloise. She gave me what was no doubt intended to be an affectionate tweak to the chest nut, but so surprised was I that I spasmoed my whole body.

This morning, only ambivalently able to get myself out of bed, I proceeded to hobble around the place, and it wasn't long before I experienced a complete moral breakdown, turned on the bloody goggle box and actually fed breakfast to the little Gavins in front of the telly. Oh, for shame.

I thought, I'll just retire and read a book, but when Lyra came in to play her favourite game (that is, waking me up) I knew the game was up. So I cleaned some windows, like you do, did some other household chores and went back to bed to rest my poor weary bones.

Of course, this activity didn't do my muscles any favours and that transition from horizontal to vertical and vice versa became increasingly difficult, leading to a decisive moment where one or the other had to be selected. I opted for horizontal.

Later, after I could take no more of the inanity that was echoing through the house, I suggested to Eloise that she might like to put on a film. Of course she chose the inanest film she could muster and so I fell asleep once more, this time on the sofa, waking up later to find Lyra asleep also, next to me.

I absented myself for a while to perform some duties, returning to find Lyra in the position illustrated above, still quite asleep, Eloise still gawking zombie-like at the second film of the day, before I exhorted her to some tidying-up, which she did on the basis that she would be rewarded with some time on the tablet - a request I reluctantly agreed to, recognising that it completed my moral bankruptcy.

We (I) woke up Lyra, gently, an event to which she was strenuously opposed, arguing as usual that not only was it not funny, nor fun, but that it was no fair and that we should stop. She took herself off to her room, and shouted from within claims of ownership: "It's my door. And it's my room. Go away."

Still, looking on the bright side, this weekend's mooted camping trip is now off the agenda.