I have a graze on my elbow and a bruise on my knee. I feel twelve. They're from netball. It's a non-contact sport, and a Monday lunchtime competition.

There's still nothing like the feeling of falling, though. The fleeting eternity to decide what to do, then a point when you realise that there's nothing to decide. Just falling is an option. Like from the horses of my childhood. From a horse it's sometimes more dangerous to cling on. There's a moment just after hitting the ground of wondering whether you can ever get up, and then of course in my experience it's always been possible. If you're broadly OK you don't even think about what might be wrong with you, until you see other people and their reactions.

Silky came home alone once, to the house. She was new and came puffing up the paddock behind the shed, reigns flapping around her neck. Lorraine and I scrambled down the hill and Noonie met us, not far behind the horse but pale, dazed and squinting through eyes purple. and closing. I was in front and couldn't help an alarmist "Oh, Bec". "What? What? WHAT?" she yelled and then started to cry. She couldn't calm until she looked in a mirror.

I think I was the same when Choc bit me on the nose. Although, probably in reverse. I was disappointed when I looked in the mirror because it felt like my whole nose had been gouged off by that grumpy old dog. Now that I think about it, it happened after netball one Saturday afternoon.

I still have a patch on my arm, not so much as scar as an area less freckled. Originally just a graze it must have been deeper than most. The mail lady came past in her four wheel drive. The filly was frustrated with me and would take any convenient disruption. I heard later that that mail lady died of cancer.