princess and pea, bashed my knee, free bottle of Corbieres, you can't get me!

It's been quiet here in Baroque Villas the past few days: we've had a bit of melodrama, which sort of kept me away from the desk, & which could even have been witnessed by my fellow N16 blogger Quink as he made the rounds of his local supermarket, the inestimable (no, really, I couldn't) Somerfields on Stamford Hill.

It was approximately 12.45 pm on Saturday when I slipped - oh yes I did - on about a third of a squished pea pod as I crossed the Somerfields produce section on my way to the bread aisle, to tell my daughter I'd remembered we already had some tomatoes.

That may not sound like much of a story.

At first I had no idea what I'd slipped on because it was so flipping small it was practically invisible. And another customer kicked it under a stand in disgust when she saw what it had done to me (a shop assistant later had to retrieve it for evidence). Then I couldn't stand up, but had to remain doubled over, balanced on one foot, clutching my left kneecap, while some particularly sheeplike shoppers stared at me as if I were an intriguingly artificial-looking statue of a woman in pain. Then, after I had snapped in my best voice, "and I suppose no one will even find a member of staff so I can get some help???" several large young supermarket assistants gathered round me and stood there for four or five minutes, clucking sympathetically as they looked on with their sweet brown caring eyes.

Eventually I managed to straighten my spine. Someone said, vaguely, but with a dawning sense of purpose, "shall we go find Steve? He's had first aid training..." My knee was swelling this whole time like a little fast-growing puffball mushroom in the midst of a fairy circle. (Don't eat the food, you'll never get back to your own world.) Then someone said they'd get me a chair, which I sat in, right there by the salad section, with my left foot propped up on my daughter's (perched on the edge of the fridge, poor thing) healthy young knee.

Then a boy in a pink tie comes with a clipboard and I have to answer questions. "Where were you when you fell?" "Do you want us to call you an ambulance?" ("I have to ask you that," he said, embarrassed: "it says here, was medical care offered.") He goes, "maybe someone could get some frozen peas for your knee? Someone go get some frozen peas!" Why not, I say - it was their sodding evil pod that did this to me. He adds, "I'm just going to go and input this into the pc upstairs. They'll send you a report" (goodie!), and is gone. A girl arrives, looks at my knee, remarks the redness, feels around it with some spectacular home-french-polished nails, and takes charge of the boys. They get me another chair for my foot.

Then someone said the manager had decided I could have my shopping for free - incidentally, the smallest grocery shop in the history of my life - less than £15-worth. Why couldn't this have happened on a normal day, when I go in for two things and come out £45 lighter? Eh? So of course I suddenly remembered the milk. And I also realised I wasn't going to be spending the whole afternoon blissfully grilling courgettes, so I took some mangetout, 2 for £2 - which don't need coooking. Practical, see. And there had been a promise of some gum.

Well, it's getting boring, isn't it. Then the big one - his name is Jeremy - says, "I wish we could give you a nice big bunch of roses or something but we don't even have any!" (Remember it's Somerfields.) I can see he's thinking about his own mother. He's a nice boy. In the end he and his colleagues offer me a bottle of wine, and when I say, "Thanks, I will - I can at least drink myself into a stupor while I'm lying on the couch. But it has to be really dry", they look at me mournfully. "I - I don't really know much about wine," says Jeremy. So I hobble over to the wine section, where I peruse the France shelf. Nothing there costs more than six pounds. And I can barely stand up. However, there is one unusual-looking bottle, a Corbieres for I think £4.99 - a snip among the Jacobs Creek - with the look of something good about it. Mine. Pink tie boy wraps it for me, & I hobble back to the exit where Jeremy is waiting to give me a lift home.

We pass the newspaper stand. "I could really do with a Guardian..." I say, "as I'm going to be laid up all afternoon." Daisy's head is in her hands and she's groaning in chagrin. "Well it's all right for you!" snaps Mamma. "You're going to the park!"

We get in Jeremy's car. Of course this is all rather embarrassing, but the sad truth is that Ms Baroque a) does not even own a car and b) cannot in fact walk. So I gush to Jeremy, "This is so nice of you!"

"I feel responsible," he says, "It's my section."

"And you know what?" I hear myself saying to him, "I did actually notice now spotless it was. All except the bit I slipped on."

(The disclaimer runs like this: and I didn't open the bottle of wine till last night, and it is indeed very pleasant. Mont Tauch Corbieres, 2005. On the couch on Saturday afternoon I watched a DVD of "The Constant Gardener," but that is another story. I spent so long with the peas on my knee that it was still frozen as solid as one of Lord Franklin's men an hour after I took them off. It worked: the knee is mending a treat. I never did meet Steve.)