WITH what shall I regale you this Saturday?

Thousands of lapwings have gathered on fields near my home in the last three weeks. Down from the uplands, in a cloud they rise and swoop, fall and float. They swim through the air like a shoal of fish, flashing their white bellies as they turn, choreographed by an unknown force.

They are, collectively, a deceit of lapwing, as ever since Geoffrey Chaucer wrote of the "false lapwynge, ful of treacherye" the tuefit, or peewit, hasn't had the best of presses.

Yet until recently, one of the joys of winter was to see them squatting in their hundreds on a small roundabout on McMullen Road in Darlington. In all weathers, they faced stoically east towards Yarm, their exotic crests defiantly held upright.

Now development has drained the nearby boggy land and they have flown to my fields.

I've also been wondering this week about how a bull market can turn into a bear market. It apparently derives from the proverb "never sell a bearskin before one has caught the bear". A bear is sluggish and cautious. He attacks with a downwards swipe and on the stock market he expects prices to fall and so sells in the hope that he can buy back at a lower rate.

A bull is the opposite. Full of energy and dash, he bullishly charges with his horns up, buying in the knowledge that prices will rise.

Yet this week everyone I've met has greeted me with a rueful smile, as if enjoying my obvious discomfort.

They've asked me to regale them with what's happened now.

In September 2006, the damaged cartilage in my right knee was cleared back to the bone, which was microfractured in 15 places to encourage new cartilaginous growth. It was astonishingly painless.

In September 2007, the torn anterior cruciate ligament in my left knee was repaired. A quarter of the hamstring in the back of my leg was sucked out, doubled up and glued and screwed inside the knee so that once again there was a link between the femur (thigh bone) and the tibia (shin bone).

Again, practically painless, although I unaccountably forgot how to walk forwards. Walking backwards was fine, if a little ridiculous. As Christmas approached, people started humming Goons' songs at me.

My physio suggested tiny forwards steps on tiptoes.

Dangling between my crutches, I bravely tried - even though it made my bottom stick out.

About 150 yards from the couch, a white van slowed, rolled its window down, and the driver bellowed: "Mincing poof." His term of endearment was preceded by an expletive.

I continued my journey backwards.

Since then, I have re-educated myself to walk forwards. All was well until last Sunday when I was sitting cross-legged on the floor mending a plug. DIY is dangerous.

As I got up, the iliotibial band of the tensor fascae latae rolled out of its groove in my right - good - knee. It's a pulled tendon, but it's the sort of pain that sends you white with shock.

I'm back on crutches. In fact, my five-year-old son thinks that a large portion of adult life is routinely spent supported by metal poles and lying on the couch with a bag of frozen peas on your knees.

Strangers in the street see me struggling against the wind and smile. "What've you been doing this time," they say, happily, before gleefully recounting their own trivial injuries stories: a hernia due to shopping, back put out picking up a sweet wrapper or doing the ironing, a month off work after being poked in the eye by a newborn baby.

My pain is giving more pleasure to more people than anything I've done before. It is not much consolation.