I am occasionally teased. In a column devoted to drink, which in practice usually means wine and often the products of Bordeaux to give one plenty of scope, I am accused of divergence towards the byways and wildernesses of vinous intellectual life. But as we approached glorious festivals, surely events themselves would impose their own disciplines and their own agenda. So what could possibly go wrong?

What a foolish question to ask.  As with all human affairs, the answer is a simple one: anything you can think of. There is a great lady approaching her 90th birthday. A few weeks ago, she reported chatting with her friends and also a conversation with her doctor. ‘Mary, at your age you can drink what you like. You can eat what you like. You can smoke what you like. You can say what you like.’ (Whether that would always be wise is another matter.) ‘You can do everything you like, but don’t have a fall.’ I took no notice of that sensible advice. I should have done. Charging around, late, desperate to find an article by Douglas Murray, I tripped. It was a spectacular trip. The wrist surgeons said it was one of the worst fractures they had seen for some time, so it gave them the opportunity to demonstrate their expertise. That did not give me much comfort. The trip also provoked a sizeable dose of concussion. Suddenly, my plans for Christmas and the new year were radically amended.

What can one say? There is little amusement in searching for synonyms for stupidity. It is hard to believe how totally idiotic I have been. For the record, this event occurred in mid-morning and I was stone cold sober.

I had been planning to spend Christmas in Cambridge and London, while eventually converging on Dorset for the new year. Comestibles had been summoned from all over the known world and with them an array of bottles. As for me, I spent two or three days in nil by mouth and did not feel like any much beyond thin gruel and the local company’s water supply. There was some intellectual compensation. If I was unable to contemplate the joys of the wine glass, I could at least consider intellectual arguments. Realistically, I am heading towards the final phases of life. I am not aware of any imminent threat to mortality and it might even be time for me to carry out the promise which I have been breaking for more than two decades, and do something about my weight. Fine wine is a route to pleasure and also a path to deeper meanings. But thus far, that path is obscure, at least to me. Perhaps I could make more effort to illuminate these matters.

To Dorset, where there is no darkness. I could not wait to arrive chez these dear friends. But there was only one problem: I could not make the fixture. I did ask for a brief anthology rather than a long and tormenting account of what I had missed. The star of the weekend was by all accounts a 1995 Calon-Ségur. I have always found that it is one of the most reliable clarets. It accompanied a late-season grouse, pungent and succulent. Other delights included a Haut-Batailley 2006 and a Gloria 2009. Gloria, as always, so aptly named. So God was in his heaven and all the world seemed good.

Except for one minor detail. I was not in heaven. I was not feeling anything like good. I was as well as could be expected in a hospital ward. Tommy’s did their best, as they always will, but with the greatest of respect to that magnificent institution, it is not designed for fun.

Then again, if you will charge around the place tripping up over your feet, you cannot blame Tommy’s or anyone else. Just remember a wise old lady’s counsel and pick up your bloody feet.