“Was it rampant sex?” asked Steve, the theatre director, who had popped round with a copy of a script for my husband.

“Sadly not,” I replied.

I spoke from my outpost at the far end of the sofa where I sat rigidly upright, supported by three cushions. Normally, I would get up and greet a visitor but after putting my back out, had been rendered immobile.

It was my apology and explanation that I’d put my back out that had prompted Steve, a quiet man, to suggest the cause of my temporary incapacity.

In retrospect, I wish I’d said “yes, it was rampant sex” – so much more thrilling than the true reason for my extreme discomfort.

What actually happened? It was the weekend. I got up, showered, took my socks from the sock drawer, sat on the bed, leaned over to apply right sock (it’s labelled ‘R’) to my right foot and “Aaaa” I wailed as something went and I recoiled in agony... an agony that was exacerbated by any movement, however small.

My husband was downstairs pacing the hall as he waited for the newspapers to arrive. He is a man who finds it difficult to face the day without being politically enraged. This week it was mainly tax havens.

I called him in a pained way, wanting to convey the extent of my suffering. (Steve the director would have been impressed.) But it didn’t work because he didn’t hear me, so I bellowed his name from my bent position on the bed. The effect wasn’t as poignantly dramatic but it had the element of surprise.

“Lynne? Are you all right?” he asked as he bounded up the stairs.

I reverted to anguished expressionism. “No,” I whimpered.

“What is it?”

“I’ve done my back in,” I said, summoning all the medical expertise an A/O level in human biology can endow.

By now he was at my side.

“What happened?”

I told him about the sock and he cross-examined me. “What did you do?”

“The same as I always do when I put a sock on.”

“You didn’t do anything different?”

“No.”

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition and, for those who remember the Monty Python sketch, I really was terrified by the prospect of a comfy chair.

“Can you stand up?”

“No.”

“Lie down?”

“No.”

“Sit up?”

“No.”

“What can you do?”

“I can perch here with my sock half on and, as long as I don’t laugh, I’ll be fine.”

Eventually I managed to stand.

“Where does it hurt?” my husband asked solicitously. “Can I get you anything? Do you want me to rub something on it?”

“Everywhere, no and don’t touch me,” I said through gritted teeth.

Is this what comes of being 57? Am I to expect things to just ‘go’. A ping here and a pop there and suddenly you’re a crock.

My husband helped me on with the rest of my right sock and I made my way downstairs at a slow creep. The rest of the day was spent either propped on the sofa not quite able to reach my cup of tea or walking round the house as if encased in concrete from neck to groin.

When I went to work, on Monday, I had to face the nigh-insurmountable obstacle of putting on tights. For those unused to donning pantyhose, trust me, there’s a technique.

Most women, Shakespearean actors and members of Sealed Knot will know that you have to put one foot in and haul one leg of the tights to around knee level and then insert the other foot into the other leg before pulling them up to the waist.

After five minutes of watching me topple sideways my husband intervened.

“Do you want me to help you on with your tights?”

“No, I’ll be fine.” There was no way I was going to let my husband dress me for work.

Matters were made worse because we were flying out to Cyprus in four days’ time and I needed some summery clothes. (See next week’s holiday special.) Trying on shorts was out of the question unless the M&S changing rooms happened to be fitted with a gymnastics bar so I could swing myself into them. As for Lycra swimwear; no chance.

If all this torment had been the result of Steve’s light-hearted suggestion, it would have been worth it.

But a sock? I am just so fed up.