Is this seat taken?

There are no perks to having reduced mobility. You may pass through airport security more quickly but a life in need of assistance is hardly an advantage

- SEEMA GOSWAMI

It is a bit ironic that only a few weeks after I wrote a column on how one experiences fewer 'firsts' as one gets older my middle-aged self got to experience a brand new one. It happened thus. I was accompanying my husband on a work trip to Dubai and in circumstances entirely too silly to recount I ended up injuring my hamstring. So severe was the pain that I spent a couple of days in bed on painkillers, dosed up to my eyeballs, getting up only to hobble to the loo and back and I managed that only with his assistance.