A fit of turning right.

I occasionally suffer from those muscle spasms in the dead of night when you stretch and forget that unlike a pussycat you can't actually stretch your leg muscles that far and you end up with a passable impersonation (in the dark, if you're lucky) of someone doing the old soft shoe on the bedroom floor while cursing the universe quite roundly.

Last night, while lying on my back in bed, I commanded myself to turn over to the right and nothing happened. Well, that's not entirely true, because my right leg obeyed the command while nothing else did. I had the most peculiar sensation of the sinew above my right knee operating without effect. Naturally, I hopped out of the bed to find to my astonishment that my leg was still receiving the command to turn right. My right foot was quite definitely turned right. And the rest of the leg, which hadn't received the right-hand-turn command, was steadfastedly pointing to the front, no matter what everything from the knee down was doing!

Climbing upwards on the chest of drawers, I decided the best thing to do was hobble out to the bathroom, empty my bladder, and try to get the whole of my body working off the same game plan. I was not entirely sure that, standing over the lavatory bowl, I was not about to pee on the curtains (which, for your information, are [of course] to the right), but I concentrated and everything passed finely.

I figured that the most of my limbs were awake, but that my right leg was probably sleepwalking on its own. Maybe it would wake up if I gave it enough exercise between the bedroom and the bathroom and back again.

By the time I returned to bed, all limbs were again co-operating. I was very circumspect about any commands to change direction for the rest of the night.

Thank God I don't have four legs. I have trouble enough with the two.