You can never quite predict how awful things will sometimes work out for good.

Hettie had been feeling a bit lonely over the winter months. She had ventured to the shops, daft really in the icy weather. Inevitably she slipped and lost her balance.

Pain forked through Hettie’s right side. She knew instinctively not to try and get herself upright and squeezed her eyes shut to blot out the distress. When she opened them, she was lying in an icy gutter with several neighbours looking down at her. How embarrassing.