Jonny McCambridge: Bruising encounters with an unhelpful shop escalator and raining jam jars

I am formulating a plan as I dash through the aisles. Grab a quick coffee, get the shopping for dinner and then home to make a start on the looming, long list of professional and domestic responsibilities.

I have to concede that I am not quite aware of my environment. I am so distracted that I am not in the moment.

The cafe is upstairs, so I head for the escalator. I am travelling with momentum as I step onto the left-hand moving staircase. I take a couple of purposeful strides upwards before I realise something is wrong.

It all happens very quickly but seems to take an age. I become aware that the steps are moving in the opposite direction to my feet; I have walked onto the downward escalator. At first, I quicken my step in panic, like a runner speeding up on a treadmill, but soon gravity takes over and I keel forward, throwing my arms out to take the impact.

A second later and I am a confused and dazed heap on the floor. I look up and the first thing I see is the huge arrow pointing upwards beside the right-hand escalator. A few shoppers come to check I am not injured and one kindly man implausibly tells me it is a mistake anyone could have made.

I shake myself and go upstairs to order my coffee. I am not injured apart from a graze on my right elbow and knee and a cut on my thumb. I am, however, rattled. I feel wrenched, as if my muscles have been turned around inside my skin.

As I wait for my beverage I am reproachful. The obvious error was that I was not looking where I was going. The sort of thing I often tell my son off about. But I am also curious as to why I instinctively went to the wrong escalator. Is it more usual for upwards travelling escalators to be on the left or right-hand side? Is there a habit or law to the correct side, as when driving on the road?

I have no idea, so I Google it. The search is fruitless and all I can find is loads of debate about 'escalator etiquette' and whether you should stand on the left or right side when travelling on one. Nothing about making sure you step onto the correct one.

I have a busy day ahead so I decide it is best to put it all behind me. The few people who witnessed by graceless fall have all now dispersed back to their own lives. If I am able to mentally move forward then it will be, for all intents and purposes, as if it never happened.

The barista brings my steaming coffee.

'Hey mister,' she begins. 'Are you the fella who went the wrong way on the escalator?'

AFTERNOON: There are more than three months until Christmas.

However, we are hosting this year and the sense of mania about getting the house ready has arrived early. My wife has given me a list of things which need to be either dumped or put out of sight.

To be clear, I am not big on dumping things which could come in useful later on. As a keen jam and chutney maker, I collect and own hundreds of glass preserving jars which I tend to leave in boxes or bags lying about the conservatory. I have acceded, after several weeks, to my wife's perfectly reasonable request to put them away in the roof-space.

However, I have left the job until much later in the day than I ought to and there is now less than an hour until she returns home from work. To speed up the labour, I summon my teenage son to assist. I am up the ladder in the dark attic while he is below, passing boxes to me.

The task is not quite straightforward. There is already too much junk up here and I have to move things around to create room while also ensuring I don't step between the beams and poke a leg through the ceiling. As I toil, I discover the skeletal remains of a mouse in a trap laid years before but since undisturbed.

As I said, I have a lot of glassware. I am attempting to drag one particularly heavy box into a corner when it collapses, sending jars rolling in all directions. With flailing limbs, I try to grab or stop as many as I can, but can't prevent two from reaching the hatch which leads to the landing below. My blood is chilled as I realise my son is standing down there.

'Watch out son!' I yell frantically. He reacts as you would expect. By looking upwards. Just in time for an empty, glass jam jar to bounce off the side of his face.

Visions of doom are racing through my mind as I rush down the stairs, muttering curses and expletives at myself. My son has taken cover on the floor, lest the jar was the advance warning for a coming avalanche of glass.

I am relieved beyond words to see that he is laughing as I drag him up. The glass, mercifully, did not crack or shatter and there is no significant injury. As I examine him I do, however, notice the bruising and swelling already emerging at the side of his eye. He is going to have a heck of a shiner.

I show him the damage in the mirror and he seems quite pleased to have his first black-eye. I hear a car pulling in to the driveway. My son looks at me.

'Daddy, how will you explain this one to mummy?'