I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm prone to receiving splinters on a weekly basis for the rest of my life.  Whether it's haphazardly opening a door, slightly missing the intended knob and careering my digits towards microscopic sword like shards of timber; sun-blindly reaching for a tool in my  shed and thwacking my tom thumb into a rusty Jimmy nail; searching for the play dough hairdressers set under the kitchen sink and instead jamming an under sink spike into and under my finger nails...I guarantee I'll have some minor domestic war wound come the end of the week.

This week I managed to embed a few slices of metal underneath the nail on my middle finger (left hand) whilst routinely reaching the tap to fill the kettle.  I let out a subdued scream into the bit of flesh where the thumb and index finger, milliseconds before the tom and jerry-esque throb began.

This type of splinter I'd categorise as level II: I mostly involuntarily procure level III types such as general finger (non under nail), flesh splinters.  Last year I had a lucky strike with a level I type – an eye splinter.  This required a more professional surgical solution (rather than home surgery which I'll come to it in a moment).  I'm not entirely sure how I obtained this one, but it was probably during a bit of brick chipping, drilling or electrical sanding.  I kept blinking (as it dust were to have gravitated upon the balls of your eye) but it wouldn't budge; I washed my eye out with various bird baths of water and solutions, sadly all to no avail.  

So this, inevitably, led me to take a trip to the A & E (the one in the city where you meet some of the more colourful characters welded into the city's fabric).  

My name soon got called out of the ward speaker phone and in, admittedly, slight trepidation (my 'BP' always rises the moment I enter the vicinity of hospital wards) I blinkingly walked into the  eye surgery.  My face and indeed head was placed in this 'Dune' (David Lynch's version) type contraption, with a mini Jodrell bank scope hovering centimetres from my affected eye.

I very soon saw the delicate hand of the 'eye nurse' bring some professional tweezers up to my viewing tunnel and within a minute the offending shard had been deftly emancipated from the gooey sac which gives my brains an illusion of reality.  A genius of minor eye surgery I thought to myself before vocally offering a large 'thank you' for her time and effort.

But back to my Level II.  With a lack of pro kit at my disposal, I rummaged through the 'haberdashery' section of my kitchen draw and picked out a packet of sowing needles.  I dropped one into a cup of boiling water and then cleansed it a travel bottle of Dettol (I'm sure that's how they do it on 'ER' right?).  Under the bright glare of halogens in my bathroom I set to work.

Poking and prising I eventually, under a few twangs of pain, managed to carve a path towards the shiny little blighter.  After around of 30 mins of self surgery (and a mini gash on the end of my pointer) and with a little help from the missus's tweezers I managed to pull free this alien who had the audacity to invade my body.

A few days later I have a few throbs and and odd shaped finger nail but all is good...until the next splinter arrives  sometime next week...