How a week in the country turned into a week with a spinal injury

City life can get a bit stressful. Just as with most people who live in the miracle that is the heaving modern metropolis, all that waiting around in queues, breathing in peak hour pollution and longing to see a star-filled sky can really get my wife and I down. Fortunately for us though, we have a country retreat, where we go to slow things down, breath crisp unadulterated air and stargaze. Country life however, also carries its own peculiar risks, something I was reminded of last week when I suffered a spinal injury while enjoying a good old-fashioned, manly pursuit.

Despite its seemingly idyllic location and outward appearance our country retreat is best described as rustic and by this I mean "primitive" rather than the nostalgic cosiness real estate agents hope to conjure in their use of the adjective.

It is situated right on the edge of the coastline and 364 nights of the year is battered by howling winds and slanting rain, as well as occasional flooding. It is slowly disintegrating and draughts creep though every crack and crevice, all but negating any good done by the faltering central heating system.

So it was that last week, blue with cold and emasculated by my inability to repair the central heating, I decided to try and reclaim some warmth and, with my wife, some "real man" kudos by donning my beanie and lumberjack shirt and going outside to chop some wood.

There is plenty of wood for me to lay my axe into, we recently had an old tree felled, so I decided to have a really good go at it and make serious headway.

After some initial adjustments in my axing technique all things appeared to be going well. I was making progress through the pile, had found a rhythm to my swing and, having worked up a sweat, had even removed my beanie.

Unfortunately however, my careering progress led to over-confidence and before I knew it my axe was swinging an increasingly wild and overarching parabola as I imagined my scrawny frame stunning the competition by taking first prize in the wood chopping section of the World Strong Man Championships.

This did not last long. Mid-swing I felt a twinge in my back and, willing myself not to be defeated, took another, even more enthusiastic swing; a swing too far it turns out, for in my zealousness to prove my manhood I had aggravated an old spinal injury, one that, until then, had not troubled me a great deal for around five years.

The result of all this was a week of spasms, constricted breathing, restricted mobility and extreme discomfort. And did I get any sympathy? Well the short answer is "no". My wife only seems to be moved to annoyance by the sight of me tentatively and awkwardly moving about the house and lets out a pained sigh whenever I ask her to do anything for me, as if the sole reason I hurt my back was to inconvenience her.

My bosses as work were somewhat more understanding, after all we are a personal injury compensation company who can count among our panel of solicitors a number of elite spinal injury specialists, so allowed to me to reschedule my workload to take account for my injury.

But, to be honest, if I really think about it, I guess my wife has a point, if only I had been more realistic about chopping the wood I would have been inside with a warm cup of tea at least twenty minutes before my accident.

Then again, my wife had been badgering me for hours to get out and do it. Perhaps I should make a no win, no fee claim against her

Can I claim?