Edinburgh needs a Pavement Czar to stop streets turning into Mad Max's Fury Road – Susan Morrison

I’m getting good at this ‘recuperation from the surgery’ game. I beat my personal best this time for hospital discharge. An operation on Tuesday, home by Thursday.

With high-speed cyclists, bo-ho hipsters on electric two-wheelers and deranged drivers of mini-tank mobility scooters, Edinburgh's streets have the potential for some Mad Max-style carnage, says Susan Morrison (Picture: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for MTV)

Of course, at home, the fancy painkillers wear off and you get what I call the “bangs and shimmies”.

Surgeons have been poking about in there and the internals are a bit outraged. It’s not everyday you get a camera shoved in your lung.

I suspect they followed that up with a small chimpanzee to play merry hell with my ribcage – given the bruising – but you have to ignore that and start taking those steps to recovery.

The very best way to get back on your feet, is to get back on your feet. Walking is the very best therapy, and we are lucky to live in such a walkable city, or we should be.

Walking whilst a bit on the slow and battered side is a wake-up call to just how poor our pavements are.

It's not just the wonky paving, sneaky cracks and gaping holes lurking to trip the unwary. Skip to dodge an ankle-twisting mantrap and you could step smartly into a pile of doggy-doo from an animal that seriously needs to see a vet.

Slippy leaves underfoot are always a bit of a threat in the autumn, but add to that discarded fast-food cartons, crisp bags and, ironically, a pile of discarded newspapers called ‘Green News’ and there’s a whole new level of hazards to wrap and trap an unsteady walker.

Fling in some high-speed cyclists, bo-ho hipsters on electric two-wheelers and deranged drivers of mini-tanks disguised as mobility scooters and you have the potential for a scene of carnage to rival the opening of Mad Max – Fury Road.

Councils usually love a czar. London even has one for its “night-time economy”, which is politics-speak for ‘pubs ‘n’ clubs’. So, why don’t we appoint a Pavement Czar?

On the plus side, I am being chaperoned about by my husband. He tucks my hand into his arm as we walk. Don’t tell him, but I love that.

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