Thin as my recent output has been, it has all but come to a grinding halt. This is because I'm currently enjoying the unrest cure at Harrogate.

Within a wide-angle spit of the gorgeous Harlow Hill on the fringes of that gentrified Yorkshire town, a handsome Edwardian pile houses a police convalescence centre. Having paid my paltry fee towards this charity for at least a year now, and having impressed the board with my scary spinal injury, lurid scar and martyr complex, I felt entitled to cash in, check in and chill out.

Those of you not of the law enforcement persuasion, and probably any of you who are, will imagine a free junket whereby fat old knackers nearing the end of their service can treat themselves to a fortnight of subsidised lounging away from the boss/the wife/the kids/the huge scary prosecution file. Well, think again: you're almost entirely right.

To be fair, you do have to have an injury capable of being usefully treated here to qualify. My spinal fracture puts me slightly above mid-table. I can't compete with the multiple fracture victims on crutches or the cancer fighters, but I am bewildered by the presence of those who had a minor whiplash ten years ago and want to cash in in every possible way.

Dinner table conversations are a process of clinical one-upmanship. Who, for example, has the rawest deal, the longest waiting list, the keenest ache, the goriest injury, the strangest side effects, the itchiest piles? It's like manning the lines for a geriatric medical phone-in; until, that is, you hear yourself and realise you're just as broken and boring as the rest. Then there's the war stories: I may as well have stayed at home and watched Police Smash Grab Camera Action Crisis Pursuit Team .

Not that it's all about relaxation, at least not for me. I have daily doses of acupuncure and physiotherapy, an hour or two in the gym, a spot of cycling and two or three purgatorial sessions of pilates, fitball and circuits, by which time I know I'm the quivering, tortured husk of a man approaching middle age. I have a firm and self-flagellating belief that if I yield to my nervous system and relax when I'm in pain, I'll become a fat old knacker. Besides which, my scar will be less big and impressive if my waistline doubles.

Not that such self-immolation is de rigeur; relaxation is rife, and it isn't unusual to find a dozen middle-aged cops snoring in the lounge after a hefty lunch, drooling onto copies of the Daily Mail splayed across their paunches. Yet the centre doesn't have all the makings of a classic police junket: there is no house bar; alcohol, bed-hopping and lary conduct are frowned upon; there is a loosely enforced curfew. Having been on the CID course, I couldn't help but feel the centre had overestimated its clientele. Not that this stops most of them happily settling down for the nightly bingo, raffle and quiz.

I must sign off. There's a family pack of Preparation H up for grabs in the raffle.