Alun Newman column: It's in your genes/jeans

Always a vibrant encounter - it includes a relentless supply of food and drink and plenty of catching up.

As the day progressed, I noticed a blue, powder-style, dusty mark on their cream-coloured, squishy sofa. There was no need to mention anything, I was sure the last thing they'd want is someone pointing out an imperfection of any kind.

Throughout the day I kept returning to the sofa, usually to the same spot - funny how even in someone else's home you can have a familiar spot to sit.

Coincidentally, as we sat together, Sonia asked me how I was feeling. A strange question, which prompted me to say: why do you ask?

She commented on whether my blood pressure was okay and pointed out my hands, my fingers. They looked pale and blue. As with any casual medical suggestion, I thought nothing of it. However, I did start to notice that the ‘blue dusting’ on the cream sofa seat was getting darker.

At no stage during the day did I have the intelligence to consider that I might be a key contributor to what was happening, I was far too engrossed in eating.

Later in the afternoon, sitting once again on the sofa, gazing at my hands and simultaneously wondering if I was dying from a medical condition, I remembered something rather important. In an attempt to save a bit of cash and to experience one of the latest booming shopping apps I’d ventured onto a site that lets members of the public sell new and used clothes.

I had been in the market for some new jeans (still with the tags attached, please). I found some, I bought them, and they arrived beautifully packaged. It couldn’t have been easier.

I assumed the seller must have received them as a gift or bought them and couldn’t be bothered to return them. They were dark blue Levi jeans.

I sat and looked at my hands. It wasn’t a dodgy heart or problematic blood pressure. They were actually going blue. Had I been rubbing my legs? A cold shudder passed through me. I stood up. The blue on the cream sofa had got worse.

It was me. It was me all along.

I was the one leaving a progressively bolder blue stain on the cream sofa. I was the one touching my legs and transferring blue onto my hands. I was the culprit and I felt awful. What could I do?

Panic raced through my mind. If it had been my cream sofa, I would not have been impressed, to say the least.

I was, of course, overly apologetic and explained everything. It turned out my blood pressure was fine. I wasn’t dying inside. However, I was dying on the sofa, dyeing my hands and dyeing everywhere else I chose to sit.