I have an odd habit. My wife mocks me for it, good-naturedly, but I am slightly embarrassed about it.

No, not that! What it is, I always stand on one leg while tying my shoelaces, like a mad boot-wearing flamingo. To be precise, I rest one ankle on the opposite knee, like a Buddhist monk frozen in the act of jumping up to answer the phone. As if this wasn’t daft enough, I’m not very good at it so I sometimes fall sideways onto the wall, or hop around gracelessly.

This is something Geology did to me, since I picked the habit up in the field. An Irish field, to be precise, which is always, always damp. I wore boots and the laces came undone. When I knelt down to do them up, in the traditional fashion, I got a wet knee. I didn’t like getting a wet knee and so developed my odd habit.

Now I mostly tie the shoelaces of my shiny shoes by the front door, where the only risks to the dryness of my knee come from my potty-training son. Standing on one leg is therefore a kind of atavism, like calling CDs tapes, (or using CDs for that matter). I still carry on doing it though, as it would take conscious effort to change and I rather like a bit of randomness in life.

Do other field geologists do this, or is it just me?