Defying Gravity

Dearest readers,

My sincerest apologies for not posting something sooner, life has been tough, money scarce and dog poop plentiful.

After nearly breaking an ankle on an uneven road surface (in flat shoes mind) it took me back to many moons ago, when I was still young and agile, and I fancied myself a cat burglar of sorts.

I lived in this relic of a house in Blackheath that was dank and dark and just a tiny bit rundown. Our landlady had decided to redo the kitchen and in the process fitted a new backdoor that couldn’t lock.  This wasn’t a problem as you had to scale walls and whatnot to be able to get to said backdoor.

I’d just started a new job and with my first pay I merrily went to my favourite hair salon in Woolwich Arsenal.  Laden with food shopping and quite possibly other items of decadence I arrive home via a very sweaty bus ride to find that I’d left my keys in my bedroom.  I’m not the best at remembering keys, relying on the fact that someone (especially in shared accommodation) would be in.

I knock on the door a fair few times to no avail.

After having sat on the front step for a good half hour, speaking to some friends on the phone, eating some of my decadent shopping on the front step an idea dawns on me.

Our Romanian cleaner’s little boy had once locked her out of the house when she’d taken out the trash, she’d climbed onto some building rubble, did a balancing act on the neighbor’s wall that ran against our back wall and reached the court yard bit where you have access to the backdoor that couldn’t lock.

It’s not the widest wall/ledge and the Sky dish is mounted against the same wall, but if the Romanian cleaner could do, it couldn’t be that hard, could it? How wrong was I?

Deciding to leave my shopping amongst the overgrown bushes in the front garden and taking off my shoes, I decide to give this house burglary thing a go. I’m going to be buggered if someone decides to call the plod and report a chubby redhead trying to shimmy along a wall for no apparent reason.

Mentally rolling up my sleeves I climb the building rubble, ok, I’m poked by a fair few rusty nails and sharp bits of concréte but so far, so good. Or so I thought.

Now I’m up there, I look at this rather narrow wall/ledge and wonder if this is going to be the best approach.  Seeing as how I’m here though, I might as well give it a go.

God only knows how I got onto that ledge, being absolutely petrified of heights. I’d managed to get about halfway across this ledge when all hell broke loose.

Being quite well endowed I can only squish my boobage against the wall so much in an attempt to flatten them. I tippy-toe along this ledge at a snails pace when one of the bricks decide to do a wobble. 

I try to grab hold of something, anything, and it just so happens to be the Sky dish.  This sadly has only been bolted in with one bolt.  (It’s an old Victorian house, Lord only knows what they used for mortar, as said mortar has also decided to vacate the crevices). The bolt pulls out of the wall without much effort and I dangle precariously somewhere between heaven & earth for about a millisecond.

I plummet to terra firma right onto our neighbor’s begonias and pansies with the Sky dish still in hand. I’m almost impaled by garden furniture and the poor umbrella is now missing a few spokes where I smacked it with the Sky dish on my way down.

I’m set upon by the old biddy’s teacup poodle who proceeds to bark and charge at intervals while I’m trying I’m shush it still dazed and confused.  I realise I’m in massive amounts of trouble, having just vandalized someone’s garden and garden furniture in a round about way.

I jump up apologizing, trying to explain what woes have befallen me when she proceeds to tell me she’s calling the police.  Great, just what I need.  To be charged with criminal damage.

Sky dish tucked under one warm (which has now been ripped cable and all out of the wall) and trying to refrain from kicking the dog to shut it up I explain rather loudly that I’d fallen off the wall as I was trying to get my keys which were in my bedroom and that my shopping was somewhere in my bush, ah, I meant the landlady’s bush or rather the house’s bush.

Granted, probably not the most coherent explanation but dang my ears were still ringing.

She looked at me rather dubiously, all disheveled without shoes, sweaty with a Sky dish under my arm. Why on earth wouldn’t she believe me? I tell her I have to go as I had sausages in the bush and they were probably now all mushy. This only garnered a raised eyebrow and I made to leave.

At this point nothing ached.  I managed to leave with as much dignity as I could muster, covered in grass stains, bits of plaster and quite possibly dog poop.  I make my way home rather dejectedly and plonk my dimply arse on the step again.  Shopping forgotten in the bush for the time being. Sausages and all.

Just as I was about to peer through the letterbox to see if someone was there, one of my housemates opens the door and with the force of pushing against the door to hold myself steady I propel forward, trip over the Sky dish and fall into the foyer.  Talk about making an entrance. Now everything aches, as the adrenalien has worn off. Bit like magic potion.

In short, torn ligaments in right leg and foot, cracked metacarpals in right foot, sprained right wrist, bruised tailbone and mushy sausages.

We had no Sky for about a month as the technician had to fit a new dish and rewire something somewhere. It cost me two trays of begonias and pansies plus a new patio umbrella not to mention the embarrassment of facing the woman again while she had her bridge club over. Lord, I was mortified.

The lesson to be learned here is to always pat yourself down when leaving the house to make sure you have everything, especially your keys, secondly, just because you saw someone else do something doesn’t mean you can, no matter how much you wanted to be a superhero as a kid.

From now on people Irish prayer: Please Lord, get me home with my spectacles, shopping, wallet & keys!