Autumn

impossible songs

impossible songs

Autumn Allman Brothers.

An autumn wide week of visits and gardening, roaming nowhere in the woods, balancing school holidays and activities, grandson baby-sitting and queues of motorway traffic has passed. Autumn also teaches us that a better name for Amy Winehouse would be Amy Winepuss (according to my kids). We are all getting fed up of any version of “Valerie” manifesting itself on the radio.

As easy as falling.

Today I suffered the injury and indignity of falling from a step ladder. I was cutting the hedge and tottering on top of the ladder quite successfully for all of five minutes and sniping the nasty spines of hedge, holly, tree or whatever it was, happily enough. Then I tried a slow descent in order to move to another patch and for some reason it all went badly wrong. I travelled from vertical to horizontal in a millisecond landing with a thump flat on my ear, elbow, hip and knee. Apart from pain in various places and trembles and shakes I became aware of warm blood running down my head. I lay there for a moment and decided not to crawl towards that white strange light or shout “help, help!” in what would have been a feeble voice. I also considered the “Working at Height Regulations” and whether or not I could sue myself and thereby gain some reward from the accident. Then I though of my own perilous finances and the gravy / vegetable stock train that is Impossible Songs and decided against litigation. By now the dull pains were getting sharper so I decided to attempt to stand up. Thankfully I found I could do so and staggered successfully into the open arms of Ali, (busy in the front garden) who administered first-aid, tea and sympathy. After that the kittens set upon me, purring their delight at my injuries and immobility as they showed complete solidarity by falling asleep on my heaving chest. I blame it all on on jet-lag and time-chaos caused by irresponsibly moving the clocks back.

Kitchen fireworks.

In what looked like becoming a day of household accidents Ali burned her nasal internals and both hands while slicing a red chilli whilst making a South American salad. It was innocently marked up with only two Tesco flames out of a possible five but still did some serious nose and finger damage and brought the kitchen to a complete standstill delaying the injured man’s tea. This prompted a discussion about the possibility of wearing a chilli helmet, gloves and mask to avoid further incidents. I myself was a victim of chilli burns a few months ago when I thoughtlessly wiped my eye while chopping one of those little crimson fireworks. It’s compellingly relevant and true that nine out of ten homes happen because of accidents these days.