All it took was a metal coat hanger and a mop in the end, but some problems aren’t solved so easily…
I considered myself a fairly practical person – good at papier-mâché, capable of painting a door or a gate as needed, able to re-wire a plug – but then I got married and suddenly I wasn’t quite so practical. I might be OK with a screw driver, a paint brush and a sewing machine, but wielding an axe or a drill, let alone a saw were all way beyond my kind of practical. That sort of ‘hands-on’, ‘can do’ action can be very useful, but it should also come with a health warning…

The plus side was very evident today after a little mishap with cupboards and holes. The kitchen where we live has a cooker set at an angle in one corner with cupboards build around and across the corner. Strangely the top of these cupboards was not taken right into the corner. This has left a deep well-like hole, that could fit a small person in, reaching from just below ceiling height to the floor. Someone has the habit of placing cans of beer and bottles up on these high cupboard tops, which is easy for them as they don’t need a chair to put things up there. Tidying up a few days ago, I reached up to push an empty domed cake container onto this shelf above the cooker. It was out of my reach but I thought shoving it would be enough. In fact it was too much. The plastic box flew towards the back of the shelf and there was a clatter, followed by a number of thuds, by which time it was out of sight. It had fallen into the abyss between the cupboard, the wall and the cooker. Short of abseiling down the hole, the chances of rescuing the box seemed small. I had visions of climbing onto the thin shelf, falling into the hole headfirst and being stuck in the gap forever… eventually my body would be found, or I’d be eaten by ants! With that in mind, I decided it was a job for the weekend, or something to forget about.

I did mention the flying box and the kitchen abyss in passing to someone, who indicated grumpily that was the last I would see of my cake container. Amazingly, after returning from church he had a change of heart and step ladder in hand, he climbed onto the worktop by the cooker and tried to lower himself into the hole to reach the box. It wasn’t going to be that easy. I rushed around looking for helpful props before he had a change of heart and the box became a distant memory. A mop was handed over, but this couldn’t reach it either. Eventually, an old metal coat hanger was attached to the mop handle and a new hook was sculpted to fish for the box. After a few more failed rescues the hook did its work and the cake box was retrieved – Hallelujah! Let them eat cake!

A practical person can also get carried away though, especially if you give them a saw or worse a pair of garden clippers. Until a week ago we had a lovely set of bushes with bright pink, blue and orange flowers spilling out onto the paved area beside the front door. The flowers had faded and the bushes were in need of trimming back. I left this to the person with the clippers, while I went off to pull up unwanted greenery from the white stone edges. I can’t have been away more than 10 minutes, but when I came back to the bushes…they were no more. Someone had demolished them. Half of them had been reduced to wooden spikes surrounded by dried leaves, the others were on their way out and there was a growing pile of greenery in the middle of the terrace. Asking what was happening in a semi-alarmed voice, I was told the bushes had been in need of a ‘haircut’. I agreed a trim had been needed, but this looked like an army sergeant’s Number 1 and I’m still not sure if the bushes will live to sprout another day. I was forced to stand guard by the bushes for the next half an hour or so to prevent the clippers devouring more of them. The lesson is, be careful about letting a practical person loose with garden clippers. I’d heard of the Cyprus haircut, but this was ridiculous.