A BIT OF A RUM OLD WEEK

I suppose it was too good to last. Ever the optimist that I am, I thought that peaceful times, just for a change, had broken out at Chez Comb. Let me tell you dear reader, how wrong can a gal be? I have brought some of it upon myself I know, by having the builders in, but I didn't reckon on spouse causing bother as well.

   The week had not even properly begun. Spouse had tidied out the garage over the weekend and had found a length of metal tube. It looked very much like it belonged to one of his anglepoise lamps and so he put it to one side. Come Monday morning he fished it out of the garage and took it into his study to try and fit it to the lamp. Had it belonged to the lamp it would have given it even more height and shed a bright light all around. (Mm, it's beginning to sound like Christmas already.)

   The metal pole turned out to have nothing to do with the lamp and spouse began to dismantle the attempted assemblage and in the process trapped his finger tightly in between the top bars of the stand. So tightly was he trapped that he could not extract his finger and shouted for help. I scurried to his aid and managed to release his finger. By this time it was swollen up and I spent the morning trotting to and fro at intervals with ice packs. By lunchtime he was judged fit to be let loose on the world again.

   I swear he looks for trouble. Bear in mind it was still only Monday and plenty of the day left. Onwards and upwards. He managed to put a rusty nail through the same finger later on in the afternoon. Fortunately we know that his tetanus protection is up to date, but sometimes I think he is testing the system almost to destruction.

   On to Tuesday. We had quite a fall of snow overnight and intermittently through the day, but as the sun was shining I decided to go for a post-lunch walk to boost the old brain cells and see what was happening out there in the big snowy world of North Yorkshire. The builders were busy outside and spouse was busy down the garden in his shed, so off I tripped, booted, hatted but not spurred.

   How was I to know that he would lock himself in his shed the minute my back was turned? Luckily for him on returning from my walk I gave the builders and all their noisy power tools a wide berth and continued on down the garden to visit spouse in his shed, thinking he might like to come up to the house for a nice cup of tea. Only as I neared the shed and with the noise of the builders to my back, did I hear the hammering on the shed door - coming from the inside.

   Being a cold and snowy day spouse had locked the shed door from the inside, to stop the doors from blowing open, but somehow, the latch on the outside of the door had dropped down and was firmly holding the doors shut with him inside. My, oh my, he was as mad as mad can be, as he had been trying to get out of there for quite some time. It wasn't ice packs that were needed this time, it was a very gentle defrost indoors.

   Wednesday, thank goodness was incident free and I heaved a sigh of relief, thinking we had escaped, 'trouble always comes in threes.' Then Thursday struck.

   We'd had a lot of snow overnight again and spouse was due to take an elderly lady to hospital for a late morning physiotherapy appointment. Being the good soul that he is he went round to her house early to clear the snow from her drive, so that she could get out to the car. Just as he was finishing he slipped on a patch of ice and went down hard on his bottom. When he limped indoors to collect the little old lady, she told him the appointment had now been cancelled and to add insult to injury, he can hardly bear to sit down at all now. The bruises will be spectacular.

   Then we were truly blessed to throw in a Friday happening for good measure. We had an appointment in the town and afterwards went on to the supermarket as supplies were much depleted. Well my dear reader, what can I say? Of course it was not an uneventful visit. Mea culpa, mea culpa, it was all my fault. I should never have asked him to reach up to the top shelf to get me a jar of gherkins down. Spouse is tall, but the shelf was very high and reaching up on tiptoes did the job nicely. But, he overbalanced ever so slightly and on his way down brushed up against the end display of tins and the whole lot came down. My, my, what a noise a cascading display of cans can make. You can have no idea, unless of course, it's happened to you.

   Needless to say we hotfooted it out of there sharpish and may not be returning for some time to come. Spouse is skulking around the homestead trying not to get into any more mischief this week. Trouble is, Monday morning comes around all too soon - a whole new week to go at. I'm girding up my loins even as I write .........