There was a story in the newspaper about the actor Adrian Edmondson getting stuck on his outside window-ledge while cleaning the windows. He had to ask a passerby to fetch help. You would think he could afford a window cleaner rather than risk life and limb clambering about on outside window-ledges, especially one obviously too high to simply jump down from, since the fire brigade had to come and rescue him.
I’ve never risked standing on an outside window-ledge. I watch people in Spanish flats leaning precariously out of windows to clean the outside panes. As a rule the windows in modern flats are designed to slide so that it is possible clean the outside panes without risking life and limb, well almost without risk! It always seems a little precarious to me. Consequently the windows of our flat in Spain are never as clean as those of our neighbours. The other Spanish housewifely activity that fills me with trepidation is hanging washing on those outside washing lines, arranged just below the windows and with pulleys to move the lines along. I see women, rarely men, lean quite far out to peg out their washing, and marvel at their sangfroid!
The first flat we rented in Vigo had that sort of arrangement for hanging out the washing over the central well between all the flats. On more than one occasion I had to go knocking on the door of the ground floor flat, asking if I could retrieve odd socks or a pair of underpants that had slipped through my fingers as I pegged washing out. Some blocks of flats won’t allow washing to be hung on the outside of the building. No doubt it lowers the tone! I am always amazed when I see washing hung so close to the building that it blows against the wall. Surely the washing comes in dirtier than when it went out! Personally I favour a fold-up clothes drier - a clothes maiden I suppose it really should be called - on the balcony of our flat. It does, however, need to be weighted down at its base to prevent the wind from overturning it or, heaven forfend, blowing it over the edge of the balcony. I have visions of our washing festooned all over the main street.
When Ade Edmondson posted his misadventure on twitter he asked how his followers' bank holiday weekend was going and in reply received stories of mishaps this weekend or on other occasions: people falling down manholes, being goaded by their offspring to try skateboarding or roller skating and doing prat-falls as a result. You know the sort of thing!
One follower described being locked in the back garden by her husband, not in an act of domestic bullying but because he was popping out on an errand and did not realise she was outside the house. Did he not bother to say goodbye to his missis as a rule when he left the house. She knew he would not be long, fortunately, and waited on the doorstep with their cat!
As for me, I have a near pathological fear of locking myself out. This dates back to a time almost forty years ago when I returned from a walk, or maybe a shopping trip, with a baby in the buggy and a toddler trotting alongside. Arriving home I realised I had left my key in the house. Under normal circumstances I could have camped out with a friend or neighbour until Phil came home but on this occasion he was in Germany with a bunch of school pupils. A week was a long time to wait on the doorstep! So, with fingers crossed, I walked the children round to the back of the house to see if I had left the kitchen window open. I had! Being younger and more agile then than now, I climbed onto the window-ledge, squeezed my way in through the top window and lowered myself onto the inside window-ledge. Fortunately, the toddler was not one of those twho run off at the drop of a hat like my smallest grandson, and so I was able to unlock the back door, secure in the knowledge that he was waiting there, busily entertaining his small sister in the buggy.
Never again did I leave the kitchen window open, even though that house was in a quiet country hamlet. If I could climb through that smallish window, so could a reasonably skinny burglar! Mind you, in that same house we did go to bed one summer’s night leaving the front door wide open. The inner glass door was closed so we did not get invaded by foxes or other wild life. It was rather a shock to find the living room flooded with morning light when we got up in the morning though.
Anyway, that is why I double, triple, quadruple check that I have keys whenever I leave the house.
This is rather a disappointing Bank Holiday Monday weather-wise. I managed to go for a run before the rain set in. It’s been intermittent since then and is not forecast to stop properly for the rest of the day. Will this stop people sitting in the carpark/beer-garden next door? I doubt it! I should think they will need to be wrapped up though. However, the landlord has set up a system of heaters. Quite what they and the wood-fired pizza stove do for the environment is a different matter!
Apparently some publicans and breweries are worried about keeping up with their customers’ overwhelming thirst for beer and wine and goodness knows what else (probably gin in the pub next door to our house as they pride themselves on being a “gin emporium” with hundreds of different kinds). Some pub-goers have even reported pubs which have sold out of beer. Presumably the breweries have had to adjust from making no deliveries at all to a sudden demand for extra as the serious drinkers get back in training. Modern problems!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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