The curse of July

Fri.28.07.06. I have returned from a quite excellent trip to France, consuming 30 litres of wine, smoking 4 cartons of fags, producing 5 landscape works of pure genius and, luckily escaping only one near fatal accident. I had forgotten to pack the bubble wrap so I should have realised that at some point I would self inflict. These sorry ‘Julys’ have now been haunting me for a number of years. It all began during an ‘end of term’ dinner party when I managed to puncture myself in the head with a corkscrew after attempting to open the last bottle of wine. The following year at a friends’ barbeque, almost to the day, I carelessly tripped over a garden sculpture smartly smacking my scull against a nearby fountain feature. Fortunately, the paramedics skilfully managed to resuscitate me before I croaked. Because of these weird but regular July accidents I have traditionally been respectful of the 6^th.  But nevertheless, always when one feels safe, confident that the curse has been lifted, something is waiting to jump up and grab you by the nuts, so characteristically, the demon struck again when a temporary staircase collapsed, dumping me 3 metres below a bruised and battered wreck. Building a platform at the bottom of my courtyard was to be my French summer project. The ‘poutres’ were positioned carefully; the parquet floor slotted together perfectly; the whole task had been completed reminiscent of a true artisan. I only had to ‘sheet up’ to protect my wonderful floor against the unforgiving Winter weather. 

Eventually, the final section of tarpaulin was dragged onto the platform to complete the jigsaw. Even though Jo had persistently warned me against the dangers of not securing the staircase, a very basic primary health and safety issue, I was quite satisfied because it had supported me all week, so why not today? For a seasoned craftsperson this was an absurd suggestion, coming from an inexperienced ‘lady’, her opinion need not be heeded: big mistake. In my excitement to finish I hit the first step a little too vigorously causing it to collapse. When I was eventually re-united with the fallen structure I vaguely recall an assortment of items, which I had beforehand stored meticulously below, suddenly appeared, hazily orchestrated, noiselessly and leisurely circling in the dust, above my head. As I stared up from the ground, assorted garden tools, discarded nuts, bolts and screws,  half empty tins of paint and varnish, accompanied by various discarded off cuts of timber had  simultaneously become airborne from the impact. Several minor cuts, enormous ‘fuck off’ purple bruises, two broken toes were the consequences of my conceit, carelessness and apathy, simply because I had chosen to ignore my wife’s advice, ‘caution’.

We had purposely returned early from France to attend the wedding on Saturday of the daughter of Tim and Margaret Hilton (the ‘stitch up’ characters from the Post and Cron), but arriving back on Friday afternoon meant that we could catch up with the gang down at the Oak. Everyone was assembled in the beer garden the ‘tales’ already freely flowing. A most recent adventure had found Chris, Preacher Steven and Danny Brennan ‘off roading’ on the woodland, that Chris had acquired many years before, situated, conveniently, adjoining the Douglas valley. Each had taken their turn at the wheel, bouncing around doggedly dodging saplings in the arid river flood plain of the valley. It soon became an opportunity for Chris to prove his driving prowess confidently taking the wheel. Bish, bosh, bash over the bumps, into the gullies the old Discovery lurched from side to side. Everybody chuckled like kids as they haphazardly destroyed micro ecosystems as indigenous young beech, birch and chestnut were crushed under the plodding wheels of the steel beast. But ‘mother nature’ can often fight her own corner speedily affecting retribution against the wrongdoers: and so she did. Chris astutely managed to find the only patch of swamp in the arid parched valley. Oddly, the UK this summer had recorded many of the highest temperatures since 1066, in particular throughout July absolutely no rain had fallen. “No problem for the Disco!” Chris boldly claimed as he sank deeper up to both axles. Increased revving pulled the old tank further into the black lagoon. She listed heavily to the left before Danny and Chris abandoned ship. Steven was trapped in the boiler room the tide relentlessly rising. “I never thought that it would do that?” puzzled Chris. Steven by now had escaped through a window, God be praised. Danny was quietly amused that the maestro could scuttle his own vessel, casting them adrift to the mercies of huge airborne horseflies ‘strafing’ randomly, generously accompanied by other fiercely aggressive insects. No amount of digging out, packing under, pushing or pulling could move the green Goddess. A call from Chris’s mobile summoned Alan with a 3 litre Range Rover (coincidently bought from Chris 3 months ago, but still not paid for) to perform the act of International Rescue. They have not been ‘off roading’ since. Danny, in the meantime, has had an adverse reaction to the horse bites being stricken to his bed for 3 days; Steven has sought the sanctuary of the Church whilst Chris has been licking his wounds. 

By the end of the evening we had all been ‘over served’, so unsurprisingly in our separate ways, we became involved with the usual foolish drunken pranks. Chris was bopping with Jo, Knocker was devoting most of his energies sniffing hungrily around a stunning Indian girl, Lowtie loudly quoted from the chronicles of planet Lowton to anyone who could listen, Doctor Dave as per usual decided to inform the rock band where they were going badly wrong, Mad John had completely shut down, Joe Berry was pissing himself. I recall the old proverb, “try everything in life at least once, except incest and Morris dancing”, I would also include in this maxim avoiding Stella Artois. It was time to go home.