Thursday, 9 October 2008

Hop skip and jump

Today we had a rubbish skip delivered to Watford CVS. I hate skips: they signify a failure to recycle and scream out “landfill!” I hated this skip even more as it was in my car parking space and it was largely down to me to fill the damn thing.

At first, I did pretty well filling the skip with 1960s-style meeting-room chairs and 1950s-style filing cabinets. I also binned lots of paper files and the archivist in me worried that they contained important information for future local historians. As I carried out large boxes of these old files, I consoled myself with the (pleasingly pompous) thought that CVSs are not funded to document history but to create history. But the Gods were alert to such signs of Hubris and a savage pain shook through my body. I jumped in agony, swore loudly and sat down very quickly clutching my ankle. I may even have shed a tear; luckily there were no witnesses. Twenty minutes later, the pain had subsided sufficiently for me to stand up and limp pathetically. Shortly, a volunteer materialised to help out with the dumping (thanks James!) and I briefly took things easy. An hour or so later I was on my own again with a skip still to fill and three large cupboards to manoeuvre through the office.

My colleagues were of course exceedingly solicitous of my good health and treated me with great kindness offering teas and herbal remedies and an accident book. But only Des Reid could actually help with the manly work of lifting and shifting and he got stuck in like a real trooper. Meanwhile, I was trying to co-ordinate the preparation of papers for tomorrow’s meeting to review our BME Advocacy project (in which endeavour Sha-Lee played a starring role).

I eventually limped from the office about 6:00 pm and had a very uncomfortable drive home. I just managed to hop into the house and collapse on the sofa. Jackie carefully removed my shoe and sock and I was rather relieved to see that the damage to my ankle was all too apparent and it was swollen very badly. All hopes of folk dancing were long gone, but Jackie nursed me beautifully and soon made things ok.