David Charters: Perfection escapes us all

Sep 30 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

WHEN I was falling off the ladder, it would be an exaggeration to say that my whole life flashed before me.

After all, I was only on the third rung.

Furthermore, the word “flashed” seems a trifle ambitious for one whose progress has always been a source of encouragement to slugs and those snails, who have been out and about of late, showing-off their twin horns.

Anyway, during a peculiarly slow descent from the ladder, which had the birds in the trees rubbing their tummies and chortling with glee, in the manner of rope-twiners on the works’ outing to a hanging, several thoughts popped into my brain for a short chat.

Prominent among these was the question of whether an awkward landing might accelerate retirement and the bathchair.

Actually, my wife had anticipated such an eventuality some months ago by heaping the serving dishes with steaming sprouts, beans and other pulses.

“It says here that more wind is essential if Britain is to meet the energy demands of the 21st century,” she said, pointing at an article which listed methods of saving our planet.

“So I have decided that, for once, we will be ahead of the field, instead of lagging behind as usual. After a hearty pan of sprouts, you should be able to keep a medium-sized city illuminated for several weeks.

“But we’ll have to find a way of plugging you into the national grid and setting up a coin-meter. When that’s done, there’ll be no looking back. You’ll be the greenest warrior in Birkenhead,” she added, dabbing the tear of mirth which was sauntering down from the lovely turquoise of her left eye.

“Very amusing,” I said rather tartly. “Now can we make a brief detour to the real world, that large place, where other people live?”

Unfortunately, however, the real world turned out to be our conservatory, the glistening symbol of suburban respectability attached to the back of the house, from which we can gaze at the lawn – imagining Victorians playing croquet and drinking homemade lemonade, while russet apples swell in the orchard.

But reality again broke my reverie. It had been noted that the conservatory’s gutters were clogged. “When you get the chance, can you clear them,” my wife said, be- fore adding, with a teasing smile: “See if you can get up there before man steps on Mars.”

Well, as some of you know, I am the master of delays. If evolution had been left to me, we would still be tangled in the seaweed. But the inevitable moment could not be delayed any longer. Reflecting on life, I often think, ruefully, of the times when I have done something very silly. This was one of those occasions.

Our ladder has four legs. While assembling it in preparation for the climb, I placed three of the legs on concrete paving stones. At this juncture, a picture may be forming in your mind. Yes, I hadn’t noticed that the fourth leg was on a spread of gravel over soft soil.

Now, I have never been blessed with a good sense of balance. As a teenager, I had little difficulty persuading the careers’ advisory officer that ballet and unicycling were not for me. In fact, if he had spotted the tricycle parked outside, instead of ticking boxes on futile questionnaires, he would have realised that even earlier.

As the ladder received my weight, the odd leg started sinking into the ground with a rapidity to alarm even the eggheads, who roam our Earth. Soon I was tilting to the right, quite alarmingly. “Help,” I called. But my plea was lost in the damp air. What a pity there weren’t any school children there to watch me demonstrating Isaac Newton’s Law of Gravitation.

In the circumstances, the injuries to my right shoulder, arm, hip and leg were surprisingly light and, in a renewed spirit of determination, I returned to the ladder. It won’t be doing that again in a hurry, after the severity of the wigging I gave it. “Bad ladder,” I said several times.

Life can be cruel. The other morning on the train, there stood a tall, blue-eyed chap, who looked like the Protestant Christ, with his wispy beard and long blond hair straggling down the back of his brown velvet jacket.

By him, there was a stockier, more menacing figure, whose head had been shaved, leaving a fecund fuzz of sandy hair. But the tall student’s hair was already very thin. “He’ll be bald as a marble in a few year,” I thought, charitably.

How strange then that the other chap should possess such a rich thatch of hair, all of which he cuts off.

But perfection escapes us all.

LISTEN to David Charters on his picture podcast at www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk