Richard Wyatt.qxp_Layout 1 27/08/2021 13:41 Page 1
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Richard Wyatt: Notes on a small city Columnist Richard Wyatt struggles to open a box of plasters after injuring himself while multi-tasking and remembers his accident-prone past
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I reached adulthood after the odd scraped knee (falling off bike on newly gritted road) and twisted ankle (tripping over kerb while running with bottle of milk), but well remember the couple of stitches I was awarded for missing my footing on failing to step over a landing well. I can even be a bit of an embarrassment to take out at times.
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My friend Allan would have done a health and safety check before seating me close to where his prized, spectacular chandelier hung
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have just been fighting with a difficult-to-open box of plasters, while blood trickles down my finger – but more of that shortly. Emergency over, and with a cup of tea in hand, I can now sit down to write this column. Putting in the word ‘September’ into Google I discover that autumn has arrived and that the kids return to school at the start of their academic year. Delving deeper, I chance upon a list of commemorative events for the month and note that 12 September is International Mindfulness Day. Now I know that this represents a therapeutic technique whereby you train yourself to achieve, as the dictionary puts it, ‘a mental state of calm by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment.’ However, bearing in mind what had happened to my finger earlier, I read it as trying to be more aware of where you happen to be and what you are doing. You see I tend to be accident-prone. Clumsy, some might say. I had risen early and in between yawns and feeding a hungry and impatient cat, was trying to empty the dishwasher. Putting away some recently purchased cutlery I had just placed the forks in their appointed place in a kitchen drawer when the blasted thing remembered it was equipped with a self-closing mechanism and carried out the manoeuvre with my hand still in it. I happened to be on the wrong side of the prongs of a sparkling new and sharp fork, and one of these prongs was driven into my finger. Luckily no-one else bore witness to the ‘war dance’ that took place, with me trailing spots of blood as I searched for the plasters. Having found them, it’s at times like this that you wonder why manufacturers can’t come up with an easier way of releasing such a first-aid device from its sealed packet at a time when you are trying to quickly patch your puncture and stem the flow. All is well, but my kitchen drawer drama took me back in time to the ten year old boy who thought he would show his father that HE could chop wood for the fire too. Within a few blows, I was running up and down the garden path clutching my thumb – which luckily had been hit on the nail side and was still in one piece, despite the bleeding. It’s a scar to remind me of my lack of care.
If such a procedure had been in place, my late friend Allan would have done a health and safety check before seating me close to where his prized, spectacular chandelier hung above the centre of the dining table. Amidst the warmth of the company and the wine, I was in the throws of an exciting conversation which involved the additional dramatic gesture of waving my arms about. You can guess what happened next and can imagine my host’s face as several strands of sparkling crystal glass landed in my creme caramel. Even more humiliating was a trip to London back in 2005 when I was walking past the BBC’s newly extended HQ Broadcasting House in Portland Place. Years ago I had enjoyed a training course in this historic, Art-Deco-styled home of radio and was interested to take in its transformation. Without watching where I was going, the toe of my shoe hit a slightly raised paving stone and l tripped, falling flat on my face and cracking a rib. I marvel at our current, smart-phone generation who seem to have developed a sixth sense when it comes to negotiating public space, in their ability to avoid obstacles (people or lampposts) without lifting their gaze from whatever social media cyber platform they are working on. I have been known to look avidly for guilty pleasures while sitting at an outdoor café table and watching these perambulating social media fans in the hope that, just once, this talent for avoiding collisions with street furniture would fail one of them. It hasn’t yet!! n Richard Wyatt runs the Bath Newseum: bathnewseum.com
12 TheBATHMagazine
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sepTeMber 2021
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issue 223
