A Falling Front Door

It was an interesting weekend last weekend for a number of reasons, a few of which I'll share with you. The rest I have forgotten.

On Saturday it was Mum's birthday. She was 21 again. She always seems to be 21. It has had me perplexed since I was small.

Anyway, despite it being her 21st birthday she had to go on a course for her work so she left us in the capable hands of Dad and, later, Gran too.

The day began by me getting up and giving Mum a lovely present. Soon after she had opened many presents and left us. So Dad started to be as annoying as he could. This, on the whole, is exceptionally annoying and he seemed to think it would help persuade me to go swimming with him and my sisters later. His thinking was wrong. I soon got fed up and told him so.

After breakfast I decided that walking the dogs would be a good idea. No one wanted to come with me so I stepped out the front door alone (apart from the dogs, but here I am speaking of human company) and, I suppose, slammed it. It was not a slam of disgust but a slam of necessity as our door is very difficult to shut. Only I didn't hear the crash of the slam. So I turned to see the reason. The reason was immediately clear, though only half concluded. The front door was falling irretrievably toward the car (parked on the drive). There was a grind as the door hit the car and a crunchy thud (our drive is gravel) as it continued the fall to the ground. At this point I called Dad.

"Dad! Dad! Dad, the front door has fallen off!"

I think he was quite surprised to hear such words and even more surprised when he found them to be true. Anyway, I laughed a bit because it was a laugh or cry moment, and, admittedly, partly because he had been quite annoying. I left him to get the tools out and walked the dogs. When I returned the door was still on the ground but Dad had readied most of the door for rehanging. It was at this point that Gran arrived.

"Gran, the front door has fallen off," I said as she walked along the path. She looked at where the door should be, at where it was and burst out laughing. Then we told her that the car was scratched.

"Oh, well that's not so funny then," said Gran.
Dad has a bad arm so I helped him to sort the rest of the door and to hang it.

It closes much easier now, so whoever the carpenter was who hung (I believe that word is now correct English, but please feel free to complain if you know better) it previously needs a new vocation.

After the door was up and closing well we sat down for lunch. So the battery in the charger decided to explode. (At this point I should explain to younger readers that "explode" does not necessarily mean balls of fire and loud bangs, I'm pretty sure it basically means things coming apart, usually fairly suddenly. In this case it was just a hole forming in the battery and battery acid shooting halfway across the kitchen.) I was quite sensible and turned the power off immediately.

It was not, so far, a good day.

In the evening we went out for a meal. That was lovely, bar the discovery that my mother is almost completely bonkers. She had spent her course hugging trees and making a giant mallet, which she thought appropriate to bring into the restaurant and show us all. Her mallet is basically a log, half of which has been filed (well, axed) down to make a handle. To Mum it is a triumph in carpentry, to a caveman it is something a three year old should be ashamed of. Isn't it amazing what civilisation does to the mind?