Calamity

This is what it looks like when someone is trying to save themselves from falling off a rickety step ladder onto a basement floor, during a paint job, without spilling the paint can:

We had arrived in Chelmsford for the handover of keys from our tenants, expecting it to be a one night stayover to tidy up a little - can you spell naive??? 

Instead, we spent 4 days painting and cleaning, having arrived without anticipating we'd need to do this, as the tenants had had the house painted about 2 years ago. As typical South Africans, we decided to just make do ("boer maak 'n plan") with whatever we could find in the garage - I'm not sure this stepladder was ever intended as anything other than a prop or décor, but I decided I'd only use it for the highest parts that the stepstool was too low for. The steps were narrow, and swiveled when I ascended, and the whole structure wobbled and swayed about as I carefully climbed. I should have known better ...

Yes, a recipe for possible disaster, but I was sure I was being careful enough! I didn't factor in exhaustion by the end of the day, when my knees were aching and I didn't want to climb down and move the ladder yet again, so I overreached, and became airborne, of course!

The floor I landed on was hard concrete, but I appear to have escaped major injury. I was pretty shaken and confused for a while afterwards, thinking I'd cracked either my hip or my elbow, but nothing's broken or unable to function, and the next day I was back at it!

This is part of the finished job - this once brown, drab wood paneling has been transformed, and the room looks so much brighter, ready for the world to see.