Missing Jean: Mortality

Whilst the issue of Health & Safety is topical regarding the protest camp outside St Pauls Cathedral and the astonishing resignation of senior clerics, I got a taste of reality today (for the first time) as I clambered onto my roof to do some essential repairs. I am no longer a young man, and actually got stuck and was aware I was about to slide down the steep roof and to a probable death, from some four stories up. I thought I would just pull myself up onto the top of the dormer window I built in 1995 and view my plan of action as to what scaffolding I needed to construct in order to carry out my repairs (which was more a matter of completing some cladding on the original build of the dormer window). I struggled whilst fear kicked in.

In 1995 I totally redesigned and rebuilt the roof, constructing a polythene and batten tent over the house and constructed my own scaffolding using a hefty timber framework. After all the majority of scaffolding globally is made of wood (bamboo). What I overlooked then, because I was young, fit and an ex rock climber, was the erection of safety barriers and harnesses. Although my intention today was not to walk too far unsupported on a 42 degree tiled incline with gym shoes I was shocked at how I lacked the strength to straddle a mere metre of roof and pull myself up onto the roof of the dormer window, which I eventually completed gripped by fear! This had never happened to me before and I had defied in my head getting older. A man half my age would have struggled to do this. So the realization of one's mortality hit home as I sit here and sketch out the improvised scaffolding platform I will build, including safety harness and anchor points should I slip. All common sense stuff of course. The preparation for a few hours work will take a good day and the biggest issue I now realize I have to deal with is the fear of walking the plank so high up.

As a young man I was a gymnast and even as recent as 2006 (when I was 62 years old!) I was teaching guys in their twenties how to do back somersaults into a pool in Dordogne. I had been invited to join a working party of young woodworking friends from Bristol. The fear was not so much to do with physical agility (as indeed I was very unfit in 2006) but was about mental attitude and much of tumbling gymnastics is about mindset, without it you break your neck easily.

My realization today is that I am not as strong physically as I thought I was and I somehow kidded myself I would be. There is no moral to this impromptu blog other than to suggest you don't know your limitations until you push them, but that we have to adapt, hopefully gradually but it was for a good reason I thought I was Peter Pan - who wants to get old! Now I have to change my mindset and plan at some time in the future my wooden stairlift while I am still fit enough to build it. What an exciting challenge. Now, possibly it will be solar powered because were going to run out of energy soon .....