Yesterday my stepmother was intending to head off to Sydney for a couple of weeks, and round 9am decided to take her laptop on to the roof of the underground house that they live in, which my dad had built in the mid eighties, to connect to the aerial directly, presumably so she could check her emails before she set off.
She connected the laptop to the aerial, then sat down on the skylight, which after twenty something years had become somewhat brittle, and fell four metres into the dining area, hitting a piece of pottery and a bookcase on the way down. The fall resulted in three cracked vertebrae and lacerations which required stitching. As a result she will be in hospital for a minimum of two weeks, under strict orders not to move.
When I think of what could have happened, I think she has been very lucky not to have been injured more seriously.
As always, the dry with of my Uncle R, came forth in a telephone conversation with my Dad, not more than a few minutes after the ambulance had been called, when he said "That's a most unorthodox way of entering a house...."
My Dad, another exponent of dry humour, in yet another phone call shortly after, when asked whether she had left for Sydney said, "Well, she's about to leave the house, but there's a change of plans and she's going in the worng direction!"
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