Climbing the Tower of Babel: Ken Gibbs

Earlier, I wrote a short piece on a visit I made to Bhutan where I was expected to walk around 2 miles to, and the same distance back from, a school which had been earthquake affected in the east of Bhutan.  It was the return trip that did for me – and I thought I’d never make it. . . . .but somehow dragged my feet the last couple of hundred feet horizontally and vertically (which was the real problem).

Now that I am well retired to the north coast of Cornwall, you’d think I would remember that last climb in Bhutan – but you don’t know Cornish workmen who can defeat the ‘best laid plans of mice and men’.

Let me explain:  My wife and I are getting to a stage where we think that ‘downsizing’ is probably wise and to afford to downsize, we will eventually need to sell the property we have lived in for the last 26 years which was originally built in 1901 and modified at various times by various owners till we took over the house which was in need of serious modification even then. 

Move on to the present and the house had begun to show its age and we felt that it needed to be spruced up outside to make it look attractive.  We called for tenders and swallowed hard and agreed to let one company undertake the work.

Scaffolding was erected to enable the painters to reach both chimneys, and the rain started in earnest.  By the end of one month, one of the decorators had managed to chip away loose mortar on one of the chimneys ready for plastering and painting when the rain started again.

An interlude of dry weather for a couple of days allowed for preparation for high level painting and the painting of the second chimney and all high-level fascia boards.  Alleluia !  Now the scaffolding could be taken away so that low level painting could commence.  The scaffold company staff arrived late morning on a Saturday.

It was the period while this decommissioning of the scaffolding was taking place that I was launched to buy the Saturday paper and get provisions for the weekend.  I walked out to do my duty arriving back to find that the scaffolders had managed to block our driveway so efficiently that it was impossible to enter or leave the premises until they had completed their work.  I had to phone my wife to request a ladder to be passed to me so I could climb over the boundary wall (they call them Cornish hedges here).  She protested but was reassured that she only had to hand one of the painters’ ladders to me and I would do the rest.

At 82 years of age, I don’t bend as easily as I used to, but I knew that if I did things methodically, I probably wouldn’t come to grief.  I passed the shopping bag to my wife who handed me the painters’ ladder in exchange – with which I managed ‘to do the necessary’ despite many and varied instructions from my wife lest I break one of the plants on the Cornish hedge.  I repaired to the kitchen where I could wash my hands and then make myself a congratulatory cup of coffee in the kitchen.

All the while we had five or six men disassembling the scaffolding, so I elected to sit it out and read the paper.  My wife disappeared.  Was she brooding over the intrusions into the family nest, I wondered ?  After an hour passed and all had remained quiet in the house, the phone rang and it was my wife who was visiting a 90 year old neighbour, so I asked first of all, how did she get there; and was there a problem ?

Apparently there was because my wife couldn’t find the ladder to allow her to scale the wall to return home.  I was astonished because she hadn’t said anything about leaving the property to go walkabout – as she must have needed a ladder to be able to climb out of the property.  I would have advised her to wait till the scaffolders had left had I known she was intending this course of action.

So, my 80-year old wife is outside the property while the ladder she needed to return lay on my side of the wall, so I went there and handed it over the wall to her, ensuring that she planted the feet securely before ascending the ladder.  She managed to climb to the top where I offered my hand to steady her – which was spurned despite her being a bit wobbly on her feet.  Somehow she steadied herself and I was able to pull the ladder over to my side of the wall and lean it so she could descend with me trying to bend tree branches out of the way lest they scratch her.  It was just as well that she was wearing jeans for this sort of manoeuvre.  I should explain here that Cornish hedges come with a goodly mix of black-thorn, white-thorn, nettles and brambles – not to mention sticky-willie and all sorts of other plants there to dissuade one from trying to cross over.  My wife was not going to let such inconveniences stand in her way.  I, too, was swept aside, and she alighted, apparently undamaged.

Naturally, the scaffolders finished about 20 minutes later, and we’d have saved ourselves a lot of indignity if we had exercised just a little patience. . . . . .

At about 5.30 pm, my wife asked if I would like a fire – which usually was a signal that she wanted one but didn’t want to be thought of as being a bit soft – so I said that I was cold and yes, and we should have a fire.  Under normal circumstances, fire lighting is considered a wifely duty, but this time, I had to take over as she presumably had over-exercised herself earlier.  Happily, even a male of the species can, under certain circumstances, strike a match and light the paper and kindling, successfully.

The household retired early that evening, and slept deeply though there were grumbles about stiff knees and scratches from the plants on the Cornish hedge.

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Thinking of ladders and climbing, reminded me of a picture painted by an indigenous artist in Zimbabwe in 1947, of an interpretation of the Biblical ‘Tower of Babel’. This was produced under the guidance of my Godfather, who was a priest, and who presumably instructed the artists accordingly.  The painting was passed on to me and it hangs in my study at home and, because my wife has taken over the desktop computer in the study, she sees this painting every day.  Perhaps this has inclined her into thinking that walls are just there to be climbed – like the Tower of Babel ?

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Ken Gibbs can be contacted via kengibbs1941@gmail.com

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