Three Really Clever Things To Do on the Hottest Day of the Year

It is the hottest day of the year. Do you:

A- decide to cut the wildly overgrown front hedge with a pair of rusty shears
B - decide to clean all the downstairs windows, inside and out, plus the window frames and front door
C- decide to move, single handedly, a sofa from upstairs front bedroom to downstairs conservatory
D - do all of the above

Well, I thought it was a good idea at the time.

My Mum was thrilled when I phoned her to ask if I could borrow her garden shears. She's been commenting about the state of the hedge for several weeks now and has been wholly unconvinced by my wildlife garden theory.
'I've just tried cutting the hedge with our shears and they were bloomin' useless,' I said.
'I'll bring mine along immediately,' said Mum.
'Don't make a special journey, ' I said. 'When you're passing by will be fine.'

But Mum had been champing at the bit to 'tidy the eldest daughter's hedge,' and she wasn't going to let the opportunity slip by. Its window was, she could sense, very small.

'Stay out of the sun between 11 and 3,' recommend the Government agencies. 'For it is then that the sun is at its strongest.'

Time of cutting hedge - 1.30 to 2.15 p.m. But pah! to the Government. The Government have just insisted we spend £450+VAT on a HIP before we can sell our house. What a useless bit of paperwork. Still, as long as the revenue goes towards the upkeep of a ministerial Jaguar, it'll all be worthwhile.

I'd cleaned the windows earlier in the day, about the time the sun was creeping above the surrounding trees and highlighting the dust and murk and mire on the glass. And clean glass only serves to highlight grubby window sills so I had to do those as well. There are a lot of spiders nests around this time of year.

And the sofa? The sofa has been languishing in our bedroom for the last 3 or 4 years and is a dumping ground for clothes, books, bath towels, newspapers, magazines, pens, blood pressure monitors, hot water bottles and cats. Periodically it gets cleared off so it can be sat on but that state of affairs never lasts very long.

'Do you think we should move the sofa downstairs?' said Andy. 'To make the bedroom look bigger?'
'I think that would be an excellent idea,' I said.
'We could put it in the conservatory,' said Andy. 'To show the versatility of the space in there.'
'It will fill up the whole conservatory,' I said.
'But you could still sit on it if you climbed over the arm,' said Andy.
'True,' I said.

So I decided to move the sofa.

In hindsight, moving a sofa on one's own (especially when one is the only person in the house), is probably not the brightest idea in the world. But you know me - once I get an urge, I've got to act on it immediately. I thought, I can do this, it's only a two seater for heaven's sake.

Getting the sofa out of the bedroom involved shifting it onto the bed on one side and then off the bed on the other side avoiding various things like lamps and the telly. I had to make sure I had the angle right to get it through the door, using the open bathroom door as extra swingage space. So far so good. Admittedly, I was trapped at one point between the sofa and the bedroom door. But I wriggled through the gap made by the arm of the sofa leaning against the wall and thanked God I'd lost over 3 stones or I'd have got well and truly stuck.

Half way down the stairs I realised the sofa was considerably heavier than me. At the bottom of the stairs an audience of curious cats had gathered. I thought, if I let go of this deceptively heavy sofa there will be a instant cat rug formed in the hall. I'd been feeling pretty pleased with myself up to this point as I'd had the foresight to take my collection of Thelwell pony plates off the stairwell wall in order to avoid potential breakage.

'Steady as we go,' I said to myself, lowering the sofa inch by painful inch.
'What's she doing?' said Pandora.
'Being mental,' said Tybalt. 'I think we should get out of the way. I'm getting a sense of impending doom.'
'You can stay there if you like though, Pandora,' said Phoebe.

What I had failed to do in preparation for lowering the sofa down the stairs was to move the shoe cupboard at the bottom. As me and sofa reached the bottom of the stairs, me and the sofa became wedged against the shoe cupboard. I could go no further. I could go up. I could go up into the bedroom and abseil out of the window, nip around the back of the house and in through the back door, move the shoe cupboard and release the wodged-in sofa. That would have been the easy option.

But it was the hottest day of the year! Where would the fun have been in taking the easy option?? I was boiling. Sweat was pouring down my face and into my eyes. The easy option would have been the unadventurous option. So instead, (and I'm glad Andy knows I am alive and well as I haven't told him this part of the story yet) I limboed UNDER the very heavy sofa. And got stuck.
'What's she doing now?' said Pandora.
'Still being mental,' said Tybalt.

'This is good,' I thought. I couldn't move. The sofa was above me, hanging precariously twixt wall, bannister rail and shoe cupboard.

'What happens if I do this?' said Tybalt. And he threw himself against the shoe cupboard.
'DON'T DO THAT!' I shrieked, as the wobble of the shoe cupboard moved up into the sofa.
'Touchy, isn't she?' said Pandora.
'It's her hormones,' said Phoebe.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I sat under the sofa for a while wishing I had a book with me as it's the most boring way to spend time. I wouldn't recommend it. I thought, if I could reach the phone I could summon help from the Fire Brigade. That would be entertaining, being rescued by the Fire Brigade. All those burly firemen and their choppers...

...but then I thought, think of the publicity. It would be just the kind of story that'd make the Kent Messenger. I'd come across as a complete moron. 'WOMAN GETS STUCK UNDER SOFA ON HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR. "SHE'S A COMPLETE MENTAL CASE," SAID HER CATS.'

I did escape, dear reader. There was a lot of wriggling and sucking in of breath and edging of sofa and shoe cupboard bit by bit, but I emerged with all my toes and fingers intact and only a tiny bruise to my right thigh.

So if you want three really clever things to do on the hottest day of the year, can I recommend you do anything you like - just stay away from hedges, windows and sofas.