It all started when a magazine editor contacted me to ask if I could email a photo of myself. This was to go with an article I'd written ages ago and had almost forgotten about. Of course she needed it straight away. I hadn't got a suitable one. Husband to the rescue with his digital camera. 'It'll be best taking it outside to get more light,' he said. So out we went.
I closed the front door after us, not realising that when Ian opened it, he'd left the key on the inside. Closing the door locked us out! I'd gone outside with no coat and wearing a thin T-shirt and flip-flop slippers, as I'd expected to be only a few seconds. It was a freezing cold day.
After a heated squabble on the doorstep about whose fault it was that we were locked out, we decided we'd be best channelling our energy into thinking about what to do. We wandered around the house and decided it was burglar-proof. Meanwhile, I was slowly freezing to death. Ian, too, was only wearing a T-shirt, but he belongs to the strange species who go out jogging like that in all weathers, so I figured it was worse for me.
Our neighbours are usually out at work during the day, so what a relief it was to see our neighbour's car. It turned out she was off work sick. A few months ago she would have had our spare key for the back door, but we'd lent it to a workman who had fitted our new kitchen, and never given it back to her. Anyway, we rang a locksmith from her house, who arrived about an hour later.
The locksmith couldn't open our front door, so he had to drill into our back door and then fit a new lock. This cost us £132. Damn it!!!
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About Me
- Jean
- Hi, I'm Jean. I'm fifty-something, married to Ian, and live in West Yorkshire. I'm a writer, and part-time mental health worker. My memoir 'The Dark Threads' is published by Accent Press. As a mixed-up, depressed teenager in 1968 I was heavily drugged, given electric shock treatment, reduced to a zombie and, by age 20, 'written off' as suffering from chronic schizophrenia (a misdiagnosis, evidence suggests). I managed to jump out of the net in 1974 and went on to build up a life for myself. Today life is good, good, good. I have a first-class BA (Hons) degree in Combined Studies (literature and psychology), and qualifications in counselling skills. 'The Dark Threads' is my first book. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Threads-Jean-Davison/dp/1906373590
4 comments:
Ouch indeed! I think I should have been a locksmith.
Lucky your neighbour was in though. Have you given her a spare key yet???
Yes, Lane, I immediately gave our neighbour a spare key. But I can still hear the sound of a door closing and a horse bolting in the distance!
I once got locked out of my flat because the wind blew the outside door shut on me - luckily a kindly neighbour climbed a ladder up to my balcony - it was a hot summer's day so the balcony door was open. He got in, came downstairs and opened the exterior door for me. Phew. But I still remember that awful pang when the door slammed shut, so you have my deepest sympathy!
Lucky that you had an agile neighbour Lorna. Yes, it's such an awful feeling when you realise what's happened.
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