I NEARLY WASN'T HERE TODAY

Every night at about 10.30pm I come out into my work room, wake my computer up and check on anything that has to be done before I go to bed. Last night was different and how glad I am that it was. I have been doing this for months without fail.

My other half and I had been watching a DVD and at 10.00 I suddenly remembered it was the first Footy Show for the year (Aussie Rules football that is) so decided to turn to that channel and check it out.

Half an hour later there was tremendous crash from the back of the house but when OH checked the back verandah he said all was OK. Although I could think of nothing in there that could have caused such a noise, I suggested he look in my work room and what we saw was unbelievable. For 20 years (give or take a year of two) there has been this huge set of shelves (about 4'6" x 6"...you can make that metric if you prefer) which has been sitting on top of a very sturdy lower cabinet. There were some books, photo albums, boxes of photographs etc. etc. and my radio/CD/cassette plus lots of CDs and tapes.

The whole lot was tipped over on the floor. It had landed on my large chair right where I would have been sitting at my computer. I may have survived but I am sure I would have been seriously injured. My arthritis makes me rather slow moving and without any warning I doubt I would have got out of the way of everything that fell. I had the same feeling that folk who miss catching a plane must have when they hear of that plane having crashed. Why did that happen? Why on that one night did I not come out here to my work room? The only answer I have is that only the good die young!!!

Nearly all my family are away on holiday for a few days and I am so glad they were not contacted with some bad news about what had happened to me.

I wondered if white ants (termites) had somehow gotten into the shelving but no nothing like that at all and it is still quite intact. My brother says we must have a ghost but if this is true then he is a friendly fellow 'cos he made sure I wasn't injured.

I have to say a special thanks to my dear old OH who, helped me pick up everything off the floor and then carefully managed to tip the shelving even further and we got it outside through the back door. All this done on a day when the temperature topped 41C with no airconditioning out here. For a man of 80 my OH is really fantastic.

My main problem now is to re-sort all those dozens and dozens of photographs but that is a small price to pay with regard to an event that could have been an absolute disaster.