Mark Daniels: Smoking shelter fumble

I'm quite fussy about locking up the pub's car park at the end of the day. When the pub shuts I go round, check the car park for abandoned vehicles and chase the neighbour's cat that seems to enjoy using the petanque pitch as a giant kitty litter.

As usual, last night I did all of this then wandered - as I do - round to the front of the building to check the pavement and the tables there. We'd had darts in during the evening and, as is always the way with these things, cigarette butts were scattered everywhere: under the tables, on the benches; some smokers had even managed to get the remains of their tobacco fix in to the ashtrays themselves.

I'm quite conscious of the pub's image and I don't want the locals walking past the pub with their dogs first thing in the morning to see the place looking scruffy, so I did a spot of cleaning, put all the errant dogends in to the ashtrays and carried them to our smoking shelter, where they could remain in a neat little pile until this morning when I'd have more time to get the cleaning done properly.

As I put the ashtrays down on one of the tables, out of sight of the street, my phone beeped to say I'd got a text message - it was from a friend who I'd been doing a spot of computer repair work for. Basically, her machine was running slow, had no anti-virus protection, and in general just needed a bit of TLC. She wanted to know if it was ready.

Typing out an answer, I turned back towards the car park and was immediately beaten over the head by a very hard object. Probably, my brain told me immediately, a baseball bat.

With my head down, concentrating on the text message, I hadn't seen my assailant approaching and the whack on my head had hurt quite a bit. I dropped my phone in panic and tried to remember my Judo classes from when I was a child. About the only thing I could recall was my dad telling me that I needed to get in close, but in the melee I couldn't see where he was.

I put my hand out, felt the attacker's firm body and grabbed, pulling us together fast in the hopes that he wouldn't be able to swing his bat again, but instead he just punched me hard in the face. My glasses fell off and I dropped to the floor, wondering what to do next.

Looking up to see what sort of brute was about to finish me off and pillage my home, I saw my attacker: a ten foot tall solid wooden post that was one of several that support the roof of the smoking shelter. Nobody had hit me; instead, I had walked in to it.

Twice.

Tonight, I shall be leaving the smoking shelter lights on whilst I do my rounds…