This is not just some ordinary garden fork. This is a garden fork with a history. This is a garden fork with blood on its hands (or prongs). This is a garden fork which caused the infamous words "I warned you not to do that" to be uttered. This is the garden fork that made my wellies leak when paddling in the sea and which prevented the 53rd argument with Sharon Buckley over which of us was going to wear the high-heeled shoes from the school dressing-up box.
I was six. The fork was considerably older with prongs that had been worn over the years to very sharp points. My dad was collecting up leaves and pitch-forking them into a wheelbarrow with a nice new, less lethal fork. I was 'helping'. Where it all went wrong was when I started walking along prodding the fork into the ground on each step. "Don't do that, you will end up putting it through your foot", my dad warned on more than one occasion. So, no need to say what happened next. I personally would say it wasn't my fault for being disobedient, but my dad's fault for letting me use a tool not designed for use by a six year old....but then I would say that.
I ended up with a hole straight through my foot (hence not wanting to fight over the high-heeled shoes- it hurt too much), a pair of leaky wellies and a story that gets retold every time I do First Aid training and the topic moves on to puncture wounds.
The fork has been left in the garden to this day to serve as a reminder to me what happens when I don't listen to what my dad says....I have never disobeyed him since.
