The real McCoy

Luminaries interviewed in the Racing Post are often asked to name four people they would most like to have dinner with. Lucky enough to enjoy a pub lunch last week with three who would certainly qualify for my dinner-table four — Henrietta Knight, Terry Biddlecombe and Mick Channon — I felt something of a fraud as I limped in and eased myself carefully into the most comfortable seat. They are used to sympathising with those who have injured themselves falling off horses: your columnist had managed to injure himself rather more prosaically — falling off a wheelie bin. Yes, a wheelie bin.

Having stripped large chunks of ivy off our walls and stuffed it into our green bin for collection it seemed a good idea after a late-evening whisky to mount a stepladder, jump into the top of the bin and compress it to make room for more ivy. Unfortunately the bin toppled and I was deposited with some force on to one of two large stone balls which, in a moment of enthusiasm in a scrapyard, I had purchased with a view to mounting them on our gate pillars.