TPR and my cousin N both left the shopping mall before I had a chance to put my change into my purse and gather my bags. When I eventually followed them out into the Toronto streets I could no longer see them. The plan was that we were heading home, but was the mode of transport by bus or on foot?

I started walking towards the apartment, then changed my mind. It was more likely that they would have decided to take the bus, so I turned around and headed for the bus stop instead. There I found N, but TPR was missing because he had disappeared to hunt for me. As usual, he did not have his mobile phone on him, so we had no way of letting him know that I was safe.

At the bus stop I also found SPL and JD (with whom I worked in the late 1980s). SPL had been brought in by a bunch of holiday-makers to translate a supposedly impenetrable Spanish seafood menu into English. This was a piece of cake for my recently qualified linguist friend.