VJ and I made our escape from the Gaelic concert at Edinburgh airport and ran along the cycle path in the direction of Duddingston Loch.

To make the race fairer, I agreed not to use my arms. This soon gave VJ a significant lead. Watching her from behind, I admired the ‘mountain goat’ techniques that she deployed along the route when scaling obstacles such as waterfalls.

I finally caught up with VJ beside the main road in Joppa. I showed her the discarded Victorian gravestone that I had picked up and carried most of the way.

‘I’ll have that!’ V shouted as she made a grab for it.

She thought my bounty ideal as an item to display in her AirBnB accommodation. The guests were bound to appreciate two particular words applied to the person memorialised in the carved stone: ‘too horny’.

Meanwhile I worried about the fate of my iPhone. I’d left it at the airport with a former student who had recognised me in the crowd. I didn’t know his name, and he didn’t know my address. The last that I saw of him was in the departure lounge just as the Gaelic choir was setting up. There was an outside chance that the choir leader (VJ’s friend M) might have spotted him. However, realistically, I had probably lost my iPhone forever.