I’d loved him for some time now, but his drunken advances, although flattering, were not welcome – especially in front of my parents. When he followed me upstairs to my hotel room I was suddenly overcome with a chill of fear. What would happen if he insisted in coming inside?
I needn’t have worried: he was apprehended on the landing by hotel staff who knew that he didn’t have a booking. He would be ejected from the hotel and I would be able to sleep in peace, free of his attention and inappropriate questions about the state of my marriage.
The next day, when it was it was time for me to check out, the hotel staff could not find my suitcase, even though they had previously issued a receipt for it. I couldn’t wait for them to empty every case in their storeroom to find my belongings so I said that they could keep them if they ever found them. (It later turned out that I had not left my suitcase at the hotel. It was safely stored in the cellar at home!)
Our journey home was difficult because all the trams and buses were fully booked and there were no hire cars available. JC stewarded us to the railway station to catch a train one stop from where a taxi would drive us back to Edinburgh at a cost of £100.
As we waited for the taxi (in competition with a blonde woman in a pink and blue wool dress) we watched the festival parade pass by along the main road. This was part of the entertainment on the day of a fun run. The most impressive display was a Victorian funeral procession complete with glossy black horses decorated with feathers in their halters. Then we spotted TPR in a red car with two small children in the back. He brought news that the run had ended in disaster when a competitor had been killed in road traffic accident.
Dreamaticus 