We turned the corner of London Street and found Drummond Place in complete darkness. There was a huge roar overhead and dozens of police officers rushed along the pavement.
We heard the retaliation bomb screech as it dropped from the plane. It landed just a couple of streets away with a mighty blast. Astonishingly nobody was killed.
I screamed at TPR that it was not our car, but he was so determined to catch the “crooks” that he did not hear me. He leapt on top of the driver at the wheel of the red MGB to prevent it leaving the hotel car park. When he realised that the car was not ours, he was full of shame and struggled to express his apologies for his mistake.
This was his second misdemeanor of the day. Earlier on he had helped himself to some small bottles of milk that he found on a table in the ladies’ lavatories. He thought that these were free samples for guests. They were, in fact, bottles of breast milk expressed by the fierce hotel owner for consumption by her own children.
The incident with the MGB raised the question as to where to find our own car. All the hotel staff were assembled in hotel reception and questioned by the fierce hotel owner. A number were sacked during the interrogation. We eventually discovered that the car was stored in a garage at the back of the hotel. Our tandem was in a basement.
I found XY attempting to take the car out of the garage, which was crammed with other vehicles. He was not giving the job the attention that it required. He pulled the “wrong” lever and it brought another car crashing down on a brand new silver people carrier parked to the left of ours. Its Scandinavian tourist owners were distraught. XY had no idea what to do. I suggested that his insurance policy would perhaps cover the damage. For the time being, however, it was his responsibility to find a means of getting me, and the students that he was meant to be transporting, home.
How should the titles of the novels of Evelyn Waugh be translated into French? This was the challenge for me and JC as we wandered around an art gallery discussing the merits of A passage to India and Howard’s End.
I was an unwilling tourist in New York. KA and AM had forced me to cross the Atlantic, convinced that I would be interested in watching a basketball game starring TPR playing in the Sun Microsystems national team. I was not.
They soon picked up on my reluctance to join in the “fun” so abandoned me at the stadium where I spent the rest of the day organising my shoe collection.
It turned out that HH did not live on a farm, but in a massive Victorian house on Hutton Rudby High Street. It was here that she was hosting the school reunion.
Unfortunately the party proved very popular and before long word had spread round town that everyone was invited, regardless of their connection (or not) to our school. The gatecrashers all knew that venue was easily spotted: you just needed to look out for the house with a “for sale” sign posted against the front garden wall.
NP and SF decorated the room for the party – by shrouding everything in sombre black cloth.
Booking a ski-ing holiday that included studying for a qualification in French turned out not to be the best idea. It was now the end of our week away and I was bound to fail the exam. Instead of going to class, I asked TPR if we could have a late breakfast and then head up to the main slopes above the village to spend the rest of the day ski-ing.
Just as we were going into breakfast a fantastic sunrise broke over the mountains. I rushed to grab my camera, but in the time it took for me to find it the glorious red sky was no more. However, there were now other photo opportunities: the day was so still that the lake provided a perfect mirror for reflections of the mountains. As I ran over to position myself for a shot I fell into a bog, right up to my shoulders.
Although many people witnessed my accident, nobody made the slightest effort to come to the rescue and pull me out, not even TPR.
We were at yet another wedding and I had completely lost the plot. I’d left the invitation, card and present at home and couldn’t remember who was getting married this time. The only clue was that the reception was in a big hotel just off Darlington Road in Stockton, so I assumed that it must be a school friend. Someone mentioned the name Graham Matthews, but this meant nothing to me.
The whole day was rather peculiar. Never before had I come across a hotel that kept dinosaur crocodiles in its grounds, and I couldn’t understand why it was my job to look after an African family throughout the whole duration of the celebrations.
We set off down the motorway very early to ensure that we would beat the rush hour and make our flight from Gatwick in good time. Then, to shorten the journey time, TPR diverted onto the back roads that he knew from his travelling engineer days.
We stopped about half an hour short of our destination so that DT could change into a brown and red patterned wrap dress and JLW could set up her pop-up bakery. We chose some of JLW’s fabulous cakes for our breakfast.
WB urged us all to eat as much as possible: only one meal would be served on the eight hour flight so it was best to board the plane with a full stomach.
Dreamaticus 