Luggage sorted – check
Travel card taken – check
Packed-lunch packed – check
So around nine in the morning, I left to go the office that sunday to pick up some stuff. By the time I got back it was about a quarter to ten. As I got closer to the house, I realised that I had forgotten to take my keys. All my luggage was inside the house, and I had a train to catch by ten-thirty! The seriousness of my predicament sunk in when I figured out that my housemates had left an hour ago, and the only other couple who had a key to the house, were away on holiday. Help!
I called my landlady, and as she suggested tried looking under all the flower pots – and found crawley insects and dried mud.
10:03 am - Tried all the office keys that I had hoping one would click in place – in vain.
By now I was panicking, and I called my poor landlady again, who in turn had also begun panicking for me since she knew I had a long journey ahead. I had an interview the next day, and I figured that if a solution didn't present itself within the next few minutes I was going to head to the station and catch my train with nothing more than my purse, my phone and some documents – I was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans and didnt even have a jacket!!! By now I was praying hard – desperate and very very nervous at the ticking clock.
!0:08 am - I finally banged on the door of the guy who lives in front of us and pleaded for help. Poor chap, here he was enjoying a peaceful Sunday morning... Anyway he came around with a tall ladder and tried prying open the front windows on the first floor unsucessfully.
10:10 am - The next door Indian lady was involved in the drama at this point. She allowed us to carry the tall ladder through her narrow, long house (which was a feat in itself).
10:16 am - We propped it up against the back wall and then Michael (the guy with the ladder) clambered over the roof of their conservatory, and then shimmied along the our kitchen roof, before making it to my bedroom window, which thankfully was open. As we saw his legs disappear through it, I couldn't help wonder if my room was tidy enough, I didnt want to scandalise my poor benefactor ... I figured however, in the grand scheme of things it didnt matter if my underwear was lying around!
10:16:30 am – He opened the door. (Major sigh of relief)
10:18 am – Grabbed my bags, reset the alarm, and I found myself out of the house and in the front seat of his car. He'd kindly offered me a lift to the station.
10:20 am – I couldn't believe I'd made it with ten minutes to spare!!!
xxx
Got to Southampton in good time, then spent the next two hours tramping it to my lodging for the night. A lovely family welcomed me into their home. I spent the evening listening to the tiny three kids chatter, and then reading them an encyclopedia for a bed time story!! Later on the parents and I chilled out with a tv dinner. The mum, who is a splitting image of Jacqui Kennedy, is a head-hunter herself and we had a great chat over dinner. Before breakfast, the next day, we managed a game of hide and seek, but then it was time for the oldest one to go to school.
That morning I had a two hour interview, which was more of an informal chat, and which resulted in me being offered a writing internship with Damaris. I was given two weeks to get back to them. Later that afternoon, I caught a bus to go check out the apparently famous Ocean Village. Fifteen minutes into the ride, I turned to the little old lady behind me to ask her how much longer it would take, only to find that we had already gone through it! Grrrr! So I just sat the ride out, until the last stop and got off at a little village called Hamble. I shambled around the tiny shops, bought myself some lunch and found a bench down by the quay, over which I hung my tired legs while I ate and watched the gulls squabble for the leftovers.
xxx
So I find myself back home, decision made – I am going to move down to Southampton, find a part-time job to help pay the bills and begin that internship (about which I am a whole lot more excited than I sound, it is the move to Soton, as they call it, that does not excite me at all, anyway I'm trying not to moan ;) )
I left a box of cookies for my 'Knight With a Shining Ladder' the other evening. A few more weeks left in dear old Lboro'
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