Hot stuff

I have another course workshop coming up in May, and today I was investigating accommodation options. I was a bit horrified at how expensive everywhere seems to be. Bert's suggestions were helpful, as always:

• Ask the barrister if she will pay half of your hotel fee. (See my previous post)
  
• How about camping? That's your other option.

Bert seems to think that because the person I crashed into is a barrister with a Porsche means I (we) shouldn't have to cough up for the damage.

Anyway, in my last post I was so taken up with the Porsche incident I clean forgot to tell you about the fireman.

When I first arrived at the hotel for the last workshop, I was highly stressed because I'd got lost in the Oxford countryside and spent over one and a half hours driving around an area of about three square miles. So I quickly dumped my bags in my room and headed straight for the bar.

I soon spotted someone reading the text book for my course. I introduced myself and we had a nice chat getting to know each other. Then all of a sudden she jumped up muttering something about expecting a phone call, and left. I was really taken aback and thought I must have said something to offend her.

Then a guy who had just come in to the bar started talking to me and before I could respond he'd sat down next to me: "D'you mind if I sit here? Just say if you mind." He then regaled me with his life history, especially the fact that his wife had left him, that he had a house of his own, that he was ready to meet someone again, that he was there to learn how to drive the fire engine, what an amazing effect his uniform had on women, etc. etc. After a while, I made sure to make frequent mentions of my husband and children, my Catholic upbringing, my utter belief in monogamy, and my phobia of fire-related paraphernalia.

(I might not have tried so hard to repel him if he'd looked anything like this. But he looked more like this.)

The next day I said to my earlier companion, "I got chatted up by a fireman after you left last night." "Oh yes," she replied. "That happened to me too before you arrived!" Oh well thanks for the tip-off, I thought. Later that day it transpired that at least one of the other women on the course had also come in for the 'want to try my fireman's pole?' treatment. That we know of.

After I hurried back to my room, I texted Bert to tell him I'd been chatted up by a sad and lonely fireman. "Ah," he replied,"the perils of not having me there".