Well, I am safe back inside the Little House ....
Last night when I arrived back home after a long and tiring day of travelling by bus and train and taxi and another train and another taxi and another bus, I discovered to my shock and exhausted frustration that I couldn't get into my house.
It is a curious and not in any way good experience to stand in front of the door of your own house, key in hand, and the key doesn't work anymore. All I wanted was to drop into my bed, just ten feet away, and I couldn't get through the door. There I was, with a heavy suitcase, standing in the rain, at midnight, feeling very very sorry for myself.
What's a woman to do? I fleetingly considered to just sit down and cry until the universe took notice and sorted something out, but dismissed this thought as unworthy of a person of my grit and caliber. So I gathered up my belongings, and, sighing heavily, went to the next hotel.
The Coach and Horses is just around the corner from where I live, and there was still a light on, so I rang the bell. Several times. Finally the lady of the house came to the door, heard my tale of woe, and took me in. She doesn't usually have guests on Sundays, being low on staff on those days, but made me up a bed, cleaned the bathroom, and made me most welcome. Worry not, said she, tomorrow we will sort something out.
I crawled into bed and went straight to sleep - not! Instead I tossed and turned and worried why my house was closed against me. After fifteen minutes of this I got tired of worrying, and decided that I really couldn't be bothered to spend half the night imagining every single possible scenario of why my house had turned against me and how I could remedy the situation. So I distracted myself by counting my scarves, and fell asleep almost immediately.
The next day I tracked down my friend who had been keeping an eye on the house while I was away. I was lucky, she was having breakfast in the usual place and visibly paled when she saw me coming! She had thought that I was away for another day and had planned to set her husband the task of getting into the house - she couldn't get in, either. Guilt pored from her every pore, although it had really not been her fault, as I was to find out soon thereafter.
Having thus established that my friend hadn't become a turncoat who changed the locks to steal my house, I returned to the hotel. My landlady knew a locksmith, who, upon being assured that I would pay handsomely if he turned up asap, tackled the door. It took him quite a while, and any number of lock-picking tools, until he finally managed to open the door. Apparently the lock had moved/slipped, it was an accident waiting to happen, and needed sorting out. So now I have a new lock. And am a lot poorer! I am like Job, once rich, now poor ....
But I am not complaining, it could have been worse. At least I had my suitcase, with my toothbrush etc - imagine if this had happened at the end of one of my one-day Paris trips on a Saturday? A Saturday which is followed by a Sunday, when no one works? Two nights in a hotel without a toothbrush etc, and the same amount of aggro.
Anyway, I am now once again Queen in my own castle. Long may it last!
That nice lady at the Coach and Horses gave me a steep discount, too - would you believe it? If you ever have to stay in Oxford, stay there!
http://www.oxfordcoachandhorses.co.uk/index.html
