I am worried and your regular text updates do help but I would feel happier knowing you were on a flight back.
And I know you are more than capable of handling yourself but this all sounds horrendously dangerous.
So please be careful and please come back soon.
And okay in the meantime I need to keep you up to speed with things at this end.
Nothing nearly as exciting happening here except for some major misunderstandings with the Dashing Major's neighbours who apparently all think I'm his significant other. Stop laughing!
This seems so banal given what is happening with you but here goes.
So I nipped out to get something from the local supermarket and when I got back there is an elderly lady with a couple of heavy shopping bags at the entrance to the building. She had successfully opened the outer door with her key fob but then had dropped her keys and was struggling to pick the bags up. So I offered to carry her bags in as I had comparatively little in mine and to take them to her flat. It then turned out that she is on the same floor as the Dashing Major just on the opposite side of the corridor and a door down.
Let's call her Miss Humbug.
So having established that I was staying with the Dashing Major she was insistent that I come in for a cup of tea. And I didn't have the heart to say no because she lives alone and seemed rather keen that I should stay for a while. Not that I could have said much because I barely got a word in edge-ways. Which is when I met her cat. For reasons that will be more obvious later let's call him Houdini.
I quite like cats. And Houdini quite liked me it seemed. So much so that I was struggling to leave without him digging his claws into my legs when I tried to stand (he having taking up residence on my lap) or wrapping himself around my legs when I finally did get up and try to kill me by tripping me up.
This amused Miss Humbug no end.
Anyway what must have been a good hour later I managed to leave. And as far as I was aware, in fact no I would say with every degree of certainty, I left Miss Humbug and Houdini in her flat when I left.
The Dashing Major expressed some surprise that I had been gone so long but I explained about Miss Humbug and he told me what a lovely lady she was and how bad he felt that he had forgotten that week to offer to get her shopping for her. All okay so far.
So we cooked and chatted about the day and how the training was going (oh I must tell you about that but it may need to wait for the next instalment) and how the changes to the website were going and the usual sort of stuff when we heard a noise. It seemed to be coming from the bedroom I'm using in the flat.
As it seems to be an unspoken rule that he does not enter that room whilst I'm in occupation I went to see what it was.
And there, sat on the bed, was Houdini. Meowing. And when he saw me he rolled onto his back (Houdini - not the Dashing Major) and offered his very furry tummy for tickling (ditto).
Not wanting to encourage this behaviour and thinking that he must have snuck out when I was leaving Miss Humbug's flat I did not oblige with the tickling. I picked him up, carried him through the flat, passed the now confused looking Dashing Major and back to Miss Humbug's.
I think she may be hard of hearing but she eventually answered her door and expressed surprise that Houdini had got out and thanked me for returning him. Naughty Houdini. And in he went and door was closed.
I won't bore you with the rest of our evening, although it was very pleasant and not at all boring really but nothing to do with this story, but in the wee small hours of the morning (2.14am by my watch) I was aware of something snuggling into the back of my legs. And purring.
So clearly not the Dashing Major unless he has some very strange practices.
And on putting the light on there curled up and snoozing is Houdini.
Now I don't want to question the quality of the security in the flat but how the hell does a big fat ginger cat get into a locked apartment. There are no cat flaps that I've seen.
And then I had the conundrum of whether I should return him, and in the process waking Miss Humbug up at that ungodly time and what would that do to her nerves, or leaving him there but creating some kind of precedence.
But by now I was wide awake so I got up. Houdini gave me that look that only cats can that seemed to accuse me of disturbing him from his sleep, curled up tighter and went back to sleep.
So now I had no bed (without condoning the presence of my bed fellow) and no alternative but to make my way to the lounge (turning off the alarm) - see there is a bloody alarm!! how did he not trip that?! - with a view to sleeping on the settee.
Me moving around the flat at that time in the morning must have awoken the Dashing Major because he came to see if everything was okay and so I took him to the bedroom to show him Houdini.
He was as perplexed as I was as to how the cat had got in. And he too thought that it was not fair on Miss Humbug to wake her at that time so we would just have to leave him there.
But it was ridiculously early and he would not let me sleep on the settee so I had to sleep in his bed and he would sleep on the settee. Dashed your hopes there didn't I?
And you can check this with him but we both checked that Houdini was in my room when I went into the Dashing Major's and I shut the door behind me and got into bed.
And when I woke at 6.30 am Houdini was curled up on the bottom of the Dashing Major's bed. And the door was still closed. I tell no lies. And he was scratching his head when I showed him (the Dashing Major - not Houdini - he was asleep). But it was still too early to return him so we had to leave him there.
We had breakfast on the balcony as it was such a lovely morning and that's when I met the Dashing Major's next door neighbours Dapper Dave and Homely Harry. and their 4 year-old son. I was introduced but with no context - no this is my friend - just names and so they were all smiley with each other and I then didn't feel able to clarify that I was only a friend but it was clear that they thought I was something more.
Oh they weren't lingering on the Dashing Major's balcony by the way. They were out on theirs and it is within conversation distance.
Anyway we explained about Houdini which they also thought was very odd - and just a bit creepy. So instead of heading off to the office we had to hang around until it got to an hour we felt that we could disturb Miss Humbug. And by this time Houdini was complaining that he was hungry. Tough ****.
And then we returned him again and Miss Humbug was rather embarrassed but also at a loss to understand how he could have got out and into the Dashing Major's flat. But as we were leaving to go, and I was through the door first so I think she thought I was out of earshot, heard her telling the Dashing Major that she was so pleased that he had a girlfriend and she thought that I was wonderful.
And he did not correct her.
But then neither did I ...
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