In the office on Wednesday – trying to get things tied up neatly so I can have the rest of the week off.

Both my meetings turned out to be more contentious than I thought they would be and meant that I had to do extra work because other people hadn’t looked at all aspects of the problem.

Back to the office mid-afternoon to start tidying up and get an early go as I was on the bus (it takes an hour and a half on the bus as opposed to a ten minute car ride).  A snotty e-mail asking me to finish off a report asap.  A less snotty e-mail is sent explaining that I am about to go home and will get it done on Monday – in between the four meetings I have booked in for that day.

A call from our head of service explains that the report is needed before I go home so I stay because she ask me nicely and knows that this works better on me than any number of snotty e-mails.

The report is finished and sent off.  I pack up my stuff and decide to use my emergency money for a taxi because it is dark and cold and the buses are now on evening times – one every half an hour if you are lucky.

I call the taxi rank and a very jolly man says they can have one outside in five minutes.

Ten minutes later as I stand in the dark with a biting wind chilling every bone in my body, I turn down a lift to the bus station because hey! I have a taxi ordered – it’s a little bit late but….

After another five minutes I call the taxi rank again.  ~this time I get a considerably less jolly girl who says I’m next on the list but no taxis are available yet and she doesn’t know why the jolly man said five minutes because that’s just impossible.   I tell her that I’ll walk up to the main road and can the taxi pick me up from there – it’s kind of miserable standing outside work like Billy No Mates whilst everyone else is getting into their cars and going home.

Ten minutes later and still no sign of a taxi so I phone them and cancel.  I’m only five minutes away from the hospital and they have a freephone taxi service and a warm waiting area.

Except there is no answer on the freephone line.  So I decide to cut my losses and walk over to the bus stop outside the hospital.  It’s now been three-quarters of an hour since I left work and I am cold and very hacked off.  So I text my husband for some sympathy – which I get.  And I phone my son for some sympathy  – which I don’t get because he’s been busy on a flight simulator and hasn’t even noticed that I’m not home yet.

And I wait.  three buses go up the road, none come back.  there are five of us at the bus stop and another person joins us to say that there has been a big accident in the town and it’s affecting traffic.  I try four more taxi ranks – no one has cars available for at least half an hour and they all blame congestion.  I think of phoning friends for a lift but feel that I being a bit wussy.

It gets colder; I can’t feel my feet and I text for more sympathy.  being the lovely man that he is, my husband phones round from work and on only his second call finds a friend who is not only in but who will come and get me in the next ten minutes.

Janice saved me.  she sped up in her little red Corsa with the heating on full blast to warm me up.  My son (on his father’s orders) had prepared some mulled wine for me.  Two and a quarter hours to get home.

Thank you Janice.