A CAUTIONARY
TALE…

I am holding my sister, Libby, responsible. Her generosity in allowing me unfettered access to her elegant apartment in Belfast, was irresponsible. After a leisurely breakfast, it was time to vacate. An exhaustive check to ensure all belongings were accounted for, and the latch was dropped. No need to put the spare keys in her outside postbox, as directed.

I had not driven very far across Belfast when the first horror struck…my phone was on the charger in a corner of her living room. Damn! I am locked out! A brief panic while I tried to figure out how to contact Libby without a mobile phone, in the twenty first century. When the head fog cleared, the answer was simple: find a coffee shop, then find another coffee shop with a parking spot nearby, take your laptop which fortunately had been retrieved during the pre-vacation search (see above), buy an Americano, get the wifi password, muck around wifi settings, consult with staff to establish correct network, then re-enter eighteen-digit password. Simple!

Libby organises her kitchen fitter to drop off a spare set of keys in the postbox and advises that I will need a coathanger to fish them out. Briefly consider a detour to Dunnes Superstores- “do you sell shirts on wire coathangers?” Employing ingenuity, patience and compassion, Libby comes up with another solution. By 2pm, I am happily installed in PRONI (Public Records Office NI) where I am researching my next literary masterpiece. Only a morning wasted-not too bad. Happily snapping records with restored mobile phone. I am a member of every major archive and library in London, Dublin and Belfast, but I find the PRONI staff are outstanding, consistently friendly and helpful. Once again, they did not disappoint…though I was understandably worried about asking them to cut me another ID card, the second in two days to have mysteriously disappeared.

PRONI closes at 4.45 and I trudged off to the car park at the Odyssey in the Titanic Quarter. Those of you familiar with that car park will know the scene of my next horror, the small building, right in the middle, which houses a payment machine. I had paid there yesterday but today, the front door was locked. I walked back to my car at the rear, trying the back door as I passed. To my surprise, it opened, and I entered a staff area. I could see the payment machine in the front office, so I opened an adjoining door which closed behind me. I put my ticket into the machine and paid the bill. Retrieving the receipt and intent on a hasty exit, you can imagine my surprise when I realised the intervening door was now securely closed behind me. I was locked in! When the high-pitched alarms went off, I knew what cornered rats felt like. With the siren searing into my eardrums, the next thirty minutes were spent trying to conjure an escape. Just the other side of the window grill, I could see the heavy-duty Yale key which would open the front door. If only I had a coathanger, fishing it out would have been easier than hooking a duck at the fairground. Despite an abundance of available material, nothing could be fashioned as a coathanger. Removing the aerials from walkie talkies gave me three unsuccessful darts at the prize. Failure broke the spirit. I called the police, relying on a defence of insanity and senility. Two security guards and two policemen soon turned up. I have to say they were all very gracious. Adept at handling doddering, old gits, the policemen decided not to caution.

What a day! I had been locked in, locked out and damn near locked up. I will never again venture out without a coathanger.