The Saga Continued

Sorry, had to go on with the rest of my day. Damn the world for interrupting my rant. Long story much shorter than intended:

Keys not in pocket. Dreaded feeling in pit of stomach ensure, followed by hour of fruitless combing of the fields we'd run through. Slightly incredulous that Stu hadn't seen it fall out of my pocket, as he had been behind me the whole time. Incredulity subsides and realisation that we are very much locked out of house, in slightly sweaty shorts and t-shirts with the weather going south of warm. For once in his life, Stu has not brought his phone.

Keys are nowhere to be seen, so we give up the search and rack our brains for other options. We know the landlord lives close by, we just don't know where. We know Stu has his number, in his phone, in the house (where his keys lie on the hall table). We know that, for the first time in ages, Mez has locked both the Yale and Chubb locks of front door because, ironically, she didn't want Stu having a go at her for not locking up properly. We know that the bathroom window is slightly ajar ... and that we live on the third floor of an old old building.

So Stu has the incredibly foolish idea, well, to be fair, brave but foolish, of scouring the neighbourhood for suitable ladders. We find a few, but unfortunately the owners are largely absent, as it's Friday night and everyone else is out having fun. I'm skeptical anyway, the bathroom window is really really high! It's been about 3 hours now, so we do the only thing I can think to do, we trudge back to my work to use the internet and see if we can track down our landlord that way.

Interesting fact:

In the UK, you have to sign up to be listed in a phone directory (as opposed to Australia where you have to request NOT to be listed). Landlord can't be found. Manager at work has a ladder though. So we trudge back home (a mile or so), hoisting our prize ladder with hope (ok, with me it was doubt) in our hearts. It's getting really cold. The ladder venture proves successful only in that Stu successfully manages to avoid killing himself and landing his dead weight on my head as I hover under an exceedingly shakey ladder. You know how a ladder, to be safe, should be about 1:4 ration horizontal to vertical. Yeah, well that only got us halfway to the window. You do the maths. Amazingly, he makes it to the window. Unfortunately, the window will not budge further. Unsteadily, Stu climbs back down.

We try the front windows, but due to the height at the front being even greater than that at the back. We are cold, hungry and tired by now, and we also have an audience in the form of practically the entire high street, who customarily wait in a line at the icecream shop two doors down from us every night. Our ladder antics (honestly, it could have been a silent movie, it was ludicrous) by this time have gained the attention of our neighbours.

Sorry, to be continued, again. It's late and I have to work tomorrow.

Stay tuned.