Clutch came over this afternoon for a couple of whiskies and to play musical join the dots – a game in which I play a song from my collection, then he plays another from his that is connected in some way (the rules are a bit vague). Bobbie was upstairs with the laptop watching something and generally keeping out of the whole thing.
I only had two drinks over a five hour period, and we ate rather a lot of pizza, so I was absolutely fine to drive him home afterwards, which I did.
Like a ninja
I came back inside, threw my keys on the kitchen bench, and sat down at the computer downstairs, where I browsed and emailed for about an hour. My phone buzzed with a missed call from home, and I figured it was playing up again.
A minute later, Bobbie came down the stairs and said “Oh my God – when did you get home?!” I told her I’d been here for about an hour.
“I didn’t hear you come in – I’ve been really worried. I called Clutch to ask where you were. You’d better call him back and let him know you’re okay.
No relation
Clutch is on my phone by his real name – Anthony Cowie. So I quickly typed C-O-W into my phone and hit the dial button.
ANDREW Cowie was in the bath. It was not the first time I’d called him by mistake. Always lovely to talk to him, but it wasn’t who I’d intended to dial. We chatted briefly, and he asked how my pizza had been and whether I was enjoying my couple of days of relaxation (he had clearly been checking Facebook recently).
I left him to it, and then called the other Cowie in my phone. There were sounds of High Street traffic in the background when Clutch answered.
“I’m home – have been for some time,” I said.
“I’m wandering the streets of Kings Heath looking for a smoking wreck. Glad you’re okay.”
The reason I’d dropped him home, of course, was because it’s so freaking cold out there. I didn’t want him wandering around when I could get him home safe and warm. And now he was out there in it, looking for whatever was left to be found of me. Nice one.
All points bulletin
I returned to my email, and it wasn’t long before I received a text from Clutch. His wife Collette is a nurse – and she was about to ring around all of her Admissions friends at the various Birmingham Hospitals to see if I’d been brought in.
So – apologies all around for my inadvertent stealth (and my communications failures)… but it’s nice to know that friends are looking out for me – or if they’re not aware of any potential peril, they are at least aware of my junk food intake and happy to interrupt their relaxing baths to discuss my wellbeing.
Sorry to cause worry.
I reflected yesterday afternoon that I’ve now been a university lecturer for 10 years. I started toward the end of 1998, filling in for my friend Bryce for a few weeks at AUT while he went and did something in the radio industry. He never came back.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7d7e5963-b695-431f-9784-f4aaf94a4786)
