Reunion

Heading up through Yorkshire to spend a couple of days in Filey and visit Bempton Cliffs, R and I stopped off in Leeds for lunch with H and his partner S, and also her brother, father and stepmother who are currently visiting the UK. It was S's birthday a couple of days ago, so it doesn't seem quite fitting that she should have had to make lunch for us all, but she prepared a superb spread, and we all enjoyed the party. H and S's next-door neighbour, who is a baker, appeared at the garden fence part way through the meal and sweetly presented S with a plate of iced birthday cupcakes, which we ate with our coffee.

R and I arrived in Filey about an hour and a half after leaving the party, and it was at the precise moment that I approached the boot of the car to take out my camera gear that my memory suddenly and belatedly kicked into gear, and I realised that I'd left my backpack and camera in the corner of H and S's sitting room. When I told R what I'd done, I think he hoped for a split second that I was pulling his leg, but it's not the first time I've done something this stupid, and experience, along with the stricken look on my face, rapidly killed that faint hope. Taking a deep breath, he said in a carefully controlled tone that we'd better check into the hotel as quickly as possible, and then set off straight back south again. To describe me as mortified would be the understatement of the year.

H was playing an afternoon gig at the time, but when S heard what I'd done she immediately offered to drive the bag up to York and meet us there, halving our journey. Touched though I was, I couldn't accept, because her family live thousands of miles away, and her time with them is limited and precious. But when H came off stage a little while later, heard the sorry tale, and phoned to make the same offer... well, what would you have done?

In the end we didn't meet in York, whose traffic system is almost as incomprehensible to the casual visitor as that of Leeds, but rendezvoused in the village hall car park of a nice little place called Bramham - about half an hour north for H, and an hour south for us. And so it was that we got to spend ten extra minutes chatting with our First Best Boy, which was a lovely bonus because we don't see him very often, and I got to photograph father and son together, looking relaxed and amused, in some nice evening light.

I'm still embarrassed to have caused this incident, but all things considered it ended pretty happily.