Penalty

Sometimes I tell people things about myself - my absent-mindedness, poor memory, clumsiness, terribly low boredom threshold and so on - and I suspect that they think I'm just being self-depreciating. So... are you sitting comfortably?

I stayed at the Hope Street Hotel last night – very nice, incidentally – and I parked my car just down the road. I’d been told that parking was free between 6pm and 8am, and my original plan had been to be on the road by eight but then John had suggested we meet for breakfast at nine. This seemed like very pleasant thing to do and I set my alarm for half-seven, so that I could get up, shower, and then go and put a ticket on the car.

All went according to plan with the alarm and shower, although I was a little blearier than anticipated; we seemed to drink rather a lot, last night. Anyway, when I left the hotel I noticed there were parking spaces right outside, so I decided to move the car there to make it more convenient when I left later on. Then I went back into the hotel to have a coffee and do a bit of email while I waited for John.

It turned out we were both a little worse for wear but we took a determined run at the ‘Liverpool breakfast’ and were both in relatively good form by the time we finished. After that I checked out and went to my car, conveniently stationed you will remember just outside the doors.

I’m sad to report, though, that I had been given a parking ticket: having got up specifically to pay for parking, I had moved the car and forgotten to do so :-/