Halloa! below there!

OK, boring now. Wake early, blah blah blah.

Today is the last performing day of the tour and one that I have been working towards ever since I finished my performance of The Complete Works of Dickens is Salem (although I still had Nickleby to perform, I started work on The Signalman that morning).

I have two performances scheduled but the first isn’t until 2 o’clock, which gives me plenty of time to rehearse this morning.

Breakfast at the Hampton Inn is a small buffet, including cereals, fruit, pastries, scrambled egg, sausages and waffles. Oh! Waffles! They have two of those do-it-yourself waffle machines that make huge, thick, round, fluffy, delicious waffles.  I am in heaven.  Whenever my son Cameron wants a special breakfast he always asks for waffles.  That’s my boy.

The Waffle and Script

I sit reading through the script of The Signalman, as the news about Ebola outbreaks in Texas and the resignation of the head of the Security Service in DC, plays out in the background. My waffle dominates my plate.  But not for long.

Back to my room and it is time to start work, so I launch straight into my first run of the day: ‘Halloa! Below there!’ As I am progressing through the script the world outside becomes darker and darker and then the heavens open as the parking lot is lashed with stair-rods of rain, completely obscuring the stores on the far side of the mall.

The Storm

The Storm

Still the skies get darker until suddenly the low clouds are ripped open with a slash of electricity and the windows in the hotel shake with the crack of thunder that follows. The storm sits squarely over Liberty, MO and rages for an hour or so.

I dutifully finish my first run of the show and then go out and take a few photographs of the tempest (I’m loving this, so many splendid clichés to be written about storms. I just need to get ‘lowering’ in now).

The heavy clouds are still lowering over the hotel (there, I did it!).

As exciting as the storm is, it actually gets in the way of my plans slightly. I have been carrying a little packet of books with me for the whole trip that I am donating to a charity auction in Pennsylvania.  Kimberly has kindly said that if I packed them up, she would ship them for me.

Across the car park is a branch of Office Depot, where I will be able to buy a packing box. At the moment, however, there is no prospect of getting there so I have another coffee and get stuck in to another run through of The Signalman.

The dark clouds and loud thunder add extra atmosphere to the rehearsal and I find myself hoping that the same weather will rage over the library branch later today.

As I finish the second run through, so the rain has abated and there is a semblance of daylight once more. I take the opportunity to walk over the lot to Office Depot and buy the box.

Once back I have time to do another run before getting into costume and waiting for Kimberly to pick me up at 1.

The Woodneath branch of the Mid Continent Library Service is very close by and is a remarkable place. It is built in the grounds of an old homestead and incorporates the original, beautiful house  in its modern design.  The plan is to make the mansion itself a national centre for storytelling, so it is a perfect venue for my performances.

It is also a perfect place for me specifically to perform The Signalman, as it was here that Kimberly and I were chatting last November and she suggested that the idea of a ghost story performance would be a great one, and I mentioned to her that there was this little story, which would work…..

Woodneath Library (architects image)

I am greeted by the enthusiastic library staff before checking the microphone system out and pacing around the room going over the lines again. As you can tell, the Signalman is not sitting comfortably in my mind yet.

The audience starts to arrive gratifyingly early. Most of them are long time fans, who have been coming to see my performances in the area for many years and are bubbling with excitement about a new show.

A group has come from The Douglas County Historical Society in Omaha, another of my venues, and it is great to see them and amazing that they have driven through the rain to be here.

The audience fills up as the clock ticks towards 2.

I start, like any good Brit, by talking about the weather and then launch into the story of the terrible Staplehurst rail disaster of 1865, from which Charles Dickens was fortunate to escape with his life; and which must have influenced him in the writing of The Signaman a year later.

And now it is time to see if all that rehearsal has paid off: The Signalman.

‘Halloa! Below there!’

The atmosphere builds up and I can see audience members leaning forward on their seats as the tension mounts. I do get tongue- tied at one point (frustratingly, not in one of the places where I have been struggling during rehearsal), but get myself out of trouble and back to where I should be.

I wrap the story up and then close the show with the remarkable coincidence that when Charles Dickens did die it was five years to the very day after he had survived Staplehurst.

Good. Not perfect, but I very pleased with the way things went.

I spend some time chatting with audience members, all of whom seem to have enjoyed it, despite being so different to A Christmas Carol. One lady makes the point that The Signalman is very much in the style of Edgar Allan Poe, which is correct.  There are no long, florid descriptive passages in The Signalman, it is tight, well structured and dark.

The audience drifts away and Kimberly takes me back to the hotel. I have another healthy BK lunch, before laying on the bed for an hour or so until the phone rings and Kimberly is here once more to pick me up again.

The evening’s performance is in The John Knox Pavillion a huge performance space in the heart of a retirement and care community. The pavilion itself seats 750 gazillion people and is used for rock concerts, shows, presentations, weddings and much more.

I have been performing A Christmas Carol here for the past two years and know it well. There is a superb lighting and sound team that can make even the smallest of shows look good.  Which is just as well.

John Knox Pavillion

The registrations for the evening event have not been high and the bad weather may well put people off. All of the library programmes are free, which is a good thing, but it also means that  people do not have the same commitment to putting on their coat and travelling as they would if they’d paid.

The other issue tonight is The Royals game. Kansas City’s baseball team have reached the play-offs and after winning their first match are tonight playing the Angels in California (I almost sound as if I understand).  Usually I would suggest that the demographic of my audience would not match that of a major league ball team, but the Royals haven’t achieved such success since 1985, so there is a great deal of interest throughout the city and its surroundings

I am resigned to a small crowd in a big hall.

After a sound check, and finding an appropriate stool for the stage, I retire to the dressing room and perform yet another run through of the script. There is a large clock on the wall, showing 6.35.  Excellent, plenty of time before the start.

Half an hour later I glance at the clock again. Ah: 6.35. Clock purely ornamental. My watch tells me that I have 3 minutes before kick off.  I stroll into the hall and take a look at the audience, it is small but there is a nice buzz of conversation.

I know that I am going to be alright when I am announced: ‘Please welcome Gerald Dickens’ and I get a standing ovation from the front row!

I run through the same preamble about Staplehurst and into the story. It is a better performance tonight and the stage gives me plenty of space to work with.  When I make my closing remarks about Dickens dying on the same day as the train crash there is a gasp from the front row as if someone is on the point of joining him.

Of course with the audience being small, there is not much signing etc to be done but I do get into conversation with a family who have moved to Missouri from California and who are fascinated with the whole story. Through the wonder of the iphone, they have already looked up the Staplehurst crash, studied the pictures, read the history.  I’m glad that I didn’t take too many liberties with the facts.

Eventually, the Knox Pavillion is deserted except for the lighting guys, Kimberly, the venue manager and myself. We say our goodbyes and hit the road to drive the hour back to Liberty, where we divert to a Longhorn Steakhouse where I have a delicious Ribeye.

The meal has a very end-of-term feel about it.  I have no shows now until the 12 October. Nothing to learn. Off duty.

Kimberly and I talk about future possibilities, maybe bringing the double bill of The Signalman and Doctor Marigold to town next year but for now I am ready to turn in.

It has been a good day and a good tour.

Dates and details of my forthcoming tour can be found at: http://www.byerschoice.com/our-company/events/gerald-dickens

For details for Doctor Marigold DVD or other recordings email via: http://www.geralddickens.com

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From Massachusetts to Missouri via Motown

Massachusetts

Frustratingly my sleep patterns seem to be regressing. There was a time in Salem when I thought things were improving, but here in Newton at 3.30 am it seems as if I was wrong

I try to get back to sleep but never really succeed. I don’t even have a blog to write as I efficiently did it last night.  I read for a bit, then get up and do some more work on my A Christmas Carol poster, before finishing my packing.

It seems as if I have been up for hours when my alarm rings at 5.45. I have a moment of panic when I can’t find my spectacles but there they are on the bed, under the quilt.

My suitcase seems horribly heavy and I am rather worried that I may incur excess baggage charges for my flights today. Oh, well, there’s nothing I can do about it now.

I check out and load up the car. My flight is not until 9.20 but the traffic around Boston is notoriously awful and the rush hour starts early, so I decide to leave plenty of time and have breakfast at the airport.

In fact the journey is completely non-problematic, apart from negotiating the construction work at the airport itself and missing the exit for the car rental drop-off.

I haven’t spent that much time in this car, but I have thoroughly enjoyed it. There is a sense of parting as I drag my cases through the garage and towards the shuttle bus that will take me to terminal A.

At the Delta desk I lift my case onto the scales with as much flair as I can muster after a few hours of sleep, as if to give the impression that it is feather-light. Of course that is pointless but the agent doesn’t say anything about it and my case  disappears on the conveyor belt into the mysterious world beyond.  How on earth the system will spit it out onto another conveyor belt in Kansas City later today, I don’t know, but I am sure it will.  Maybe.  I hope.

I get through security easily and find a restaurant to satisfy my breakfast needs, which are satiated by ‘An All American’. The waitress asks me if I’d like orange juice and coffee?  ‘Yes, both.  Thank you.’  She returns with the juice and I assume that the coffee will follow but it does not.

I ask another server for a coffee: ‘Sure, honey. Cream and sugar?’ ‘Both, thanks.’  And still coffee is not forthcoming.

I ask the first lady again for coffee: ‘Sure, honey. Cream and sugar?’ ‘Yes’ tersely.

This time the coffee arrives but no cream and sugar. Then the cream comes. I ask for sugar – it’s just as well I’m not in a rush, but I have lots of time this morning.  I pass the time by reading Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall on the Kindle App of my phone.

After I finish breakfast I make my way to gate A15 and wait to be called. This is my first experience of American domestic flying this year and I am a little ring-rusty in the manoeuvring to be at the front of the queue when my zone is called.

I manage to get near to the front and am fourth on board out of our group: not bad.

When I get to my seat I notice that I have a family with 2 young children in the row behind me. I’m in for a pummelling, I fear.

Whilst I still had a wifi signal at the hotel I rented and downloaded  ‘Good Morning Vietnam’ to watch on my phone. I plug my head phones in and start the film.

Sure enough the back of my seat is kicked, and the tray table behind is banged for the entire flight but I get lost in Robin Williams’ performance and the brilliant cinematography. There is a moment, when Adrian Cronauer has been entertaining truck loads of troops on the road, and they drive off, that Robin Williams has an expression of such wistfulness and caring.  As I watch a huge wave of grief comes over me for such a talent lost.

After an hour or so, and remarkably just as the film comes to its end, we land in Detroit, where I have a forty minute layover before heading off to Kansas City. Detroit is one of those airports with multiple concourses connected by a monorail.  Fortunately for me my next plane is to leave from a nearby gate so there is no rush.

Motown

For this flight I am more careful to get myself to the front of the zone two boarding group. The last zone one people vanish down the jetway: now is the moment to make a move.  The passengers on Delta flight 1997 are a competitive lot and we all surge forward.  However we, as a group, have misread the signals: the gate agent has clearly decided not to play.  He stands and watches us without making an announcement.  One sacrificial lamb tries to go through the gate but is repelled with the words ‘priority boarding and zone one only’.  There is nobody else boarding.

Eventually he picks up the microphone and again we surge towards the door. ‘Zone two passengers may now board through the general boarding lane.  Priority and zone one passengers may continue to board through the fast-track lane.’

These two lanes are separated by one strip of fabric tape. They both lead to the same door.  In our surging we have all congregated on the ‘wrong’ side of the tape and the whole group has to shuffle backwards until we can re-surge on the correct side.  The agent is loving every moment of his power and control.

Once on the plane I settle into my seat and am delighted to see that there is nobody behind me for this leg.

Once airborne I get my script for The Signalman from my bag and read it through a few times. It is not exactly line learning but I’m sure it will help when I come to rehearse this afternoon.

The sky is clear as we make our way over the Midwest and the huge patchwork of scrubby brown fields, all recently harvested, spreads as far as the eye can see. Occasionally there is a town or city with its golf courses, athletics stadia, churches and strictly regimented housing, sitting like an island in the sea of farmland.

The flight is a little over an hour and we are soon descending into Kansas City airport.

Missouri

I have travelled and performed in the Kansas City area for many years, indeed it is the only venue that I have visited every year since I first began travelling to America in 1995. I work with the Mid Continent Library Service, which operates out of Independence Missouri, servicing branches all around the Kansas City area.

I am usually met at the airport by my long time friend Kimberly Howard, who is in charge of the adult event programmes at the library.   During the tour last year as we stood in a library lobby, waiting to start A Christmas Carol, we got talking about ghost stories.  I mentioned that The Signalman was a superb, spine-tingling, hair-raising little tale and it would be fun to perform it.  ‘How about October?  For Halloween’, asked Kimberly.

And here I am, not quite at Halloween, but at least nudging into October.

Sadly Kimberly couldn’t be at the airport to meet me today, as she has another meeting, but that does mean that I have a driver standing with a ‘Gerald Dickens’ card in his hand. I LOVE it when that happens!

Kansas City airport is a very small one and the baggage carousel is right next to the gate, on the same level. The driver goes to collect his car and I pick up my large, heavy silver case which has made it all the way from Boston, via Detroit.

We drive the thirty or so minutes to my hotel, where I check in. There is a Burger King next door so I treat myself to a delicious, healthy lunch, before returning to my room and starting work again.

The Signalman was part of my Dickens Double Bill performed in Abingdon on the week before I left. I had spent a frantic week learning it and perfecting it.  Since then I have crammed The Complete Works of Dickens in, squeezing The Signalman out.  I know I have plenty of work to bring it back.

I run through the script, stopping when a line is sticky, or the phrasing doesn’t sound correct. I get to the end and start another run, which is much smoother.  After an hour or so I give it a rest and watch the tv.

At around 4, Kimberly calls and we arrange to meet for dinner later, which will be nice.

Eventually I start another run of the Signalman and am about three-quarters of the way through, when I get a call from the front desk to say that Kimberly has arrived.

We get into her car and she asks what I would I like to eat?  We then sit in parking lot as she  waves her smart phone in all directions and watching as the details of each local restaurant appear on the screen.  We select Olive Garden, a chain of Italian restaurants, and drive the short distance.

It is nice to catch up on each other’s news. We talk about Liz’s concerts back home, our cat, the shows I’ve been doing, as well as her son, the library service, a forthcoming trip she is due to make to Tennessee and so on.  It is a nice relaxing dinner.

At around 8 ‘clock Kimberly drops me back to the Hampton Inn, where I lie on the bed and start to drift off straight away. I know I will pay for it with another early morning, but right now the body is crying ‘enough!’

Dates and details of my forthcoming tour can be found at: http://www.byerschoice.com/our-company/events/gerald-dickens

For details for Doctor Marigold DVD or other recordings email via: http://www.geralddickens.com

Perkins

In a new hotel for the first time since my arrival and my sleep patterns are back to their bad old ways. I first wake at 1, then at 3.30; then at 4 and finally for good at 5.

I make coffee, and iron and make preparations for my show this morning. I am performing Mr Dickens is Coming at Perkins School for the Blind, so I need my white cat, a red cloth, a book and the walking cane.

The breakfasts at the Salem Inn were very nice, although there was not a huge choice. Here I can help myself to French toast, bacon, syrup, breakfast potatoes and all of the rest of it.  I return to the room feeling rather over-fed.

Looking down upon the Mass Pike (for the hotel seems to hang over it) I can see that traffic is building up quickly so I don’t want to leave too late to get to Perkins for an 8.30 sound check. I get into my costume, collect my props and head down from the eleventh floor.  On reaching the lobby level I realise that the one thing I didn’t pick up was the car key.  Back in lift: lobby to floor eleven, pick up keys.  Back in lift: floor eleven to lobby.

The bright hot sun of the weekend has gone and it is a wet day with low cloud hanging over the buildings and wooded slopes which surround the town. I start to set the Sat Nav system and realise that I don’t actually have the address for Perkins.  However, I noticed yesterday as I drove in that there are signs to it all along the route.  I set course for the middle of Watertown and hope I can pick up the local signs from there, which is exactly what happens.

I visited Perkins once before in, I think 2002, and loved it then but I am so looking forward to returning.

My fears about the traffic are unfounded and I arrive at 8 o’clock, thirty minutes early. Even so I can’t find a parking space but a Victorian costume does wonders and the security guard lets me leave the car in the ‘STRICTLY 30 MINUTES ONLY’ zone.

Into the building and I find my way to reception where I am met by Marilyn Rea Beyer who is the Director of Media and Public Relations at Perkins and representative of the school’s 185^th Anniversary Committee, which has invited me to perform as part of their celebrations.

Marilyn couldn’t be more helpful and takes me into the gorgeous Dwight Hall, where I will be performing. It oozes character with gothic wood carvings at the back and a wonderful stage.  Ron is there to assist with lights and sound.  He makes the stage look warm and theatrical and makes me sound good in the hall.  This is going to be a lovely place to perform.

Dwight Hall

A chair is put on stage and a lectern is draped with my red cloth to resemble Charles Dickens’s own reading desk. My white cat is hidden, cane put in place and we are all ready to go.

There are still two hours before the show and Marilyn has plenty to do, so I sit in the museum space and read about the history of Perkins.

First incorporated in 1829 the school started life in a private home, which it rapidly outgrew. Thanks to the generosity of one of the school’s trustees, Thomas Perkins, the school ended up in a disused hotel where it was to remain for the next 75 years.

The first director, Samuel Gridley Howe was a visionary, if stubborn, man. He recognised that children who suffered from a physical disability, such as blindness were ostracized and neglected and he wanted to run a school in which the students were taught in such a way as to allow them to be intergrated with the rest of society as much as possible.

There are echoes here of Doctor Marigold’s request when he takes his step daughter to the school for the deaf in London:

‘I want her, sir, to be cut off from the world as little as can be, considering her deprivations, and therefore to be able to read whatever is wrote with perfect ease and pleasure.’

Howe used a system of reading called Boston Line Type in which the letters were raised so that a blind reader could follow them with their fingertips while a sighted reader could read from the same volume. This system meant the blind students would not have to have ‘different’ books and a parent could easily be part of their children’s learning.

Boston Line Type edition of The Old Curiosity Shop

When Braille was introduced it was actually much easier for people who were blind to learn and follow, but Howe stuck to his guns and used Boston Line Type long after most others had changed.

In 1842, at the very beginning of his journey described in American Notes, Charles Dickens travelled to South Boston to visit the school. He wanted to see how an enlightened nation was dealing with issues that had become old fashioned and corrupt in England.  Over the next few months he would investigate prisons, asylums, mills and factories.  Top of his list was education (this was the man who a few short years before had uncovered the horrors of the Yorkshire schools in Nicholas Nickleby).

He arrived on a bright winter’s morning and was able to see the school in action. The first thing that amazed him was the lack of uniforms, unthinkable at home.  He was delighted that the students were shown in:

‘…his or her own proper character, with its individuality unimpaired; not lost in a dull, ugly, monotonous repetition of the same unmeaning garb: which is really an important consideration. The wisdom of encouraging a little harmless pride in personal appearance even among the blind, or the whimsical absurdity of considering charity and leather breeches inseparable companions, as we do, requires no comment.’

During his stay he was introduced to Laura Bridgeman who was a remarkable pupil. The only sense she possessed was that of touch and yet she was as industrious as any at the school, reading, writing, sewing and much more.  Dickens was so moved by what he saw that he gave over a huge part of the chapter to a description of Laura’s history and progress.

The passage in the book was a huge PR coup for Perkins, and soon the remarkable establishment in Boston would be much more widely known. In the 1880s a family in Alabama read American Notes and realised that their daughter Helen needed the same sort of education as Laura Bridgeman had received. The Keller family began to make enquiries….

Dickens even engaged the print works at the school to produce Boston Line Type editions of The Old Curiosity Shop, one of which is proudly displayed in a case opposite to my table.

The only sad thing about my visit is that Perkins is no longer in the building that Charles visited. The needs of the school grew as a Kindergarten was added and in 1912 the whole establishment moved to its current Watertown location.

As I continue to read the history, suddenly there is a screeching, awful, ear-splitting siren and it appears as if there is a fire drill. Marilyn comes back to find me and escorts me outside where we all stand in the rain as two huge fire trucks and a police car pull up.  Nobody quite knows what is going on but it is definitely not a drill.

After fifteen minutes or so, we are told that we cannot go back into the Howe building for the moment. Marilyn walks me to another part of the campus where her office is located and we wait for further news.

Eventually word filters through that there has been a suspected gas leak in the Howe Building and it looks as if it will be out of bounds for quite a while. My show is scheduled to be in there in half an hour so the staff needs to swing into action, and swing they do: desperately trying to find another venue that will hold the expected audience.

No panic, no fuss. Eventually the Lower School auditorium is appropriated.  But there is another, more serious matter to be attended to: my white toy cat (a vital part of the show as well as being my travelling companion) is still in the Dwight Hall.  In all seriousness Marilyn is speaking to the fire crew to mount a rescue mission.  I wish I’d been there when a brave fire-fighter, tears leaving streaks down his grime-covered face, burst out of the door cradling the delicate cat in his arms.

Anyway, my cat, cane, book, red cloth are duly rescued.

An announcement is made over the school’s intercom system that the show is now taking place in the lower school and as I listen to this broadcast I see the fire trucks leaving. The Howe building is open once more, but the logistics of re routing the audience for a second time is too difficult so we stay with plan b.

The new venue is much less impressive; it is a regular modern hall in a regular modern building with no stage lighting or wireless sound equipment. As I set the stage the students and teachers start to arrive.  These days Perkins does not only care for visually impaired students but those with multiple and chronic disabilities.

Students take their seats, some are helped, some pushed, some negotiating the crowded room with electric chairs. The hall is noisy and active.

Lower School Auditorium

A gentleman, Derm Keohane, introduces himself: he is going to be on stage with me interpreting for the pupils who are hard of hearing.

Just after 11 Dorinda Rife, the Superintendent of the school makes a brief speech of welcome, thanking everyone for their co operation and patience and then hands over to Marilyn who then hands over to me.

I am uncertain how the show will go, but quickly realise we are all going to get along just fine as the audience, students and staff alike, respond superbly. It is an interesting experience for me as I get two waves of reaction to each line or joke: firstly there is the instantaneous response to those in the audience who are listening to my words and then a few seconds later there is the secondary response from those following the interpreter.  As I get more used to it and knowing, from experience, which lines will get a reaction, I begin to change the timing to allow for the delay.

The show ends and I get a loud, foot stamping, hand clapping reception. Marilyn thanks me and presents me with a Perkins goody-bag, before opening the floor up to questions.  As in any school the initial request is greeted with silence as nobody wants to be the first, but then one student way at the back puts his hand up, I say ‘Yes’, relieved, but he doesn’t ask a question.  Stupidly I haven’t realised that he can’t see me.  As far as he knows the whole audience have their hands up and the ‘yes’ could be meant for anyone.  I walk closer to him and speak directly to him and a teacher taps him on the shoulder at the same time.  He politely introduces himself, tells me that he is in the secondary section of the school and then asks: ‘In A Christmas Carol, what is he describing?’

It is a good question and a good start.

Hands are now going up all round the room and the questions come in thick and fast. Of course the students love it when I tell them that at school I hated Oliver Twist and never even finished reading it, but used the Lionel Bart musical as reference.  English teachers hang their heads in horror.

The Q&A session continues for a while until Marilyn wraps up proceedings and another long round of applause rings out.

One of the last questions is ‘do you feel proud to be carrying on the history of Charles Dickens by continuing to travel and perform and do you feel it is important that you carry on his legacy’, to which I answer that yes I am immensely proud and unbelievably privileged to do what I do but I certainly don’t feel that it is vital that I carry on his legacy because Charles Dickens will do just fine whether I am performing or not!

In much the same way I do not need to say what a remarkable place Perkins is because, like any school, it will stand or fall on its results and it is doing very very well.

But this is a more than a school; it is a community, and a very vibrant, exciting, energetic and positive one at that. I feel very honoured to have been invited back here and to have played an infinitesimal part in its history, just as Charles Dickens has.  In a strange way I feel closer to him here than in any of the buildings, that I have visited in the past, in which he lived or performed.

And now the hall is empty with the exception of a local cable TV cameraman who conducts a short interview with me. When that is finished I get back to my car and drive through the rain to the hotel, where I have bite of lunch and a shower, not forgetting to check-in for my flight tomorrow.

I have a nice relaxing afternoon ahead of me and an old friend from Nashua, Sandy Belknap, has arranged to meet up and take me for an early dinner.

I spend a little bit of time going over the lines for The Signalman and have a bonus thirty minutes, as Sandy is caught in traffic. When she arrives we drive to a nearby town to an Asian fusion restaurant, Blue Ginger.  Dining at 5.30 is strange, but perfect for me as I have an early start in the morning.

We chat about the tour, the blog, life at home, our poor cat Kip. The food is delicious and it is a lovely to way to finish the New England leg of the trip.

Sandy drops me back to the hotel at 8.00 and I am alarmed to discover that my bag full of laundry is not back yet. I call to reception and the girl at the desk says she’s sure it is back, and she will put me on hold while she has a look.  I am then left dangling listening to muzak.  I give up and hang up, hoping that there will soon be a timid knock on the door: ‘We are so sorry, Mr Dickens, here is your laundry.’  But no knock is forthcoming.

In the end I go down to the lobby and wait while seemingly impossible problems are sorted out for other guests. Eventually I can step forward and ask about my laundry.  The girl disappears.  A long wait;  this isn’t good, as I am leaving the hotel at 6.30 in the morning and need those shirts.  I am preparing my complaint (I’m British and we have to work up to complaining, it doesn’t come naturally), when she appears holding all of my laundry.

Back to my room and start to pack before heading to bed and hopefully a good night’s sleep.