A Funny Thing Happaened on the Way to the Conference....

if only that could have read Forum....

I was scheduled to arrive in Gdansk at about 7.00 pm which I sort of half realised before I went was going to be after dark. I had instructions for getting to Sopot by bus and rail, but there seemed to be some doubt about whether the new bits of the TriCity rail system would actually be working, or even finished, and there was still the problem of finding my hotel in a strange town after dark  in a country whose language I do not speak. The conference organisers had seemed doubtful about getting a taxi, warning darkly that the price should be agreed before you got into the cab, (people always say this although how you are supposed to know what is a sensible price for a taxi ride before you know how far it is going or anything about local taxi licensing, or indeed fuel prices is quite beyond me). In the circs a taxi seemed the most sensible option, but being a bit wary as a single woman of jumping into a car on my own with a stranger I decided to keep my eyes open as I travelled for likely sharers.

 

I thought I had it sorted when I heard a couple of men talking in Copenhagen as we waited at the gate to board the flight to Gdansk. They had been on the Edinburgh-Copenhagen flight, they were taking with Sottish accents and as I got closer to them I heard them talking about the timetable, panel scheduling etc. Bingo! I introduced myself, ascertained that they were indeed en route for the conference and asked if it would be possible to share a taxi with them when we landed. They looked a bit sheepish then the big man from the photo in the previous post said that he would have been happy for them to share a taxi with me, but as it happened the organisers  were sending a car for him and they'd both be going in that. I was welcome to tag along if there was room though.

 

I then said something really daft. I can only suppose that I was tired, and disappointed and a bit apprehensive about what I was going to do when there wasn't room in the car, which I knew for an absolute certainty was not going to have room for me and so I said with widened eyes 'They're sending a car? You must be someone important'. Obviously channelling some vacant ingénue from an ancient film. And even as the words dropped out of my stupid mouth and he said 'Well I've been invited to read a few of my poems tomorrow night' I realised that he was the Guest of Honour, Scottish novelist and poet John Burnside. And I should have known because not only have I seen the occasional picture, not only did I know he was going, but I did actually have to study one of his novels on my M Litt course.

 

Fortunately I managed not to confound my error by confessing to this latter thing since he would presumably then have asked for my opinion, and as it happens I was not over enamoured of it. In fact it was in my bottom three of all the books on the course,* but as I say, I managed not to mention it.

 

And it all had a happy ending as there were several people there to meet him, and a car, and a taxi was summoned as well and as I was staying in the same hotel as he was we did share a taxi after all, while the other guy was whisked away to where he was going in the car.

 

It was embarrassing though.

 

* Oh alright then. Born Free by Laura Hird, Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun and The Devil's Footprints by John Burnside.