Last night’s activities ended with something of a bang, or perhaps smash would be a better word.
Please do not become stressed or tense. In order that you do not suffer from anxiety on my behalf during the next few paragraphs, let me assure you here that no smashing of any kind happened to me, and I was merely an interested spectator.
It must have been about one in the morning when I started to notice an excessive amount of yelling happening somewhere in the vicinity of the taxi rank.
Once I noticed it I realised that I had been ignoring it for ages. This was because I had got a good book, and because broadly I am not very interested in noisy altercations that happen late at night. There are dozens of them, the participants are always drunk and usually stupid, and rarely does anything truly thrilling result. On the whole a few punches are thrown, a litter bin or two gets kicked over, then everybody buzzes off and ten minutes later the police turn up.
This one was approaching quickly, so I looked up.
It was a young couple, bellowing at one another, alternately nose to nose and then stamping off in opposite directions in a huff.
They were never going to talk to one another again.
I wished they would hurry up and get to that point.
In the end the girl waved her arms melodramatically, shouted some rude words, and flounced away.
The young man shouted some rude words after her retreating back, and then in an excess of temper, kicked over the sign for the Chinese restaurant. This was made of metal and collapsed with what I imagine was a satisfying crash.
He stamped off out of my sight, up the street. He had clearly enjoyed kicking the sign very much, because a series of bangs and crashes followed, culminating in a massive smash, and tinkle of broken glass.
This got our attention, because clearly it was a shop window.
Mark went belting after him in his taxi, to see where he was going, whilst I rang the police.
The police asked lots of questions, and whilst they were on the phone, I dashed after Mark to see if I could find out any more answers.
Shop windows cost a very lot to fix, and we did not think that he ought to be allowed to run away unchallenged.
It turned out that he was not running anywhere in a hurry.
When I got to him he was limping frantically up the street, with blood pouring from an ugly gash in his leg.
I told the police about this, and they thought that they might bring an ambulance with them.
I rushed up to the chap just as he collapsed on the pavement.
He was not unconscious, which was a pity. He was ranting and yelling and very angry, in a probably-cocaine-fuelled sort of way.
He did not want to wait peaceably for an ambulance, which was not very surprising under the circumstances. He wanted to go home.
He staggered to his feet and limped another few yards before collapsing again.
I spoke soothingly to him, which he ignored, and tried to explain that he could just wait and the ambulance would arrive shortly.
Fortunately, at that moment a young tourist couple ambled up the street towards us, and in the manner of concerned people, wanted to help.
They gave him a cigarette and tried to calm him down. Then they sat down with us and made kindly and concerned noises.
I thought it was best not to explain that I was trying to stop him from pegging off before the police turned up. I told them he was a bit upset and we could all reassure him together.
Very efficiently they helped pat and soothe him into submission. He made a couple more attempts to leg it, but they were convinced that he was just shocked and mental, and warmly held his hand and made reassuring noises.
He shouted a bit more, and eventually gave up.
The ambulance people rang me and tried to get me to try and stop the bleeding, but I did not have a clean handkerchief, and was certainly not going to tear a strip off my skirt the way they do in films, so I explained that he would have to bleed to death, and gave the phone to the concerned tourist.
I was jolly glad when the police arrived.
Much to the surprise of the concerned tourists they were not sympathetic at all. They sloshed a bottle of disinfectant over his leg and growled at him a bit, at which point Mark and I thought we would slope off whilst nobody was looking at us.
As always, I do not know what happened in the end.
I expect he will have felt very sorry when he woke up this morning.
The picture is a tired bumble bee having some honey in the conservatory this morning. They have got very long forked tongues, which you can’t see on the picture.
Also Number One Daughter has been to see us. More about that tomorrow.
What an exciting life we do lead.
