Follow That Cab

Later I get a taxi to the train station. I am early, as ever is the way. I meander around the station, wondering how to spend the next hour and a half. As I wander my hands get cold. I put them in my pocket. I feel my keys. “Strange” I think to myself, “I thought my keys were in my bag”. Oh. Yes. Knew there was something I was supposed to do. Leaving the keys for the hire car at the hotel reception would have been a good idea. So I have to speed over to the taxi rank and explain that I need to be taken to the hotel, but I then want them to wait while I drop off the keys, and then they can bring me back. Nice driver says OK. We get to the hotel. I say “I’ll leave my bags here so you know I won’t run off”. I go in, hand over the keys, accepting the looks from the receptionist that indicate I am a can short of a six pack. I go back out. No taxi. NO TAXI. My bags. My camera. My, well a lot of things. I glance up the road and there is my taxi. The driver obviously decided to move up the road a bit to get out of the way of the traffic. I run. And as I get close she does a u-turn and starts heading back towards the hotel. I am now on the wrong side of the road. I run across, very nearly coming a cropper in a conflict with a Merc. I run towards the taxi. She crosses back to the other side of the road, so she is now facing the wrong way up the street. I run back across, I get to the taxi, hand on door, and she starts reversing. Finally after nearly losing a few toes, I manage to make my presence known and she lets me in. Back to the station. And still enough time to sit and wait for the train. There are times when being anally retentive about travel and being early does have its uses.