@shellyleppard and @PGmicstand It was a day of very bleak and very surreal despair. A chilling pantomime of chaos. A day of ghastly mortification which the staff of the hotel in which I was staying unwittingly contributed to. They were absolutely lovely, but their first language was not English and they had not understood fully when the Army rang them to request they organise a taxi to collect me (and the eventually-located dog) from the battle camp.
Eventually an amenable taxi driver was located on my seventh attempt with an army officer's borrowed phone and, a £110 journey later, we were back at the hotel around midnight. Bless them both, the hotel chaps were mortified at their innocently done part in the day's carnival of horrors and they headed to the closed kitchen and brought me a bowl of chicken curry that they had made for themselves (proper, authentic Indian curry with everything - including all the bits and bobs body-bits, easily identifiable to the eye, and bones of the chicken). Alas, I am a vegetarian.
These dear young men gave me the lovely curry that they’d made for themselves, after I’d had such a horrendous time (and with no food – my picnic lunch being safely sealed in the marooned car, mocking me from the back seat). It was so very, very kind of them. I couldn’t bear to turn it away or seem rude. What could I do?
I pretended to eat it. That’s what I did. I put it all in my mouth and chewed, professing delight at every lovely mouthful. And, to be fair, it was absolutely delicious. I swallowed the tasty veg and mushrooms and the outstanding home-made sauce. But as soon as I was unobserved or backs were turned, I took out the bits of un-swallowed chicken and carefully concealed them about my person, unseen by anyone.
I was somewhat limited as to places of concealment, as you may imagine. So each piece of chicken was quietly transferred from my mouth to my hand and from thence to the only hiding places available: my bra and my underpants. Oh yes. Yes I did.
I take no pride in the fact that I did this for the entirety of the meal undetected, in the presence of the other guest in the bar (an equally grateful and infinitely more honest recipient of some of the curry) and my kind, generous and thoughtful friends from the hotel. I felt unbearably guilty the whole time.
Wracked with guilt, and with my “feminine support garments” now full-to-seepage of curried ex-poultry, I then had to walk waddle, hunched over and clinging to myself, past everyone, all of whom were cheerfully bidding me goodnight and expressing again their sorrow for the day’s misfortunes, me desperately trying to get across the lobby and up the stairs, whilst they waved me off, without chicken-leakage or betraying the lumpen shapes about my chest and lower regions which would announce my heinous, traitorous, disrespectful secretions.
Once I was safely back in the room, putting the Chicken Pieces of Shame into the dog's undeserving, miscreant maw, I believed that I had never felt quite so wretched in my life.
It was truly a day of horror upon horror - the only redeeming aspects being the fact that the dog was found, he was clean and innocent of livestock/wildlife destruction, and, of course, the kindness of the military. The chicken curry was the least of it - but by far the most wretchedly surreal.
The day ended. We can laugh about it (mostly) now. It serves as a tale to amuse (even a few days later - we happened upon a group of Australian tourists doing a coach tour, they were taking pictures of the photogenic dog. I told them what he had done. One of them laughed so much he hurt himself and had to go and sit back on the coach).
Bad days end. Better ones will come. Keep going. xx