When I said I would be taking the High Road again...

I hadn't imagined I would be literally doing so.

Being prone to doing things at the last minute (and not being paid till the last Thursday in the month, bizarrely), I rang up the Procurator Fiscal's office in D------- to find out if the trial was still in the list for this week and was I still required. They confirmed I was, so I asked how I went about claiming my travel back. A very shocked young woman informed me that oh no, I don't pay for my own ticket - they buy it and send me the rail ticket in the post.

I said oh, oh, right. So you sort it all out for me then?

Oh, said she. Ah. Well, you'd need to ring back tomorrow anyway cos the girl that does the travel warrants isn't working today, but it's ok because you'll be coming up Tuesday anyway...

No, I say, I figured if I am coming all that way I may as well spend some time with my family, and as Monday is a Bank Holiday and I need to take a day either side of the trial for travel, I may as well come up on Saturday or Sunday.

Oh, says she. Well, you'll need to fly then.

Fly? You'll pay for me to fly up?!

Och yes!

So I rang back the next day and spoke to Laura, who booked me on to a flight from my local airport up to Inversneckie. My brother commented that after I'd flown up the once I'd never want to get the train again. Let me put it to you like so - £96.20 for 6 and a half hours bored witless on a train (7 and a half to 8 if you have to change anywhere, and quite often there are rail replacement buses due to engineering works) or £99.60 if you book far enough in advance for 1 hour 25 in the air and a half hour drive to the airport from home? OK, so you have to be at the airport no later than half an hour before the flight leaves, but you literally arrive in Inversneckie, get into the terminal, the bags appear and off you go and it takes five minutes. Had we not gone to the supermarket on the way home, I would have been back indoors less than four hours after leaving our house in West Yorkshire. You can't whack it, you really can't. Specially as the train journey comes after an hour in the car to York from home, or two trains and again about an hour, hour and a quarter, if no lift is available.

So, I flew up. On an aeroplane the size of a postage stamp. A 29 seater Jetstream 41, courtesy of Eastern Airways.

I have rarely been so scared in all my puff, especially when we hit some pretty bad turbulence. I thought I might need to use the sickbag, but gladly had no need to recourse to it. It was nearly as bad as my brother's driving at over 100 mph over a set of bumps in the road near here. When your head is rebounding off the roof of the aeroplane/car, you know it's bumpy out there.

But I'm here!

Taking the High Road Again

Oh, frabjous joy.

(And, indeed, Calloo! Callay!)

The date for the trial has been brought forward to May 31. Wednesday of next week, in fact. So, another trip up home for me, and sooner than anticipated at that. I could wish it were for a nicer reason too. I don't mind admitting that I am losing sleep over it. Silly of me, really, but it is true unfortunately that it is much different a prospect to know that you will be the one being examined and cross-examined and not the one asking the questions.

Conducting my own advocacy at trial level always made me nervous anyway. I talk too much when I get nervous, which isn't good.

I'm tired and I want it all to be over. And we all think he is going to change his plea at the last minute anyway, possibly on the day of the trial itself. What a waste of time and effort that will be, travelling umpteen hundred miles for nothing.

Looking on the bright side, I get to spend some time with the family. And I think my brother could use a bit of sisterly support. The sister-in-law is not too bright either as she had a big operation last week. So all in all, not a bad time to be going back up necessarily. Just much sooner than anticipated.

And another thing!

Received a text from L this afternoon (checks clock) - yesterday afternoon now.

'MG has been fired! Praise the Lord!'

Karma is your friend.

We like Karma.

Karma Kicks Ass.

I must not gloat...a friend says it's simply Schadenfreude that I feel, not gloatingness.

I must NOT gloat. Gloating is bad. Gloating leads to Karma biting the gloater on the bum.

But oh, ME! I bet that stings!

What Happened Next

Let's put it this way.

I have to go back up home some time in the next couple of months, so far as we presently know, to appear as a witness for the prosecution in the trial of someone I used to consider a friend. This friend is accused of making threats to kill, of threatening behaviour, and of assault. One of the people he threatened was my brother.

I am not the only witness. Not by far.

Something else also came to light about this person. Ironic, given the job I used to do - it seems he has been for years involved in perpetrating sexual assaults of varying degrees of severity on young boys. I never had a clue, I just never imagined any of it. I am almost more upset by that fact than by anything else.

I don't really feel able to talk about it. Partly because you never know who's reading this. Partly because it is just too...raw. Too big to really take in all at once.

This is why I haven't updated this blog for so long.

Wedding Bells

Well, actually, there were no bells.

It was a register office do, you see.

My baby brother had arranged his wedding for October this year. The plan was always that they were going to run off to the nearest town to get married and they weren't going to tell anyone except their two witnesses - one of whom was me. (Initially they were going to grab two strangers off the street, but apparently nowadays you have to provide the names and addresses to the registrar well in advance).

He decided though that he couldn't wait. His business being predominantly seasonal, the other bookings he could have picked before October were all in midsummer, which is just not possible for him. So, he went for the nearest date available that was at a time of year he could manage.

Hence the phone call I received on April 11th to ask me what was I doing on April 28th? Well, basically I was due back at work on Monday 24th after a week and a half off for CtOR's operation, so I reckoned I would be at work. I was soon made aware this was not acceptable, and so found myself having to throw myself on the mercy of the office manager. When she heard the reason for my wanting a further two days' off, she was more than happy to say yes.

CtOR couldn't risk travelling so far from the specialist so soon after the operation, so I went up on my own. Thanks to the wonders of our railway system, or more particularly the lorry hitting a bridge on our local line and blocking it, I left at the ungodly hour of 4.45 am to be sure of getting a bus into town to get a train to Leeds on a different line and thence to York to make the train I was booked on. I think we got into the house at the other end some time around 8 pm, after a stagger round the shops, a further stagger round Tesco and a trip to the Chinese. I popped up to the nursing home to see dad for half an hour, as I'd not been up since August last year.

I ended up getting to bed far later than planned, having burnt a CD of two songs for the bride's arrival and the departure of the happy couple. (Two Shania Twain songs - From this Moment and Still the One).

The wedding day itself dawned overcast with us, but was sunny on the other side of the country as we hit Inverness. My brother drove the two of us in, the bride travelling with her witness. He wanted to hear the music the bride had chosen. I cried. We had a serious conversation about Important Things. I cried. I gave him the speech I think our Mum would have given him if she'd been with us. I cried.

He was so nervous - I cried. I pretty much cried all the way till the registrar pronounced them man and wife. Which meant my brother turning to me and hissing 'For goodness' sake, quit blubbering and give me the ring!' which made everyone laugh, including me. Although not as much as when the registrar instructed him to place the ring on my finger, resulting in us swapping a look of sheer and total panic till she corrected herself.

The rest of the day is a blur of champagne and good food. And more champagne. Much, much more champagne. I could quite fancy some more champagne now actually.

There was even a surprise party arranged by one of the bride's friends for after the evening meal. There were 6 other guests at the wedding in the end, but my brother had me take a photo of them on his mobile phone to text to their friends. One of whom was actually 32 miles offshore at the time on his fishing boat, having decided to go out for the first time that week at 5 am that day. He thought it was a wind-up at first and accused his partner of keeping secrets from him when he heard it was true.

All in all, a really fantastic day.

What came next was not so good, but has no place in this post.