How difficult it is to blag your way into your own flat

I gave Cleodhna my keys earlier tonight, because she was tired and wanted to leave early, and had forgotten her own.

As it happens, I stayed far later at the Research Club than I intended, so by the time I got back to our flat a number of hours had passed.

After the second attempt at buzzing, phoning Cleodhna’s mobile number (not switched on) and phoning the flat’s land line (no response, despite messages left on the answering machine, which would be relayed by speaker phone), I got concerned.

I backtracked and got a bunch of stuff to throw at the window, mostly to make the dogs react - a Sprite plastic bottle, that sort of thing. I tried them a couple of times, and got the dogs to bark as if some random drunk had passed by. I then spotted a couple who were entering our close, and blagged my way closer to my flat that way.

It was difficult. Consider how you, if you had to, would get into your own tenement close.

I live here. Honestly, I do. No, I don’t have keys; my wife has them. I’ve got a wedding band to prove it. Hmmm.

Look, I live here. No, my French driving license doesn’t have an address on it. Er, well, look, nobody is called “Kington” in this country apart from me, right, because you only get Kingtons in England, because that’s where they’re from, and I have a whole bunch of credit cards with my name on, and, er, well, you’ve just got to assume that I didn’t pre-prepare the buzzer name and address with something of my own fabrication earlier on…

I’ll just stand here and alternately ring the bell (which makes the dogs bark - only someone accustomed to our dogs would know that they were barking like someone they knew was at the door, rather than some random criminal). I’ll also phone the land line, and you can hear it ringing, but nobody answers it so that’s no use.

It’s a good thing that the couple who let me in, who happen to be my upstairs neighbours (hello if you’re reading!), were too busy snogging and having fun, and weren’t questioning too deeply my reasons for being here. Hell, yes, I appeared genuine, but any crook worth their salt should be. I wonder, exactly, how it is that I should persuade people that I’m supposed to be here, if this happens again, and, say, the dogs are in the flat but I’ve locked myself out, and it’s late at night and I don’t have Harvey’s phone number in my mobile phone.

That I’m posting this, incidentally, is a sign that Cleodhna eventually gave in and let me in ;-).