Free Fight For Your Dream by Elaine Hazel Sharp

station. I glanced down at the fuel indicator, to see that we still had just over half a tank left. Surprised at the amount of fuel we still had left I continued to make the turn. Obviously, the instructor didn’t like dropping below half a tank, I thought. Surely this was a trick question though? The instructor wanted to see that I was well aware of what my instrument dials were telling me? Smugly I pulled in at the side of the petrol filler and turned off the engine. Hmm, she wasn’t going to catch me out! Wrong, wrong, wrong! When she glared across at me with a blank expression on her face, I realised my stupid mistake; I’d turned left instead of right - how embarrassing! Anyway, moving on swiftly, we’ll get back to sailing!
    Nigel had flatly refused to re-enter the pub with me because of the state of his attire, so it was down to me to organise a B&B for the night. Success! After securing a room, I listened to the directions of how we could find the B&B. It seemed fairly straightforward, even for me to understand. So, off we went. It wasn’t until the alcohol started to wear off that I started to think we’d been walking a long time. Surely by now we’d covered the half a mile to our destination? The August night air had definitely taken on a chill. We were both getting tired. I was beginning to feel cold, and we both just wanted to climb into a comfortable bed. No such luck! The stinking mud on Nigel’s legs had now dried to a hard crust. The only consolation to this was that the smell had disappeared, but the crustiness of the mud had started to cause blisters on his feet. He wasn’t a happy bunny, but neither was I, and the evening’s escapades no longer seemed amusing. It was Nigel who decided enough was enough. It was also pretty obvious that the colour of my hair had once again earned itself the well known saying ‘dizzy blonde’. Yes, I’d messed up again. I was so cross with myself; could I ever get anything right? Eventually, we retraced our steps. Once again, I was in the pub for the third time that night; but this time Nigel was adamant he would be right behind me. Hallelujah!
    After explaining what had happened, we were taken pity on. A member of staff was heading our way and offered to take us to the elusive B&B. On arrival the house was in darkness. Mind you, that wasn’t surprising, because we were about two hours later than expected. What now? We had two options. We either spent the night outdoors, or somehow tried to wake up the occupants of the house. In this instance, discretion being the better part of valour, we plumped for the latter. We decided that we had to be discreet, so it seemed to me that we should go round to the back of the house, where we would at least be hidden from the other houses on the cul-de-sac. Aided and abetted by Julie (the staff member), we made our way around to the back garden. A dim light was still shining in one of the rooms: thank goodness! We presumed from this, that at least somebody was still awake. The three of us stood in the garden, like three naughty school children, looking up at the window. Nigel picked up a small pebble and tossed it upwards towards the window, swiftly followed with a whisper of ‘Hello, hello.’ After several attempts, we stood looking longingly towards the window, when noises were heard. The clinking of keys and locks were heard, and then a door opened.
    â€˜I’d given up on you,’ said a voice from the door.
    Nigel replied, ‘I’m so sorry about this, but we’ve had a few problems trying to find you.’ Then Julie spoke, ‘Hello, Mary, this is the young couple from the pub.’
    It was a starry night. The sky was full of stars that twinkled like diamonds. The garden was illuminated with a warm, yellow glow which, in a strange way, made the whole scenario seem more plausible. A brief explanation took place, and then Mary turned to Nigel, looked at