No, I haven't been busted for drug use, but I was stopped for speeding! I had a really good excuse, too. I was at my cousin Patrick's wedding (good day, nice to catch up with all the rellies) and we were just leaving when Hugh and Maureen said that they couldn't get a taxi until twelve o'clock and that the venue (Hylands House) would have to chuck them out before that. I couldn't fit everyone in the car, so I said I'd take them to the station to find a taxi and drop Duncan off at his hotel on the way. I knew that if I was too long, Anna, Dave and my mum would be cast out into the freezing night, so I wellied it a bit. It didn't do me any good, because it takes ages for them to write out a speeding ticket, so I was no further forward!

They stopped me in London Road, near the church where the wedding had been (I'm sure there's some sort of irony there). They had hairdryers and weren't afraid to use them (well it was a cold night). I was resigned, but jolly, because there's no point in getting on the wrong side of them and getting locked up for the night. When I realised that my sob story was wasted on them (hard-hearted fiends!), I tried a different tack, to whit: "Did you calibrate your guns before you started to use them?". "Oh, yes," they said "we always do that, the Kent Police have had some trouble in that direction, but we're meticulous." (Damn!) "Oh, good," I said, "I was just checking that you were doing your job properly, I wasn't trying to wriggle out of my fine!"

So they finished up the paperwork (£60 fine and three points) and sent me on my merry way. I did kind of forget that they were there on the way back and was doing thirty-five as I approached them, but then I slowed down and Duncan said, "Give them a wave." So I did and he said that they'd both waved back - phew! Duncan said that the funniest thing was how Hugh and Maureen were ranting while I was getting booked. Mind you good old Hugh gave me the £60, saying that I wouldn't have been on that road if I hadn't been doing them a favour. That's true, but he didn't ask me to speed, so it was more than I had any right to expect.

When I got back to Hylands House, the remaining guests had, indeed, been slung out into the cold (quite unnecessarily, I thought, as they'd given the oldies a couple of chairs, so they couldn't have gone until they got the chairs back, anyway).

What annoyed me ever so slightly was that the police didn't breathalize me, I reckon I would only have been dangerous speeding at that time of night if I was drunk, so they didn't do their job very well after all!

All this after making the effort to go to a policeman's wedding - there's no justice in the world!