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 ï>¿After a fairly sleepless night I wasn't really at my best when Gareth
pitched up at some unearthly hour of the morning  -" about 9:30, to be
honest  -" but I got it together to make him coffee and even some breakfast
 -" he'd left his parents place in North Wales considerably earlier still 
-" and we sat companionably enough in the small kitchen of the flat I'd
slept in - Debbie and my flat, according to the plans we'd made in London.
Not that he commented on her absence, possibly because the journey had been
a bit of a hassle  -" the by now only-just-passable road up the valley
being only the last of the weather related problems  -" and he was just
knackered.  Or perhaps he just assumed that she was doing something
elsewhere  -" perhaps up at the building site.  Anyway, he didn't ask and I
didn't volunteer the information, so after we'd finished eating we set
straight to setting up the office, reassembling most of the furniture that
we'd brought with us from London, for a start, with gusto.  And, working
hard and working well together, we got most of the bigger stuff set up
within a couple of hours.  I made to make an immediate start on configuring
the IT side of things but he stopped me and suggested a coffee instead. 
Well, man after my own heart and all that, so I agreed and  -" the office
coffee maker being in a cardboard box somewhere in the pile  -" went off to
fill a kettle.  When I got back, I found him sitting on one of the desks,
talking good humouredly with Rosie.  Who greeted me warmly enough, accepted
a coffee and then, pleasantries out of the way, said, "I came over for a
reason, though.  First is to give you a message from Debbie  -" after we
talked last night." (I saw Gareth give us both a quizzical look but he
didn't make any comment.) "I suggested that she take a break for the day,
do some thinking and that sort of thing.  In return for which, I said I'd
come in and help out in her place, if that's OK?" We both agreed that it
was, though I could tell that Gareth was now retrospectively curious about
where Debbie had been  -" this morning and, I guessed, last night, too. 
Well, he'd find out  -" or not  -" soon enough.  I didn't really feel like
volunteering the information.  In any case, Rosie wasn't quite finished
yet. "And," she went on, "seeing as how I'm going to be here and the two of
you seem to have done most of the heavy lifting already, I think you should
bugger off, too, Dave.  Kath suggested that you might like to take a walk
round the head of the valley with her and that deranged dog of hers  -" the
ghylls should be pretty impressive after all this rain  -" say meeting at
the Old Hotel about lunchtime?  Again, I could see the curiosity on
Gareth's face but he must have picked up on something in Rosie's tone  -"
or perhaps from both of our body language  -" because he rapidly asserted
that he felt this was a bloody good idea, how he'd be happy to work with
Rosie, etc etc.  I did wonder, briefly, if I was being set up, her but
actually I did have a couple of counter arguments.  First, the next task we
had was to set up the network  -" more my area than Gareth's  -" and,
second, what with the continuing difficulties on the road, there weren't
going to be any buses up the valley.  "Dave," said Gareth, with some force,
"I can hook up a PC to an ADSL router, for crissakes  -" which will give us
basic functionality  -" and as for the more involved stuff, well Naz should
be here tomorrow and its more his area than yours..." Which was true
enough, and, when Rosie pointed out that the bus that had got stuck in the
valley last night was currently doing a shuttle up and down the bits of the
road it could get to, my fate was effectively sealed.  OK, I did wonder
quite what Kath was so keen to see me about, given the length of
conversation we'd had the previous night, but  -" hell, I'd dragged
everyone up here largely because I liked these mountains, so ...  why not,
really?  So I went.  ++ +++ ++++ +++++ ++++ +++ ++ It was hardly a surprise
to find the bus deserted, given that it was hardly busy at the best of
times and was now running effectively from nowhere to nowhere, rather more
unexpected to find the climbers' bar of the Old Hotel similarly empty. 
Frankly, I'd have expected a few washed out campers from the site over the
road, maybe a rained off conservation worker or two, maybe even, you know
...  Kath.  And that dog.  But, no, no sign.  No Landie in the car park, no
dog, no Kath.  So I went and bought a pint, obviously, sat at a table near
the bar and sat trading sarcastic jibes with Fergus, the bar manager and a
naturally irreverent sort of bloke.  Obviously, he wasn't the least
impressed when I told him I'd become a local resident  -" with years of
experience of visiting the place as a tourist I knew the staff hereabouts
were never impressed with anything that didn't give them an opening for a
cutting one-liner  -" but it was a pleasant enough way to pass half an
hour. By the time it had got to be a full hour, though, I was beginning to
get a bit pissed off at Kath's continuing non-appearance.  I thought about
phoning her, of course, given that there was a pay phone in a little stone
niche beside the toilets, but I knew she wasn't home ...  and that she
wouldn't have a mobile signal any more than I did.  So I carried on passing
the time with Fergie until I saw the next bus come up the valley and
wondered whether I should cut my losses and just head back to the office.
Then I thought that that would be pretty rude if Kath did eventually turn
up, so I went back to the conversation and  -" not five minutes later  -"
was rewarded by the sound of a large dog scrabbling at the pub door,
followed soon enough by the arrival of Harry the Harebrained hound  -"
Kath's excessively friendly labrador.  Which promptly attached itself
meaningfully to my leg, distracting me momentarily from greeting his owner.
Except that when I did look up, it wasn't Kath that had brought him in.  It
was Debbie.  Debbie, looking very fetching in full waterproofs and boots.
Even if not, initially, looking overly pleased to see me.  Then she smiled,
hauled the dog away from its ...  umm ...  activities and looked at me
significantly.  "Well," I said, conversationally, "that is Kath's dog ...
but you're not Kath." "Very true ...  this is indeed Kath's dog and you're
not Kath, either.  Let me make a wild guess, here: You thought were meeting
Kath here, too?" I agreed that this was indeed the case as the absurdity of
the situation and she smiled.  "At a further wild guess, I would also
suggest that it might have been one or more Braithwaite sister who gave you
to understand that she would be here?" I nodded, grinning rather inanely.
"In which case, my dear," she said, returning the grin, "I think we have
been royally had.  So what do you think we should do now?" "Well, its a
pub, so maybe I should offer to buy you a drink?" "Good idea.  And while
you're doing that I'll think of what I'm going to do to those bitches when
I next get my hands on them ..." Language, I thought to myself,
reprovingly. Then I went to the bar.  And bought us both a drink.