Merry Old England. . .

Recently I attended a writers residency in Wroxton, England and everything was going great until the fire drill. Now everyone that knows me knows that I'm not a morning person. No happy talking, no smiling, no fire drills. Now Nina Foxx, my dear friend, is a morning person and she had the unfortunate privilege of being my neighbor in the Abbey, the University Hall we stayed in outside London. The bells are ringing, and I incorporated them into my dream sequence and was content to burn alive in the 400-year-old wooden building. I kept dreaming until someone who I later learned was Nina banged on my door. Well, that was quite unwelcome and made me sit up and realize the fire bells were real. I sat on the bed still waking up. Bang, bang, bang. That was Nina again, trying to save my life. I dragged on my coat, found my glasses, shoes, hat, gloves and scarf-hey it was hand made by my sister-in-law, and went down 80 stairs and out the non-burning building. If you haven't been to London, you haven't experienced the lovely January weather. The drizzle that rarely turns into a rain shower, and the rain showers that last long enough to soak you to the skin after you've left home w/o your umbrella. Well, we straggled out the building in a bizarre parade of half-sleep, pajama clad students who looked more confused than scared that our temporary home was about tinder for the biggest fire Wroxton had seen in 200 years. One of the Mentors ambled over to me and said, "So, this is what you look like in the morning."
Okay, I took a swipe at him. I was half sleep. We laughed and I hiked back to the North Pole, my room. I got back into bed when the thunderous knock shook my door again. Dangit, those weren't my words, but you get my drift. I opened the door and in walked Nina.
"Carm, where were you?"
"Escaping the fire," I said, as I climbed back into bed. Why was she looking at me odd with her coat zipped to the throat?
"Girl, I had to go down the fire escape."
I open one eye and look at her. "Why? There wasn't even a fire."
"My room is the fire escape room. I was naked. I'm still naked!"
I opened both my eyes. "You have a coat on."
"Underneath I'm nekked!"
"Oh." I sit up. "What the hell, Nina?"
She laughs. "I'd just gotten out of the shower and the fire alarm went off. I got scared. I knew people would be coming to my room and I panicked. I grabbed my coat and opened the door. When I turned around that guy that's on our floor, he was in the doorway with this crazy, scared look in his eyes. He raced past me to the window, pushed it open and started down."
"No way. He didn't wait for you to go first?"
"No! I couldn't believe it. I shoved my feet in my Uggs, grabbed my Rolex and started down the fire escape. Then I shouted down to that guy, 'You'd better not look up.'"
I just looked at Nina. "Are you KIDDING?"
"What, I'm naked underneath," she emphasized.
"That's the point. You're goose is hanging free and you tell a single white male don’t look up? Be serious. Even Ruth in the Bible turned back and looked and she turned into a pillar of salt. Where is dude, anyway?"
"I don't know."
We looked out my door and the maids were throwing his sheets into the hallway. "What did you do to him," I ask her. "Most guys don't go the other way when goose is hanging over their heads, if you know what I mean."
We laugh.
"I don't know where he went, but the blog will be interesting," Nina assures me.
I watch her leave as I climb back in the bed for five more minutes of rest before my alarm goes off. "Interesting? Only Nina."