Blood

I've written before about what a circular thing life is and I had that feeling again yesterday.

Standing looking up at the Kensington Close Hotel, a large nondescript grey brick building just off Kensington High Street, I was immediately transported back 28 years to that exact spot.

It was warm, barmy night 28 years ago, too.  I was working for Midland Bank at the time and I had been sent to London.  I had to attend an assessment centre to see if I was suitable material for the new Management Development Programme.

I should have gone to an assessment centre closer to home but missed out, so it was down to the Smoke with a bunch of other hopefuls who couldn't get to their own regional events.

The travel department of dear old Midland Bank sent me a hotel voucher for the Kensington Close Hotel; so there I was, barely 18 years old, staying in London for the first time, wondering if the receptionist would actually accept my scrappy piece of paper.

Well, they did... I had a room and everything.

It was a hot night so I thought I'd have a bath before getting something to eat.  I had the TV on too... it was a World Cup game from Mexico '86.

When it came time to get out of the bath I stepped on a slippery patch.  My foot went from under me and I sliced the back of my ankle on a sharp edge at the bottom of the bath panel.  It wasn't a bad cut and it didn't hurt when I did it... but I just couldn't stop it bleeding.

I soaked a couple of towels and left bloody footprints across the bathroom floor and on the carpet in the bedroom

Eventually I packed the cut with toilet paper and went out.  I had my first Big Mac on that day, too.

Back in the hotel I peeled off the toilet paper only to find the cut was still bleeding.  Unperturbed I went to bed (having had a couple of drinks, now that I was 18 years old).

And woke up in a scene from a horror movie.

The sheet on my bed was soaked with blood - I must have tossed and turned in the night - and there was blood all over the bathroom towels, too, as well as on the carpets and across the bathroom floor.  Heaven knows what the cleaner would have made of the room.

Anyway, I did the only thing I could think of: I checked out without saying anything, hoping beyond hope the hotel wouldn't call my employer to tell them what an awful chap I was.

And now, 28 years later, here I am again, looking up at that same building.  It hasn't changed from the outside; the sounds, sights and smells are all just as I remember them from 28 years ago.

I even have a pang, wondering whether my name has pinged on their booking system: 'Lambert - charge him for the bloody sheets he ruined last time he was here!'