I was to meet my friend Marion in the nearby city of Carlisle at 7.30pm so we could see a film that started at 8. My parents drove me there, since they too were going to the cinema. I started walking towards Marion's house. This involved crossing a huge gently sloping bridge, similar to the one that gets you from Canterbury's town centre to the station, only longer and wider.
On it, I encountered two girls in my Maths class. One who I know quite well, one who I've never spoken to, but when I said hello, they both greeted me. I talked to them for a while, until I realised they were busy with a theatrical project that was taking place on the bridge, run by another first year Mathematician, so I carried on.
About half way across the bridge, I checked my watch. The time was 7.37. I quickened my step, since we were going to be late for the film at this rate. Then it occurred to me that I'd arranged to meet Marion in central Carlisle, not at her house. I hunted in my bag for my mobile phone, so I could call her . . . but it wasn't there. I recalled that I'd been putting my possessions in there in a hurry just before I'd left home, and must have forgotten it.
(Another fact to bear in mind was that my wallet contained as much cash as it does in real life - four pence. Using pay phones and buses was out of the question. How I was planning to get into the cinema is anyone's guess.)
I carried on along the bridge, in the hope that Marion would be late too, but when I reached the road where she lived (which looked just like the one where my boyfriend lives during term time), she wasn't there.
I had keys to my parents' car, so I could have gone back to it, except I couldn't remember where they'd parked it. In any case, I'd have a long wait before the film they were seeing finished. So I decided to stay where I was. My friend (formerly with benefits)Chris lived on this road too, but I decided against visiting him. I was saved from my boredom when my friends Roe and Will and a load of dodgy kids turned up, though.
I hung around with them until eleven. The evening mostly consisted of talking and walking around, but at one point, the kids set fire to a car which was buried in the road, and we watched a transvestite belly dancer (yeah, that makes sense) singing a song, and danced along to it. I asked Roe what he wanted to do for my birthday, but he said he'd have no money by that point, since the next installment of his student loan had a ten-week term to endure first. Nevertheless, he checked the cinema listings for August in a magazine, but there were no good films on around that time.
Slight shift of location: I was at my old school, which just across the main road from the street where Marion lived. (Where my university would be, if it was Canterbury and not a mixed-up Carlisle.) My year had just had a party in the New Hall, since it was Tristan's birthday (Tristan being a boy who had arrived at school at the start of Upper 6th, but only in the dream). He had got off with someone, and I discussed this with Jo (my future housemate) as we walked down the path that connects the playground and the staff car park. My friend Smill ran up behind us, and yelled, "It was me!" I remembered she'd told me this earlier.
I started walking down a road that would take me to a taxi rank. (I would miss the last bus, and my parents were presumably long gone and I couldn't contact them.) On it, I found a bank that was open all night (ok, what universe is this?) so I went inside. I knew that about twenty pounds would be paid into my bank account shortly (which is true), so I asked to withdraw ten. It took the clerk ages to get the money.
Then it occurred to me that ten pounds wouldn't necessarily be enough for a taxi. I asked for another ten, but the clerk ignored me. So I started hunting in my bag for my mismatched socks (which I had, in reality, been wearing the previous day), as I'd taken them off while waiting for the clerk.
As I searched, I found my phone! I almost cried in relief and called my parents.
