***
I had accessed my emails and Facebook account a few times in different internet cafés, and was worried that if my internet activity was being monitored, it would be obvious by now that I was in Paris. In the old days you could just have gone to a port and bought a ferry ticket, but now everything needed to be booked and paid for online with a credit card. Even with a false passport, getting out of France was going to be difficult.
Then I stumbled across a solution. I noticed a Dutch lorry delivering flowers to a shop in the heart of Paris one night and it struck me that it would probably be a regular delivery. The next time it came, I was packed and ready to jump on board. I wedged myself under a shelf and settled in for the return trip to Aalsmeer. The driver would probably go and pick up his next delivery there in the early morning from the flower auction warehouses.
I had read somewhere that it was the largest flower market in the world, but when we got there I was taken aback by the sheer scale of the operation. I would easily be able to nose around for a bit, as most of the traffic of carts full of flowers was automated and I wouldn’t show up on CCTV, but finding a consignment on its way to Scotland would be difficult. As luck – or maybe misfortune – would have it, I found a cart destined for Glasgow. I followed it and managed to get into a Glasgow-bound lorry undetected. Ach well, the good thing about Glasgow is that there’s a road to Edinburgh.