Anna Ossam's Adventure

"D'you speak Hindi?" he asked as WhatsApp texts flew back and forth from continent to island. "Not a known language in Somerset," she replied, with smileys. "I will take you to ossam coffee before we begin", he wrote back. Ossam. Ossam? She took the word for a walk all the way to the next village and almost back again before: "Awesome! Awesome coffee!" Where else would her taxi driver take her but to a café with awesome coffee before setting off on the Road Trip of a lifetime. This slightly rearranged version is a stand-alone story from my memoir The Tiger and the Taxi Driver - Book Two. It is a gift to the real taxi driver who looked after me so well during our Himalayan road trip in October 2018, a pilgrimage I had dreamt of for forty years. At the age of seventy-two the Advent of WhatsApp wove my Lavender Codicil.