KEY POINTS:
Ever had that slightly uneasy feeling you're about to play a bit part in a late-night Friday horror remake as you knock at the door of a lonely B&B seeking a bed for the night?
Here we were in the hills above Sevenoaks, a little shy of the southern outskirts of London, about 6pm on a gloomy Sunday, paying the price for poor planning.
By the time we got to Sevenoaks, the tourist office was shut, and a flurry of mobile calls to B&Bs listed in their window established the town was full.
But one host happened to know a woman - a friend of a friend - who pitched in when the town was full and might be able to help. Were we interested?
Ten minutes later and we were lugging our cases to the front door to be greeted by the toothless smile of an elderly lady, with an "I've been expecting you" that might have welcomed Brad and Janet in a low-budget Rocky Horror Show.
Inside the house was a mess. Shabby, rundown and exuding a musty smell with a slightly rotten aftertaste - if there's such a thing in the nasal world.
But we were tired and desperate so we followed our host up the narrow creaky staircase to a small mezzanine landing where she paused at the top to signal a room the size of a cupboard, telling us: "That's my Polish boarder's room."
Great stuff. Spending the night with Riff-Raff's wife and a Polish axe murderer.
Which might not have been so bad if it we hadn't been given a quick look at the bathroom, half the size of a cupboard, with the boarder's tooth brush, shaving gear and dirty towel cluttering up the grimy basin. The only surprise was that his false teeth weren't there as well.
And then the bedroom. "I'm sure you'll be very comfortable here," said Mrs Rocky, with almost a leer. Tight, you'd generously call it, with a sloping A-frame ceiling and two single beds at right angles. Tatty old candlewick bedspreads, pillows holding a curious assortment of kapok clumps, sheets which might very well have been hand-me-downs from the axe murderer. And, of course, general grime.
It was all too much. "We don't have to do this!" I said. "I'm not going to sleep in this hovel - we're out of here!"
My wife was out the door before me and down the stairs we went with our cases, then headed off into the full-moon night, looking nervously in the rear vision mirror for the chasing glint of steel.
For tired, hungry and smelly travellers, we felt buoyed.
We had tasted deep travel fear but got out unscathed.
In the way of Friday night horror movies, we were entitled to a reward - and we got it.
A final call to a B&B which had earlier drawn no response produced an answer this time - a friendly hello and the promise of a lovely room for the night. It was all of that - fresh, bright, spacious, warm and clean, with charming hosts who had once lived in New Zealand and enjoyed a chat over a drink.
Janet and Brad would have loved it.