Monthly Archives: December 2011

Teenage bedroom furniture choices (Rousse)

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Dreamaticus

LF and TF both glanced at me sitting on the futon. “No, that’s it. We’re definitely not getting him one of those“, said L. This declaration came at the end of a long debate on bedroom furniture choices for teenage … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bed, bedroll, beds, boy, boys, bunk, double, floor, friend, furniture, futon, roll, sofa, sofabed, son, teenage, teenagers, woodwork | Leave a comment

Bad behaviour and an F1 fireball kill conversation (Rousse)

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Dreamaticus

The conference launch event was a Victorian-Edwardian music hall concert in the style of BBC’s Good old days show. I thought this a bit OTT for a librarians’ conference, but this was the US, and it did make a change … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged alumni, alumnus, America, BBC, Berkeley, Birmingham University, California, car, colleagues, conference, conversation, dead, dinner, Edwardian, F1, fire engine, fire engines, flame, flames, flirt, flirting, formula 1, formula one, friend, gate-crash, gatecrash, Good old days, hall, kill, librarian, librarians, Manor, Manor House, Mountain View, music, music hall, news, Oxford, Oxford University, PhD, reunion, San Francisco, school, siren, sirens, Stanford, table, TPR, University of Birmingham, University of Oxford, US, Victorian | Leave a comment

Undomesticated male ineptitude (Rousse)

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Dreamaticus

After years of unheeded complaints about his overworking, BB’s wife followed through her threat to throw him out. With nowhere else to go, he turned up on our doorstep. I always suspected that he would not be terribly domesticated, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged complain, complaint, domestic, domesticated, doorstep, dryer, husband, tumble, undomesticated, wife | Leave a comment

Rousse’s mistaken hot property purchase

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Dreamaticus

I was looking forward to moving house. We were going back to the north east of England to be within a one hour drive of my parents. It would be wonderful to be surrounded by friendly northerners again. TPR left … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bar, beating, buckle, children, council, door, fields, flat, floor, floors, friend, friendly, garden, hospital, house, job, kids, lady mad, mistake, neighbour, neighbours, north east, northerner, northerners, parent, parents, patent leather, playing field, property, purchase, real estate, rota, running, school, shoe, smoker, smokers, smoking, student, students, TPR, York | Leave a comment

Lord Alan Sugar’s babysitter and JK Rowling’s secret (Rousse)

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Dreamaticus

“Babysitting” was the answer I gave whenever anyone asked what I did for Lord Alan Sugar. He liked to keep me nearby. This usually meant that I could be found hanging around the main door of the office at street … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alan Sugar, artwork, babysitter, babysitting, coin, coins, cover, design, Egypt, geek, geeky, gold, golden, handbag, handbags, Harry Potter, Harvey Nicks, Harvey Nicols, hunt, JK Rowling, job, key, landing, Lord Alan, Lord Alan Sugar, Lord of the Rings, man, manhole, manhole cover, middle-aged, mother, newspaper, office, paper, pocket, pockets, secret, Sir Alan, Sir Alan Sugar, Tolkein, Tolkien, treasure, treasure hunt, trove | Leave a comment

News of Michael Jackson’s death takes time to register back in the 1970s (Rousse)

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Dreamaticus

I met my new young man back in 1975. He squeezed into the seat next to me on one of the first 125 trains released into the fleet. We agreed to meet the next day beside the cave. He didn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 125, boyfriend, cave, child, death, divorce, e-mail, kid, memo, memos, Michael Jackson, pop, Prince Andrew, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Rockin' Robin, secretaries, secretary, time travel, time-traveller, train, trains, wife | Leave a comment

Cambridge conference saves Rousse from North Sea diving job

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Dreamaticus

Although I agreed with the guest house landlady that her daughter looked a fright, I kept my views to myself. The poor girl obviously considered herself a beauty, yet to most she simply looked fake with her long blonde hair … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged addict, addiction, badge, badges, blonde, boat, Cambridge, canal, college, conference, costumes, delegate, diving, extensions, fake, Grantham, guest house, guesthouse, hair, holiday, job, landlady, libraries, North Sea, qualification, skin, swimming, swimsuits, tablets, tan, tanning, TPR, training, underwater, waterway, waterways | Leave a comment

Become a personal trainer – but not on this course (Rousse)

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Dreamaticus

Completely fed up with work, I decided to ditch academia to train as a fitness instructor, and joined the same course as FM. The pace of the classes was incredibly slow, largely because the tutor took a 15 minute break … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Arthur's Seat, bike, class, classes, course, cycle, cycling, exercise, fitness, hair, instructor, mountain, personal, student, students, trainer, tutor, wheel | Leave a comment

Rousse’s perilous journey

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Dreamaticus

This was highly embarrassing. My gym membership had run out several weeks earlier and somehow I had ended up in the changing rooms with everyone encouraging me to pretend that I was still a member. This was not right and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged African, Africans, death, drown, gym, journey, kayak, kayaking, member, membership, mudflat, paddle, paddling, partner, peril, perilous, river, spiral, stair, staircase, stairs, step, steps, stream, tributary | Leave a comment

Talking dog finds a new home (Rousse)

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Dreamaticus

TPR and I found a new place to live on the top floor of an abandoned Victorian orphanage in Manchester. Admittedly it would take some time to make the cold grey rooms comfortable, and we’d have to do something with … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged babies, children, clothes, corridor, corridors, dog, dogs, golden retriever, kids, Manchester, moths, orphanage, TPR, Victorian | Leave a comment