Monthly Archives: June 2015

A useless sabbatical, a stray student, and a delicious brand of cell phone (Rousse)

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Dreamaticus

My boss pass me a typed sheet of paper. This stated that I had been granted a sabbatical between 29th April and 31st August 2015. It was already the end of June. What use was this to me? Then the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged April, August, bite, Blackberry, boss, brand, caramel, cell, chocolate, class, doubts, download, Edinburgh, exam, flight, hassle, June, miss, mobile, module, paper, phone, PowerPoint, presentations, Princes Street, sabbatical, strategy, student, typed, US | Leave a comment

The most famous family in Hastings (Rousse)

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Dreamaticus

We were all guests of BC, her husband G, 11 year-old Z and toddler N. Their house near Hastings was tiny: B and G gave up their bedroom so that TPR could have their bed. (They would sleep on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bed, bedroom, birthday, body, card, curtains, dog, entertain, family, furry, guests, Hastings, locals, neck, parents, sleep, sofa, squash, strangers, television, toddler, TPR, warm, window | Leave a comment

Inconveniences of hotel life (Rousse)

Posted on June 20, 2015 by Dreamaticus

TPR and I were living in a hotel. This was not as glamorous as it sounded. For example, although the hotel had a pool, it was unheated and outdoors, and whenever I used it I risked drowning. It was also … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged access, basement, bedroom, body, brittle bone disease, class, coat, drown, entrance, glamour, hotel, inconvenience, inconveniences, library, life, naked, pensioners, pit, pool, public, rack, ramp, reading room, skeletal, space, steps, TPR, work | Leave a comment

A superhero in a silk top (Rousse)

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Dreamaticus

The knife sliced through DT’s blue and black silk top and into her skin – but I knew that she would survive because we’d been through this before. Cowering on the bed in the corner, I predicted correctly DT would … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged attacker, bed, black, blow, blue, corner, cower, dead, death, knife, midriff, predict, safe, silk, strike, superhero, survive, top | Leave a comment

A menagerie and a monument (Rousse)

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Dreamaticus

My mother had done a great job with the garden. All the pets were happily installed in large runs, the chickens loved their coop, and the hedgehogs were so settled that they forgot their shyness. The only (very minor) problem … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ancient, chicken, chickens, coop, dropping, droppings, Facebook, garden, geese, goose, hedgehog, hedgehogs, lawn, ledge, masterpiece, menagerie, monument, mother, neolithic, pet, pets, run, runs, shy, sister, stone, tomb, valley, view | Leave a comment

Hotel blues (Rousse)

Posted on June 17, 2015 by Dreamaticus

I’d been away from home for over a week and was thoroughly sick of life in a hotel room. What made it worse was that the hotel was within a huge American-style shopping mall, so it felt like I never … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blues, day, door, floor, hotel, lift, light, room eighth, toe, work | Leave a comment

Hebridean pursuits: cycling, flying, and wildlife (Rousse)

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Dreamaticus

We met the French cyclists when they came off the North Uist ferry. Exhausted and soaked, they were not happy tourists. We agreed that the Hebridean weather was not the easiest and, as illustration, I demonstrated how I could launch … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bay, bicycle, bike, biking, cycling, cyclists, dolphin, dolphins, exhausted, exotic, ferry, flight, flying, French, high, North Uist, Outer Hebrides, perform, rain, road, single, soak, tide, track, water, weather, Western Isles, wildlife | Leave a comment

Project crisis ‘cured’ with spray-on white hair and wedding invitations (Rousse)

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Dreamaticus

Our work was barely progressing from one meeting to the next so we decided that the only course of action open to us now was to bring the project to an end and cut our losses. One of the team … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged campus, crisis, cure, decision, Edinburgh, hair, head, invitation, invitations, legal, losses, progress, project, Queen Margaret University, regret, spray-on, team, wedding, white, work | Leave a comment

Bedsit Bernard (Rousse)

Posted on June 13, 2015 by Dreamaticus

I agreed to take on a fellow academic from another institution as my PhD student. He had told everyone that his name was Bernard, but I knew that he was really an Italian national and, as such, his real name … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged academic, attic, Bernard, besit, computer, doctoral, instructions, Italian, PhD, student, studies | Leave a comment

How to fight off an unwanted suitor (Rousse)

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Dreamaticus

The man begged me for a date. I agreed to go for a walk with him, but insisted that he first take a look at my left hand. I was a very married woman.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged beg, date, hand, left, man, married, suitor, unwanted, woman | Leave a comment