Author Archives: Dreamaticus

House move improves laundry facilities (Rousse)

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Dreamaticus

DT and KJ came to visit our new flat on the top floor of an old house built into the hills. KJ was not convinced that it was an improvement on our old place. I argued that it was. This … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bed, bedsheets, dry, flat, hills, house, indoors, kitchen, laundry, line, move, sheet, sheets | Leave a comment

A research council prawn and shrimp feast in Hawaii (Rousse)

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Dreamaticus

Were the UK research councils awash with money? All the evidence pointed to this: how else could they afford to host a conference in Hawaii? I just wished that there was more time between sessions to change into my gown … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged colleagues, conference, council, dinner, evidence, feast, gown, Hawaii, menu, money, prawn, programme, research, shrimp | Leave a comment

Christmas confusion leads to a very late lunch (Rousse)

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Dreamaticus

In all the confusion of the Christmas celebrations my mother forgot to switch on the oven. We ended up eating the roast potatoes for breakfast on Boxing Day, and the turkey a couple of days later.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Boxing Day, breakfast, Christmas, confusion, lunch, mother, oven, potatoes, turkey | Leave a comment

Drugs and death at Tesco (Rousse)

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Dreamaticus

I needed drugs. TPR told me that we could buy them over the counter at the supermarket. I wasn’t too sure of this, but felt it was worth a try, so I followed him out of the door and along … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged assistant, £20, bored, Broughton Road, car, car park, charge, child, children, chit chat, counter, death, door, drug, drugs, duty, Edinburgh, entrance, fatality, idle, kid, kids, kill, layout, magazine, neighbourhood, newspaper, park, people, pharmacy, quest, request, road, sample, scream, stands, stick, supermarket, Tesco, TPR | Leave a comment

Rousse’s one night stand

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Dreamaticus

I had been a faithful wife for almost three decades and now I’d blown it after a brief (but fun) encounter with XY (also married) in the marital bed while TPR was fast asleep along the corridor in the spare … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged asleep, bed, bedroom, card, cards, Christmas, corridor, covers, Craiglockhart, enounter, faithful, futon, guilt, house, infidelity, innocence, invention, married, mouth, night, one night stand, passion, photography, promiscuity, ride, STD, study, taxi, test, town, TPR, wife, work | Leave a comment

A monochrome moon rise, a self-driving car, drunken students, a horse, frozen waves, and a train ride to Edinburgh from South Queensferry (Rousse)

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Dreamaticus

From the back seat of the car I noticed the moon rising in monochrome over Waverley Bridge. “Slow down!” I shouted at TPR, “This is amazing. I need to photograph it!” When he didn’t reply to me I leant over … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged airport, asleep, bridge, bus, buses, car, driverless, drunk, Edinburgh, Forth, frozen, horse, man, monochrome, moon, navigate, photograph, playground, railway, river, roundabout, seat, self-driving, South Queensferry, students, TPR, tracks, Waverley Bridge, waves, wheel, window | Leave a comment

Unshod on a London Routemaster bus (Rousse)

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Dreamaticus

After all the fuss it took to book a vintage Routemaster bus to take us to the railway station for a special trip to London by train, I was very disappointed that only TPR and I turned up. Then there … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bus, house, leave, London, railway, Routemaster, shod, shoes, station, TPR, train, unshod | Leave a comment

The chaos of rapid expansion in UK higher education (Rousse)

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Dreamaticus

The expansion of Queen Margaret University’s portfolio of courses was so rapid that its building could not cope with the additional student numbers. Indeed something had gone terribly wrong during the extra construction work and now many of the institution’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged academic, business, chaos, construction, corridor, corridors, dead-end, dead-ends, English, expansion, hall, higher education, hiss, history, information, joy, knowledge management, language, lecture, lunch, meeting, mess, Queen Margaret University, sources, staircase, staircases, student, students, timetable, tutor | Leave a comment

Dressing up for the doctoral defence (Rousse)

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Dreamaticus

Each time that I attended a doctoral defence in a Nordic country I was impressed by the trouble that my hosts took to look their best on a student’s big day. On this occasion GW wore a spangled cream and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged collar, cream, defence, doctoral, doctorate, dress, dressing, hiar, host, hosts, label, Next, Nordic, outfit, PhD, sequin, sequins, shift, shoulders, spangle, student, students, tag, wear, white | Leave a comment

The sinister story behind Bye baby bunting (Rousse)

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Dreamaticus

“So, contrary to popular belief Bye baby bunting is not a sweet lullaby, but instead a sinister account of child abuse at the hands of a trusted nursery nurse” concluded the speaker. The looks on my colleagues’ faces said it … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged abuse, baby, bag, belief, bunting, bye, bye baby bunting, child, colleagues crazy, conference, inaccurate, nurse, nursery, Paris, story, thesis, weekend, woman | Leave a comment