Through the car window, I thought that I saw KA wearing a long thin pale yellow jumper dress in the new deli in Hexham. I parked nearby and walked back along the road to the shop.
Sure enough it was KA, but she looked so sad. We exchanged a few words and then I continued on my way.
Later in the day I rang KA to check up on her. She put the phone done on me. In the earlier conversation I had (unintentionally) insulted the memory of her mother and now she wanted nothing more to do with me.
I loved the beautiful arts and crafts house in Argyll that I shared with my parents and husband, so I was devastated when my father announced that he had had enough of the poor road links and isolation and would be selling up. He thought that he would be happier in Hexham or Stockton-on-Tees – but why?
I wished that I had not recently given my entire fortune to my nephew and niece. Otherwise I could have bought out my parents and lived the rest of my days in this idyllic Scottish wilderness.
I needed to get home quickly to welcome our unexpected American visitors. This was a couple that we knew from the dot.com boom days of the late 1990s: we had met them on an incentive holiday in the US.
My journey by foot was slow because I had lost my familiarity with the layout of Edinburgh during the coronavirus pandemic. The biggest problem for me was Edinburgh Castle. I just couldn’t work out how to make my way from the south side to the north.
On this occasion I first got stuck on a busy dual carriageway, then lost in a tangle of cobbled streets. Eventually I came to a complete standstill atop one of the castle walls, giddy with vertigo that prevented me from going any further up, yet also from picking my way back down again.
I sat on my perch and watched the action below. It was the day of the monks’ graduations. Each one was dropped from the ruined abbey onto the lawn below as part of the ceremony. Their habits formed perfect parachutes to soften the grassy landing.
The channel crossing was pretty rough, so it was with some relief that I sensed from under my hood that we were finally docking in Dover.
In the rush to disembark I lost TPR and EF, but I wasn’t too concerned. I’d catch up with them at Customs. I trooped off the boat like everyone else following the orderly queue.
For a port preparing for Brexit, Dover seemed a little behind the times. The steep, rough path that led away from the docks wasn’t even tarmacked, and it was hard work for me – a relatively fit middle-aged woman – to climb up the hill single file with the other passengers. Also, there were no border officials to be seen anywhere. It was as if we were all on a day out in the hills together, competing to see who could reach the summit of the ridge first.
Everyone took their cameras out at the top of the hill to photograph the beautiful sunrise over the sea. Meanwhile I was still looking for TPR and EF.
A stranger informed me that my travelling companions had probably just cleared customs as usual and the continued their journey.
“So what’s everyone doing up this hill?” I asked.
“We’re just a party of photographers who wanted to capture the sunrise”, he replied.
Two minutes later, with my own camera poised in the direction of town, I clicked the button at the moment of a huge blast. My picture captured the moment that the windows shattered along the High Street. I posted it immediately on Twitter. Within seconds several media outlets started a bidding war for my amazing image of the latest UK terrorist attack.
It was a busy time on the University campus.
BD was over from Canada, actually attempting to leave, but forever being dragged into new projects. Even Belle took a punt at signing him up for some madcap scheme of hers.
All the University’s offices and halls of residence rooms were being upgraded. My new room was number 4, next to that of PhD graduate FR. It would have been a good base with its large bed and sink, but I was both disappointed and angry that I was expected to share with three others, all of whom were male international PhD students.
I tried to contact TPR by phone to tell him that I would now continue to live at home to finish my own PhD. SL, however, was keen to move on campus now that she had switched the registration of her own doctoral study to the School of Applied Sciences.
Meanwhile there was a lot going on in my personal life. I was responsible for my sister S who had just started secondary school. It was my job to meet her at 3:45pm at the gates of Ian Ramsey School in Stockton-on-Tees, then accompany her home to the White House (Hartburn) at the end of the day.
I should never have allowed my sister S anywhere near my garden. It was now triangular in shape, with a steeply sloped lawn.
She had planted the beds with huge white flowers, and at the point furthest from the house, she had plonked a defunct orange lavatory as ‘decoration’.
This was not the garden makeover that I had in mind.
Indian student Bhopal chose my flat for his lockdown accommodation. We barely noticed him as he hid in our study for two weeks. He might have even been ill in this period. If so, we never knew.
One day Bhopal emerged from ‘his’ room, suitcase in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other.
‘Here I have all the details that I need to find myself suitable student accommodation in Edinburgh’, he declared.
I glanced at the scribbled address on the crumpled paper: a letting agency in Middlesex. I doubted that this would be much help. Regardless, I suggested that Bhopal left his luggage with us while he paced the streets of Edinburgh looking for his new home.
It was a pity that nobody noticed my new super-power: to clone myself.
I sat on the grass in the park with TPR, my sister J, her friend Sean, and my double. My sister didn’t utter a word of surprise when I introduced her to the other ‘me’.
I was impressed with TPR’s truck driving. He sailed with ease along the wide lanes of the M8 into Edinburgh. Similarly, he skillfully navigated the narrow streets of the city, managing to squeeze the articulated lorry down the narrowest of Old Town closes. At one point he even mounted the pavement, taking advantage of the lorry’s huge clearance space to ride over parked cars without damaging them.
When we arrived back at the car hire depot, TPR drove the lorry to the top of the medieval spiral staircase and set the vehicle into ‘collapse’ mode. While he went off to settle our bill, I watched as the lorry parts sorted themselves into neat order and spilled down the steep red stone staircase like a set of obedient dominoes. Afterwards I abseiled down to ground level.
Here I waited in the secure room until it was time for my release. The small cellar-like room was well equipped with magazines and a sleeping bench, should I have needed them. There were even some children’s toys for any younger lorry passengers.
Two of the most popular guests were missing from our super-early Christmas party. Instead of joining us in person for sausages and Champagne, BP and her new husband SF communicated to us (and the world) from their bedroom as they awaited the arrival of their new baby.
While we were missing regular guests, we attracted some new (and not so welcome) ones to this year’s event. For example, TPR’s former colleague LC and his wife EC appeared for the first time, having turned down all invitations in the past. Meanwhile I smiled weakly when my old work pal RK turned up uninvited and asked if it was OK if he and his mates could join in the fun. I was hardly in a position to refuse.
Half way through the festivities I realised that another reason why this party was less festive than usual was that we had not hung up the Christmas decorations. I headed upstairs to hunt for fairy lights in the room that we used for storage.
There I found a bag of old exam scripts and a disgruntled student. I told him that I wasn’t going to argue about marks two years after the event and sent him packing.
My next encounter with was even more unpleasant. Somehow I managed to wriggle away from my assailant, then escape the room screaming.
Dreamaticus 