Drag queens of the resistance movement (Belle)

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Dreamaticus

On a night out in town, I was picked up by a posse of resistance fighting drag queens. We returned to their tower block headquarters near the Barbican. As we entered the lobby, a man carrying army supplies came running down the stairs. Tripping before he reached the bottom, he face-planted and lay still. He was obviously a deserter and I knew that, by not reporting him to the authorities, I was now on the wrong side of the law.

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An afternoon with Killing Eve star Sandra Oh (Rousse)

Posted on July 19, 2020 by Dreamaticus

I met my book group pals in Edinburgh’s Dean Village. MH instructed us to follow the steep overgrown path down to the Water of Leith. I willingly obeyed, unaware that the path was, in fact, a tight tunnel. Half way along, when my claustrophobia kicked in, and with all the others lined up tightly behind me, it was impossible for me to turn back.

I was extremely relieved when the tunnel widened into a bright BBC canteen. MH then revealed her surprise. Each member of the book group was to be paired with a member of the cast of Killing Eve for a private interview.

I couldn’t believe my luck when Sandra Oh was announced as my partner. She was super-friendly (breaking all social distancing rules). I was delighted to spend the rest of the day chatting to her on an orange sofa.

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Errant husband proves sex diet builds muscles and attracts women (Rousse)

Posted on July 18, 2020 by Dreamaticus

A sly grin spread across TPR’s face. Keen to learn the source of his amusement, I leant over the kitchen table and snatched the iPad from his hands. My heart sank when I saw the x-rated message on the screen. There was no denying it: my husband was having an affair with a woman called Theresa.

Now outed, TPR felt duty-bound to confess to all his misdemeanours. These stretched back over several years. While I had been chained to my computer in the study, I had no idea that he’d been visiting a string of women under the cover of ‘going for a bike ride/run’.

The secret of his success with the ladies, he claimed, was his ripped body and strict adherence to the ‘sex diet’.

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A happy heiress and Nottingham University fraud (Rousse)

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Dreamaticus

My greatest delight in inheriting my maternal grandmother’s house was that I now owned a proper pantry. The battered and beautifully engraved silver napkin rings left in a kitchen drawer also fascinated me. Which of my ancestors was born (or possibly christened?) on 1st September 1939? I was even happier still when I calculated the number of people we could accommodate in own new house. Our post-lockdown/house-warming party would be the best ever. Then there was the massive garden to enjoy…

At the back of my mind, however, I still had to sort out my work. The move to England meant that I needed to find a new job. The University of Nottingham was my obvious new employer.

I wandered around campus looking for the careers service. En route I stopped inside the medical school to admire the old fashioned seating into which the name of each undergraduate was carved.

Next to me, a blonde woman struck up a conversation about university research policy, with frequent reference to an unfamiliar acronym. When I eventually confessed my ignorance of this term, I soon knew that I would never get a job at an English university. Pleading that ‘We don’t have that in Scotland’ made no difference whatsoever. This woman was the VP of Research and – in her eyes – I was a complete fraud.

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A peg-legged threesome (Rousse)

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Dreamaticus

I got a lot out of my marriage, not least because my husband’s almost identical brother was part of the deal. We didn’t know his name, nor whether he was younger or older than TPR, but he was always there when we needed him. He was so much fun that Belle enjoyed filming his antics on her old fashioned video recorder.

One day someone asked me which of the two men was my husband. I confidently pointed at one of the brothers only to be told by the other that I was wrong.

Then my ‘true’ husband dropped his trousers to show me something else that I had never seen before: his fully detachable wooden leg.

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A foul-mouthed husband in a frilly shirt (Rousse)

Posted on July 12, 2020 by Dreamaticus

It was Sunday and TPR was in a terrible mood. From my corner of the garden I could hear him swearing as he dug deeper and deeper into the hard ground to prepare a spot for repositioning the pond. From its depth of over 6 feet and its tight circumference, however, I feared that the purpose of this new hole was to bury the pond shell, rather than create a pretty garden feature.

My husband was further annoyed when four little girls rushed through a gate in our garden wall, then scampered across our lawn and disappeared behind a white door that led into a courtyard of New Town mews buildings. How could we have lived here for almost 30 years without the knowledge that our neighbours had a right of access over our property?

The following Friday I turned up very late for the regular lunchtime network meeting at our New Town club. Such was my delay that TPR was coming down the glass stairs on his way out when I arrived (by taxi, with a man who paid the fare, and expected something in return). When I called up to TPR, he openly criticised my ‘banshee shriek’. In return, I felt like making fun of his frilly white 1970s dress shirt, but then I thought better of it.

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Style on a 600 calories a day diet (Rousse)

Posted on July 11, 2020 by Dreamaticus

My sister J now looked long, lean and extremely stylish. Her secret was to live on 600 calories a day. Unfortunately this also made her rather bad-tempered.

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Suffrajet ban on the Isle of Man (Rousse)

Posted on July 11, 2020 by Dreamaticus

TPR explained that he could not possibly live on the Isle of Man because the song Worthy by the Suffrajets was on the island’s banned music list.

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A Russian spy and dangerous old English sheepdog in John Lewis (Rousse)

Posted on July 9, 2020 by Dreamaticus

The University Principal found out that we were harbouring a Russian spy. She first tried to capture him by inviting us all to breakfast at her town house (with newly astro-turfed front lawn). Her servant served us, taking our orders by number Chinese restaurant-style. The plot failed. We managed to leave freely after the meal, our contact still with us.

The Principal’s second attempt to make the spy give himself up was to leave an anonymous note on our kitchen table. The deal that it described would free the spy on the condition that he revealed details of the whereabouts of all his contacts. There would also be a substantial cash reward for him. However, as a man of honour, the spy refused to play ball. He was perfectly happy to continue sheltering with us.

Meanwhile I had another problem to deal with: V and Tz’s poorly cat. I agreed to take it in a basket to the vet. This also turned out to be a dangerous mission when, en route, an enormous old English sheepdog bit my hand in the electrical department of John Lewis.

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What not to take to a beatification (Rousse)

Posted on July 5, 2020 by Dreamaticus

I shamed myself at the beatification for two former popes by carrying a bottle Heinz tomato sauce in my right hand all the way through the ceremony.

Even at the conclusion of the formal proceedings, when the two appointed choir boys jumped up and down and waved banners displaying the names of the new saints, all eyes were fixed on my precious condiment.

Things not did not improve later when a beautifully coiffed, yet seriously overweight, employee of KPMG was appalled at the state of my hairbrush.

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