Commercial romance and raw beef (Belle)

Posted on May 6, 2020 by Dreamaticus

I was travelling home from Europe on a train. A young man seated behind me slipped his navy track-suited arm around my shoulders. Romance!  Later, he asked me for money to buy weed, but said he wouldn’t necessarily ask me for money “the next time”.  I opened my bag to look for my purse and remembered I was transporting home two large, bloody pieces of uncooked steak.

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A polyglot and a primate (Rousse)

Posted on May 6, 2020 by Dreamaticus

TPR threatened to accompany me to the ball naked. Happily, instead, he dressed in his dinner suit.

However, he did have a big surprise for me. He had rounded up my two best friends from undergraduate days (HJ and SL) and four others from our early twenties (NY, SY, AH-S and CH-S) to join us at the celebration. Everyone was very smartly dressed. The women in our company were even wearing hats.

We left our hotel on foot for the venue. Along the way we wondered at SL’s language prowess: she now was fluent in French, German, Spanish, Italian and Latin.

I was surprised that nobody commented on the small white monkey that was bouncing along beside us all. Its tiny hands were clinging on to N and S. Perhaps everyone else just assumed this figure to be a child rather than a primate?

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Passport control, a golden retriever, and the photo archive of the Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies (Rousse)

Posted on May 2, 2020 by Dreamaticus

I had just reached the head of the queue when the official stepped back and announced that all services would be closed for an hour while passport office staff took a break for lunch. All the equipment on his desk was within easy reach and I seriously considered stamping my own documents. Sensibly, however, I wandered outside to amuse myself for the next sixty minutes.

An old man along the path invited me over for a ‘hug’. I politely declined and instead approached another man man who was sheltering under a white tarpaulin with a huge golden retriever dog. He told me that he was researching the early history of the Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He would be delighted to share with me his archive of photos from the 1950s and 1960s so that I check for pictures of my father amongst them.

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Suicide bomber attack (Rousse)

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Dreamaticus

JM and I were the target of terrorists. We suspected that a suicide bomber would enter the building to blow it up from the inside.

We rushed to grab all our belongings (why had I brought so many grey jumpers and fleeces, and where was my black handbag?), raced down the stairs (avoiding the lift), and stood at a safe distance to witness the explosion.

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Belle the topless medieval carnival worker

Posted on April 30, 2020 by Dreamaticus

I had made a public announcement about my “fantastic boobs” and now here I was being asked to prove it on my first day working at Ye Olde Medieval Fayre. The market town square was beautiful. Bunting was flying and hogs were roasting. My uniform consisted of a long pale yellow skirt, an apron to tie around my waist, a pair of clogs and a cap with ribbons. I was expected to sell these fruit buns to the masses naked from middle up.

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Deaf woman drives ancient red and white Peugeot 205 (Rousse)

Posted on April 30, 2020 by Dreamaticus

I was briefly reunited with my old Peugeot 205. A deaf French woman drove it into town.

The car now sported French plates, and half its body work was white rather than red.

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New lovers complicate Christmas (Rousse)

Posted on April 30, 2020 by Dreamaticus

I introduced CA to TPR as my new lover-to-be. This new relationship was to be understood as a positive career move, though for whom uncertain. Part of the deal on my side was an agreement to take on CA’s two sons in the twenties.

Having gone through a similar process with TPR’s sister S a couple of weeks before – she had also taken on a new man and his children – I foresaw a myriad of complications around future family gatherings at Christmas.

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Pussy cats at the Old Ladies’ Lunch (Rousse)

Posted on April 28, 2020 by Dreamaticus

At the end of the Christmas holiday, my mother and I were guests of MB at the Old Ladies’ Lunch in Humshaugh. (I was a little offended at the invitation, but not sufficiently to refuse a good meal.)

Two ‘spare’ cats were also in attendance. The huge, black fluffy one wrapped itself like a luxury fur around my mother’s neck and shoulders. I was more taken by the tiny leopard spot kitten and its enormous Puss in Boots eyes. It looked like at least one of these creatures would be coming home with us, most likely the black one. The two shy house cats would be staying put.

We returned to the house by bus. All along the A69 the driver took great pleasure in treating pedestrians as skittles. He had a particular talent for taking out pensioners with walking sticks.

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Suspect social distancing and sub-standard library stock (Rousse)

Posted on April 24, 2020 by Dreamaticus

The university was clearly flaunting the safe distancing ‘stay at home’ directive by allowing all the admin staff on campus and setting them up for work in one massive open plan office in the library.

I also disapproved of the changes to the library stock. The shelves were now crammed with multiple copies of trashy crimes novels.

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Faking it with Irish young farmers (Rousse)

Posted on April 24, 2020 by Dreamaticus

At the invitation of BB and JB, I delivered a presentation on knowledge management to a class of twenty bored Irish young farmers.

Within minutes of my leaving the class room, a member of the audience rang me to ask for further information on the topic of my talk. A real expert would have easily answered his straightforward questions, but I couldn’t. My cover was blown.

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