Led by LL, a bunch of my former students ganged up on me. First they stole my silvery white suitcase. Then they forced me to wear a slogan T shirt that mocked my jawline. I felt ugly and useless.
My only supporter was my University friend SH – until the day at the station when she revealed that her friendship was false, and that she had been working for the other side all along.
I was driving a white Vauxhall Viva in a rather erratic manner when my mobile phone rang. I knew that it was not advisable to answer it when at the wheel, so I turned into a side road to find somewhere to park.
I should really have killed my speed now that I was off the main road. Instead I struggled to come to an emergency stop when I hit the garden at the end of the cul de sac. Poor Alice was not happy when she saw that I had squashed all her daffodils.
As we drove north, from my seat at the front of the coach I could see in the sea loch a fleet of Viking longboats with the most beautiful decorated sails. I called to all the passengers behind me ‘Quick! Vikings! Get your cameras ready!’
I was so concerned that my fellow photographers had the best opportunity for a fabulous picture that I was rather too slow myself in preparing my own shot. By the time I pulled out my own camera the ships were already setting out to sea.
There was further excitement at the port. Here a diver brought an ‘ancient’ bottle up from the seabed. It looked just like an ordinary plastic bottle of lemonade to me, but everyone else was enthralled at suggestions of its potential archaeological significance.
I was distraught when my husband TPR declared that he no longer loved me, and that I was to be ‘donated’ to a new fiancé – my ex brother-in-law NMcC. The pair of them tried to placate me with a choice of two new engagement rings. I chose the three diamonds in the silver and gold twist over the square silver signet ring, but still I was not happy.
My mother, in contrast, was delighted with the news – at first. Then she broke down when she remembered that she could not share her excitement with my father (because he was dead).
When I started thinking about the practicalities of my imminent divorce and remarriage, I was reminded of another issue. I had married TPR bigamously and – to date – got away with it.
By drawing attention to my marital status now, I feared that my previous crime would be brought into the open. Rather than starting a new life with NMcC, I was now facing the prospect of a prison sentence.
David Tennant was amongst the great and good brought together by the UK research councils to serve on the horizon-scanning committee. I guessed that he was qualified to join the academics and industry futurists thanks to his experience of time travel as Dr Who.
I couldn’t help being rather star-struck when I found myself allocated a seat to the immediate left of the famous actor. I had admired him for so long, and wondered whether it would be impolite to ask him for his autograph?
However, over the course of our discussions it became apparent that David Tennant was not in the best of mental health. By the end of the meeting he was hiding under the white IKEA table, refusing to speak to anyone. I crawled between the chairs to see whether I could coax him out to join the rest of us again, but he gruffly declined my invitation.
Two new shops opened on Edinburgh’s Broughton Street while we were away on holiday. As an avid reader, I was pleased that one was a book exchange. The other was a posh furniture store full of University of Edinburgh students. They were testing out sofas for the New Town flats that their parents had purchased for them.
Out on the street again I ran into US academic DC. I hadn’t seen him for years – perhaps not since he gatecrashed my 30th birthday party and nagged me about getting ‘terminal degree’. He had a list of questions about Scotland for me, but I refused to answer them. All I wanted to do was play in the snow.
When it started to rain, a gay men’s choir started to sing madrigals outside the Apple pharmacy. I spotted BW-H first. When he saw me he rushed over and offered his neck for a kiss. Now it really was time to go home.
I wondered how an amateur choir from St Albans had managed to fill out this central London venue. People were packing in to hear them sing highlights from Oklahoma.
If only I’d realised that tiny pearl stud earrings would make me look so fabulous, I would have started wearing them years ago.
My relationship with Eminem (or Marshall as I was now calling him) was going from strength to strength. Although marriage hadn’t been mentioned, and no formal proposal had been made, Marshall helped me fashion a wedding headdress out of costume jewellery and old perfume packaging. He’d brought a famous singer with him on our date but I wasn’t sure if it was Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift. She said to Marshall “…we really should do a duet” and I rolled my eyes. “That ain’t happenin’, honey”, I said to myself.
I carried a wriggling cat around the corridors of Goldsmiths College and the students thought I was a ‘happening’ piece of performance art.
I was appearing on a chat show, reminiscing about a gang of “bad ass true crime podcasters”.
“How bad were they?” I asked rhetorically. “Well, once they pulled me over and they weren’t even driving a car”.
How the audience laughed. I was hilarious.
Dreamaticus 