Everyone was tip-toeing around our colleague at work following her recent bereavement. While I was happy to as supportive as everyone else, it irritated me that she took it for granted that she could throw me off my computer whenever she wanted to do her own thing online.
I was also rather perturbed whenever she walked into the office with her dead husband following in her wake, serving as her document porter.
I hoped that that those travelling in the morning traffic out of North Berwick towards the A1 and west into Edinburgh passed by at a sufficient speed not to notice our antics on a stranger’s garden wall. Afterwards we considered stopping for breakfast in one of the town’s quaint deli-cafés, but instead went directly to the station to catch a train to Glasgow.
At the other end of the line at Queen Street we were greeted by our gay arch-Brexiteer friend IS. While his views on Europe had not shifted, we were surprised to meet his new wife, especially since I recognised her as my former colleague EW. She then introduced her daughter, who told us that her name was Martin. I knew that was really called E or L.
While we hung around the station, TF invited me to take a quick spin around the forecourt. I was impressed with his new ballroom dancing skills, but not his horrible brown suede slip-on shoes with red woolly socks.
I knew that the present I had bought for JB was “literally the best present anyone had ever bought for anyone, ever”. In the middle of a heatwave, I had bought her a sledge.
The personal trainers had removed most of the artefacts that I had brought in to customise my corner of the gym.
Now piled up higgledy-piggledy against the wall were the certificates and newspaper cuttings from my 10k races, the stereo tuner, the CD player, and the hessian Tesco shopping bag.
Two items, however, were nowhere to be seen. The small glue stick-sized piece of hollow plastic and the phial of balm had been confiscated on the grounds of their supposed ‘dubious purpose’. When I pointed out the names of the drug companies on the packaging of these two items, and explained their application in (1) easing my breathing and (2) treating eczema on my hands, the trainers hung their heads in shame.
By the time that TPR returned to my spot, drenched in sweat from half an hour of extreme exercise, I had won permission to restore each item to its rightful place.
The irony of all this was that TPR and I were gym gatecrashers. We relinquished our membership years ago and had no right to be there at all.
I was recruited by the government to infiltrate a criminal ocean-bed-drilling enterprise run by some rather cliche east end villains.
My only way in was to join the ‘corps de cabaret‘ as a burlesque performer. Not only was this a steep learning curve, but I was also terrified of the long lift journey to the seabed.
Things got worse, when a small group of performers (including me) was taken to a room to be given special instructions about the ‘specialist performance requirements’ of Simon the gang leader.
I could tell that my neighbour JS was desperate to go to the lavatory so I offered her the use of our guest bathroom. She refused on the basis that it was at the back of the house and bound to be cold in the wintertime. She would, however, avail herself of our en suite facilities.
I was happy to let her use our bathroom, provided that she gave me a minute or two to ‘tidy it up a little’. My main concern was to hide my drugs: I did not want JS to know the extent of my ‘wee problem’. The job done, I allowed her through my bedroom door.
JS emerged from the bathroom unwilling to speak to me. She marched past me and out of the flat in tears, so I chased after her. Out in the street, she refused to explain why she was so upset. Perhaps she was disappointed that she hadn’t managed to find my drugs? Or maybe I had insulted her in some way?
I found JS’s attitude rather rude, especially since earlier in the day I had generously given her a Roald Dahl poster in small tube for her to hang in her daughter ‘s bedroom.
I was so excited when TPR and I walked along the pontoon to board the yacht that would be our home with around 20 others for the months of September to December.
As soon as we were inside the vessel, however, I realised our terrible mistake in signing up for this ‘adventure of a lifetime’.
I was claustrophobic, susceptible to seasickness, and an unskilled sailor. We had to return to dry land as soon as possible!
David Beckham’s tattooist lived with his family on the banks of the River Tweed. I discovered the artist’s identity the day that TPR drove us to the tiny riverside cottage in his new black sports car .
I admired the tattooist’s wife’s choice of décor, particularly the fabrics for the soft furnishings. Throughout the cottage there was heavy use of highly-patterned brightly coloured remnants from the 1970s.
We found David Beckham himself seated topless in the garden as the tattooist inked him in. Although I admired the artwork, I thought that it would look so much better on a canvas, rather than on the skin of a celebrity.
Then TPR took off his T shirt to reveal to me that he had two tattoos! On his right shoulder SL had attempted to draw some form of Celtic design. Meanwhile on the left my sister S’s friend A had hopefully scribbled her contact details. Much to my relief, neither ‘design’ was permanent.
Having successfully negotiated the main section of the journey to Edinburgh with my maternal grandmother in the smaller of my mother’s two silver Volvos, I lost concentration on a road that had been partially cordoned off, slammed into a traffic cone, and turned over the car. We were both flung out of our seats onto the tarmac.
While I soon picked myself up from the road, my poor maternal grandmother remained splayed across the lane. Although not visibly injured, I feared that she was dead. I reached for her arm and felt for her pulse. All was well, she was alive after all, and happily returned to her seat in the back of the car.
A young man with dark hair stepped forward from the small crowd of on-lookers and insisted that he take over the driving for the remainder of the journey. (The Volvo itself was roadworthy. The only visible damage was that half the bumper had been sheared off the rear of the car.)
Dreamaticus 