My old running pal EJ forgot her rugby bag when she set off for New Zealand.
‘To hell with the expense!’ I thought as I booked my flight. It was worth the cost to deliver the bag to her in person. On my arrival at the other side of the world, however, I learnt that EJ had already left the New Zealand for Gambia.
I tried to bargain for a cheap return flight back to the UK, but there were no deals in first class. I ended up paying £1000 for my fruitless round trip. What a waste of money.
Everyone was enthusiastic about the relaunch of the Friday networking group.
WB was busy raising money so that she could afford to attend. She started selling all her belongings at a car boot sale, with her new baby in tow. DTJ was annoyed that she had donated a hi-vis jacket to WB’s stall. She wished that she had kept the item now that she had taken up cycling.
BP regretted that she couldn’t make the meetings. She was too busy with plans to take her family to New Zealand.
I had an appointment to meet Steve Rickman in his office at the university at 8:00am. It wasn’t far along the coast, so I planned to walk along the shoreline to our rendezvous. I hadn’t considered that this would be impossible at high tide.
I asked the guest house host about public transport to the campus. She reminded me that I was in the US and no such services existed. However, she said that she would gladly offer me a ‘ride’ in exchange for my labour, helping with housework.
All I needed now was Steve Rickman’s phone number so that I could ring and tell him the new arrangement.
I discovered that BMR had buried two bodies under our flat.
The murders were nothing to do with me, and I knew that I should report everything that I knew to the police. However, I feared that nobody – the police, the press, and a murder trial jury – would ever believe me when I claimed no involvement in BMR’s crime.
It was best for both of us to keep our mouths firmly shut.
I told a gaggle of American students that everything that I had ever learnt about elite US universities came from watching films. They were impressed that this ‘strategy’ of mine was so successful.
I then asked them if they could name the top universities in the UK. They came up with three institutions: the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh.
I dropped the students off at the main library of the University of Newcastle with the instruction to spend the rest of the day researching the entire landscape of UK higher education.
I wanted TPR to discuss plans for our round-the-world tour, but struggled to interest him in the conversation while he was at the gym. I sulkily followed him around the gym floor, making weak attempts at exercise. Meanwhile he put everything into lifting the heaviest weights that he could find.
Then suddenly the gym doors were flung open by a masked man. He leapt over equipment to reach TPR. I had to protect my husband! I picked up a 12 kilogram kettlebell and sent it flying in the direction of the attacker. It landed with a satisfying thud on his midriff. He managed to pick himself up and ran out of the door, escaping with TPR’s Yale key in his hand.
We decided there and then that it was time to give up this gym membership. This would be no great hardship for me because I was already a member of another club with excellent facilities – and far superior security.
We caught the ‘ferry service’ to the remote island off the Shetland mainland. Open to the elements, the tiny wooden boat only carried around ten passengers. TPR rushed off to secure our accommodation once we reached the shore. Meanwhile I sat down at the side of the track to take off my walking boots and examine my latest blisters.
TPR soon returned to lead me to gift shop bed and breakfast. The internal door into the house was well hidden behind a display of sea shells. When we pushed it open, we found ourselves in a large sitting room with our hosts, their children, and dozens of puppies. I noticed dog hairs all over the carpet and furniture. What a nightmare this was going to be for me with all my allergies.
Then the family announced that it was time for their Wednesday religious service. This took place in the house because there were no longer any churches in operation on the island. TPR and I shared a panicked glance, each willing the other to devise a reasonable excuse to leave the house immediately.
All that I wanted to do was to see if there was any frogspawn in our pond. It was raining a little, but that didn’t bother me.
So when I stepped into the garden and saw the massive hole in the middle of the lawn, this came as quite a shock. The huge builders’ tools strewn across the grass told me that this was not the work of some passing fox or gang of squirrels. Whoever did this was hunting for something.
I couldn’t admit it to TPR, but I knew exactly what the diggers hoped to find. I prayed that the corpse that I had buried there three decades earlier still laid undiscovered. Was there any chance that it could have completely decomposed by now?
My mother brought shame on my entire family when she laughed so much at my sister-in-law’s wedding that she wet herself.
I tried to make up for this by taking very seriously my role of chief bridesmaid, but failed. The damage was already done.
The new ‘Age Classification System’ I was working on had hit a roadblock.
Earlier in the process I had decided that 29-31 year olds should be designated as ‘Youngsters’ and this was causing inevitable problems for me as I tried to work my way through younger age brackets.
Later, I said out loud to no-one: “I want to go where I can SEE the difference between rooks and ravens”.
Dreamaticus 