John Cleese looked upon me kindly.
‘I know that it must be overwhelming, but it’s fine for you to just listen at the meeting’, he said.
I responded that there was no need to show me any concern. I had long experience of hosting strangers at my flat on the basis of the briefest encounters. These included Marco Giovino, Robert Plant’s drummer in the Band of Joy.
The University was almost bankrupt, yet needed more space to house its staff. The only option was to dig underground.
BP invited me to ‘the bunker’ to proof-read an important document. Just hours before the deadline, however, the first draft was not even complete. For the time being, my role was an impossible task.
JMH and MCF bought a fourth house, this time near Ripon in North Yorkshire. Like their previous property purchases, it was in need of a lot of attention to make it a comfortable home. Poor MCF had his work cut out – again.
TPR and I visited by motorbike at the same time as PMF. We showed our enthusiasm for the project by admiring original features and asking lots of questions. We did not however, scream and squeal as claimed by the busybody who came round to demand that her new neighbours keep the noise down.
All dolled-up, Bob the Drag Queen rushed along the corridor without acknowledging me.
In contrast, Alan Cumming – also in drag – grinned and threw me a wink when we brushed past one another.
I made a mental note to check the broadcast dates for the next series of The traitors US.
Outside London Olympia, Belle and I bumped into XX. In the decade or so since we last saw him, he’d undergone a complete transformation.
We admired his golden tan, blond bob, and beautifully shaped eyebrows. We also guessed that he had left his wife.
Everyone who had helped with the clearing of the house boarded the black coach. They were all excited to be taken to the celebration of the completion of this mammoth task.
As the last person to leave the building, I was also the last person to reach the coach – just as it was pulling away. I grabbed onto a trailing rope in the hope that I could either stop the vehicle, or at least run after it.
The rope snapped, and I was left behind, all alone.
There was no room to accommodate CO and AM when they visited. so TPR and I gave up our own bed for them.
The following day TPR joined AM for a lie-in, and she gave me her silver watch. CO was not happy.
‘Oh no, here we go’ I groaned as I faced the mess and decrepitude of my parents’ ‘new’ house.
I foresaw months of clearing (again). The only pleasure that I could possibly take from this would be to sort through broken jewellery with my mother and sister J.
I was visiting a hospital ward. All the beds had old-style iron frameworks, and the matron was fierce. What I couldn’t understand was, why was I visiting people in hospital when my mouth was so painful. I should be lying in one of those narrow beds.
To prove this point, I reached into my mouth. A tooth fell out, followed by several false acrylic fingernails, painted navy blue.
Dressed only in a navy blue towel, I wandered around chilly Oxford cursing the snow – and TPR, now onto the xth affair of our marriage.
The new undergraduates looked both puzzled and proud at their achievement of winning places at one of the world’s top universities. As well as his daughter, one delighted father dropped off a pair of lion cubs for the start of the new academic year.
I hoped that I would be able to find my cousin B and her small son, my sister J, and both my parents at my grandmother’s house in the town, as well as Granny T herself.
Dreamaticus 