Career-limiting head tattoo (Rousse)

Posted on July 24, 2018 by Dreamaticus

JG didn’t care that his new dirty blue tattoo covered half his head.

When I pointed out that he risked never getting a job with such a monstrous appearance, he explained that he had already considered this. He would just grow his hair.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bigamous wife to lose inheritance (Rousse)

Posted on July 23, 2018 by Dreamaticus

I was intensely jealous that TPR was courting our university friend HB, and worried that he would leave everything to her, rather than to me.

There was, however, a more tricky issue regarding the inheritance. I had bigamously ‘married’ TPR in the 1980s, so technically I was not his wife. He had absolutely no idea of all the complications that my long-held secret would cause.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A crash on the Paris péripherique (Rousse)

Posted on July 21, 2018 by Dreamaticus

Racing through Paris by car without a satnav, TPR’s erratic driving along this haphazard route was bound to end in disaster. We were meant to be heading into town – not out of it – and now I was pretty certain that we would soon hit the péripherique.

I was right. The huge roundabout ahead of us was not Place d’Italie. TPR, however, was undeterred. He said that he would simply zip round the roundabout and head back into central Paris by reversing the route. Such was his enthusiasm for this plan that he took the roundabout at immense speed, the car spun off it, and we came to an almighty halt upside down in a field of winter crops.

Miraculously neither of us was injured, nor was anyone in the family of pedestrians that was walking beside the field at the time. Phew!

However, my relief was short-lived when a teenage girl pointed out to us a corpse lying in the road. A young man had been flung out of his own vehicle when he crashed into another car as it made an emergency stop to avoid us.

I took TPR to one side. Would we be held responsible for this man’s death? Would the GPS data on my iPhone implicate us? Could it be deleted?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A caning for cocktail drinking call girls (Rousse)

Posted on July 18, 2018 by Dreamaticus

AF and her three friends were in big trouble for the worry that they caused when (first) they disappeared without a trace for three days, and then (second) it was learnt that they had spent 76 hours hiding in a barn drinking cocktails and entertaining men.

Her mother and I went after them with bamboo canes to administer punishment.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Babysitting for the reality TV set (Belle)

Posted on July 16, 2018 by Dreamaticus

There was no avoiding the UK’s favourite TV programme. It featured a slightly chaotic young family, struggling financially but “making ends meet with love”. Everyone seemed to love them until they got pregnant with their third baby. For the first time, dissenting voices suggested they should “only have children they could afford” and newspaper reports said that fame had gone to their heads.

I decided to intervene and took the baby to the seaside to take the pressure off the family.  It was only then that I discovered the baby had a red hairy back and was half fox.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Careers in Finland (Rousse)

Posted on July 16, 2018 by Dreamaticus

TPR, OC and I had been in Finland so long that the snow had returned to the mountains across the bay. OC had travelled here initially in hope of joining the music industry as accountant for a major record label. WB was also with us at the table in the restaurant when two friendly Finnish women, away from home on a business trip, joined us.

Within minutes one of the women had created a Facebook group for our table. We had transformed ourselves from a small group of close friends enjoying a bowl of swede and carrot soup to a panel of six discussing the merits of haggis.

The most surprising revelation to emerge from the debate around the table was that WB used to work in a shoe shop.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Maggie the monster (Rousse)

Posted on July 16, 2018 by Dreamaticus

I was in grave danger, pursued Dr Who style by a ravenous monster: Maggie Aderin-Pocock.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

A ‘head in the bag’ surprise (Rousse)

Posted on July 16, 2018 by Dreamaticus

I accidentally left the white tote bag on a rack in the train. I pitied the passenger who would later find the ‘head in a bag’.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A diamond-encrusted pendant, a party in Perthshire, the Petra Project, philosophy and feminism (Rousse)

Posted on July 14, 2018 by Dreamaticus

We were shattered on the last leg of our train journey home from our holiday. By the time we reached Perth we were almost asleep in our seats.

Once back in Edinburgh TPR headed straight home to unpack and I stopped off at the Stockbridge jeweller to pick up my diamond-encrusted pendant. I spent some time to chatting to the man behind the counter about his philosophy of life. He was a bright man, but had eschewed higher education and full-time employment to enjoy life while he could.

LC and KT also had part-time jobs in the shop. LC was excited about her forthcoming 40th birthday party in Perthshire, and suggested that I could stay with SC and TM over the weekend of the celebrations. I wondered if she might invite them along too. She also let slip that she had had a tummy tuck while I had been away.

My last act before I left the shop was to show KT and LC my scar. I hadn’t checked it myself for some time and was a little concerned to see that it was turning black with a purple bruise beneath it.

I started the walk home with a man who was confused over his address. What it Royal Terrace, Royal Crescent, or Regent Crescent? Happily I soon shook him off at Royal Circus, where I found JS.

JS and I stopped off at the house in Fettes Row which hosted the Petra Project. Here were displayed artefacts of early twentieth century feminism, including details of a publicity campaign from the 1920s aimed at boys. Its main message was that boyhood need not necessarily focus on playing with guns, climbing trees and torturing insects, but could also encompass other pursuits such as reading and embroidery. We became so absorbed in the exhibits that I accidentally left my bag of jewels downstairs unguarded for over half an hour. Luckily it was still there when I returned to the ground floor to retrieve it.

Then I remembered TPR – at home, unpacking everything from our holiday. It was now 9:30pm and he would be furious that I still hadn’t returned to help him.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bare legs and no knickers in a spanking new library (Rousse)

Posted on July 13, 2018 by Dreamaticus

The reason for baring my legs under a short winter dress, I explained, was that I had mislaid my tights. My companions were unaware, however, that I was also wandering around knickerless.

I knew the location of my underwear – somewhere inside the spanking new main library at the University of Birmingham – so I set off to the Edgbaston campus to retrieve my pants.

I discovered that the amazing new multipurpose facility included a branch of House of Fraser on the third floor. Here OX and his wife, known to be enthusiastically pursuing IVF treatment, were choosing nursery furniture and a coloured bathroom suite.

I also struck up a conversation with a group of students in the library lobby. They gasped in disbelief when I explained the use of three part issue slips for book loans that was still in operation when I was an undergraduate in the 1980s.

In the event I didn’t manage to find any of my clothes in the vast building, so I threw caution to the wind and ran home along the busy roads completely naked.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment