Back in Stockton-on-Tees, I was a little more courageous when talking to the boys, even though it was obvious that they would have preferred the company of ECM.
In conversation with AG and ST it emerged that I was the last to know that SS had spent most of his adult life in prison.
I recognised several faces in the huge crush around the UK Electronic Information Group stand, including KB, MR and JG-T.
The main attraction, however, was the hidden display of fancy goods behind the stand. I had my eye on the 1950s hair decorations, but I predicted that the biggest fight would be over an emerald and pearl bracelet.
I was a bigamist five times over and now feared detection. So, dressed in a white sailor’s uniform complete with brass buttons, I escaped the police by boarding the cruise ship Botswana in Ullapool harbour. I looked forward to completing the journey as an anonymous crew member, then would ditch my disguise at our final destination and start a new life in Africa. If this plan failed and my identity was uncovered en route, I would simply end it all by throwing myself overboard.
I hoped that my ‘husbands’ had it in their heart to forgive me, especially the two of whom I was most fond: (1) my long-term favourite TPR; (2) my most recent groom, the school teacher from Inverness.
Despite finding me in bed with a strange man, Richard Osman announced he was happy to help me find my missing dog. Only later did I realise he must have been the one who let the dog out in the first place.
TPR and I were shepherded into a tiny cupboard with some of his colleagues at a corporate party in Hawaii. Meanwhile those preparing the later activity conducted a team partnering exercise. Several people were swapped back and forth across cupboards until the desired team combinations were achieved.
Afterwards TPR found a blue spaniel that he believed would suit one of the US executives. While he led it away, I lay on the grass and allowed the company doctor to perform a well-woman check on me. Before long I doubted the status of the medic and asked a passerby-by to track down TPR so that he could rescue me from the quack.
The day ended happily on a motorboat, from which we watched dolphins playing in the bay.
TPR kept a shop not far from the Edinburgh city bypass. It sold traditional toys.
One Christmas Eve I walked to the shop with KA. On the way I regaled her with tales of Queen Margaret College graduate MR, his Liverpudlian accent, and his girlfriend V.
When we arrived we found TPR on the phone to his friend Carl. He ended the call abruptly so we concluded that they must have been discussing a Christmas surprise for the pair of us.
A family of four was in the shop at the time. The toddler twins were very taken by the blue wooden-wheeled ducks.
Then KA looked out of the window and cried ‘Fire!’ A huge plume of black smoke was heading towards us – but it was only a steam engine tugging Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. (Perhaps this was our surprise?)
Since we ran out of storage space in our house, I had taken to secretly commandeering some shelves in Tesco. There I left a dozen Moomin mugs in a raffia basket, and several spare duvets in John Lewis boxes.
On the day that Stephen the store manager found out about my exploits, he told me that he was ‘somewhat sympathetic’. However, he also warned me that I couldn’t do this forever: he needed the shelving to display detergents.
On my way back from the supermarket I found three abandoned items on a wall: (1) a small iron cauldron (not unlike one that I had recently seen on the Antiques roadshow); (2) a mermaid sculpture: and (3) a dolphin doorknocker. I picked them up to carry home and show to my family before we set off for a weekend away at the Balcary Bay hotel.
The head that bobbed in the corner of the gym swimming pool moaned at me (again) that she still hadn’t found a boyfriend.
Even though it was my wedding, my mother would not allow me to go running with my sisters. Instead I was sent to my father to be chastised for not attending the cashmere suit fashion show after the wedding ceremony.
I argued that I loved men in suits and that I would never have missed this event had I known that it was part of the nuptials programme. Simply nobody had told me about it.
Dreamaticus 