HJ clearly considered me rude and unsophisticated. She hadn’t told me that she would be in Edinburgh, and told me off for calling out her name when I saw her in the street.
I was heartbroken that HJ would choose to spend her time with her drab new friend rather than with me.
Nantes was unrecognisable to me after my 33-year absence. I was also very nervous about returning to France barely able to speak French.
It didn’t help that I had brought no French cash with me, and that the University sports centre was built for aesthetic reasons only (without steps, nor signage). I was also annoyed to find that the hall of residence was a 40 minute bus ride from campus and the return fare was £8.
I was going to hate this year abroad just as much as the last one.
In an Ullapool shop we discussed the merits of small cross-over handbags, and the usefulness of those in yellow leather. Even AN joined in – although the likelihood of her ever carrying one was low.
I was sitting outside a cafe with my very old flame JHI when we saw Deptford’s famous ‘free-running rooster’ tumbling elegantly across the rooftops. I made an oath not to eat roast chicken that day.
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The documentary short featured the best strawberry picker of 2018. She came from the Isle of Wight and was filmed rescuing feral puppies on the cliff paths of the island. I admired her auburn hair, and hated her for it.
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Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint had waited over ten years for the cast of the TV programme Changing Rooms to finish the makeover of their bedrooms. Everyone seemed to find this hilarious.
The back staircase was decorated pink. The neat piles of junk on the steps were numerous – perhaps an indication that, at long last, my parents were having a clear-out.
However, when I stumbled over a box of out of date raisons that was open at both ends, I began to scale down my hope of a tidy parental abode. On seeing three new sofas in the breakfast room – all navy blue like my own recent acquisition – we knew that the hoarding of the discarded belongings of others was still the order of the day.
When TPR observed that the drawing room was looking rather cramped, my father slapped him across the cheek. We couldn’t be certain that this was in jest.
My parents, sisters and I travelled in our pyjamas to Dryburgh Abbey for my father’s last hurrah.
On the way back home we stopped off in Corbridge. Here we called in on my grandmother’s house (which had not been knocked down and replaced by an old people’s home in the late 1980s, after all).
I ran up the stairs past the print of Turner’s Fighting Temeraire, then tried all the doors on the first floor. Although they were all locked, I could see inside my grandparents’ bedroom, and noticed the familiar brown and orange bedspreads from the room that I shared with my sisters when we were children. Through another door I could hear the voices of JMH’s friends. Someone was insisting that media lawyers were the best to engage in a divorce case.
All I wanted to do was to check the furniture in each of the rooms. Where were the dressing table, wardrobe and chest of drawers from Redmires?
I joined a family of dog-lover runners. Whenever they came back from the supermarket the sisters ran behind the family car, pulling the dogs alongside them.
The only difficulties arose when the sisters accidentally fell out of order (the two fastest were meant to be at the front), or a dog got caught up in blue roll.
I lay under the vending machine eyeing the US equivalent of a Kit Kat that was almost out the drawer, unwrapped. When I could not bear it any longer, I gave into temptation and licked the chocolate.
Of course, now I had to pay for it. I only had a commemorative four dollar coin on me, and this would not be accepted by the machine, so my next trip was to the bank to get some change.
I wished I hadn’t looked in the mirror. Not only did I have stubbly beard, I also had what were known as ‘apple-cheek whiskers’.
Dreamaticus 