Pensioners purchase Perthshire sporting estate popular with Germans (Rousse)

Posted on August 25, 2025 by Dreamaticus

My elderly in-laws bought a sporting estate in Perthshire. It came complete with a majestic main house, numerous workers’ cottages, stables and other outbuildings, and a stretch of prime salmon fishing (normally let out to rude German tourists who had never before in their lives caught a single fish).

The main house was so difficult to navigate that my father-in-law had posted little notes on all the doors and along the corridors to keep everyone straight.

Given that they were now into the eighties and in declining health, I saw no advantage in this ambitious move, other than to join the general family migration north.

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Seaside town tourist car parking woes (Rousse)

Posted on August 25, 2025 by Dreamaticus

My old head of department JH found the perfect parking spot right next to the harbour in the crowded seaside town. We considered ourselves very lucky – until a huge wave crashed over the harbour wall and left the car bobbing in the water.

We all raced back to the vehicle, desperate to prevent it drifting out to sea. TPR grabbed the wheel, then the rest of us jumped in. We managed to speed uphill to higher ground to find a safer place to park.

Here, however, we were too far away to walk back into the town. Senior Lecturer AT, who had never taken a driving lesson in his life, insisted that he drive the car back downhill and hunt for a more convenient spot. He managed the former, but in attempting the latter he bounced the car across a ditch, destroying its entire undercarriage. Now it made no difference where we parked the car. Nobody would ever be able to drive it again.

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Mugged on the way to a pantomime (Belle)

Posted on August 23, 2025 by Dreamaticus

I was escorting my colleague L to the pantomime when a stranger ran up to me and pressed an envelope into my hand and said “this is the the last of your inheritance”. I peeked inside and saw an attractive mid-20th century diamond ring. This made it even more important that my colleague stopped showing off her phone as we walked through east London. “Keep your eyes on the swivel” I said to her. Despite my warning, she found herself being mugged by a young couple. I just stepped back and watched everything being taken off L while I casually started breaking the mugger’s girlfriend’s fingers. She barely noticed the pain, and kept watching her boyfriend empty L’s pockets.

Later, after the pantomime, my inheritance ring fell to the floor of the stalls. The ‘diamonds’ fell out of the ring and were glowing in the lights. My inheritance was cheap costume jewellery after all.

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Living in two parallel dimensions (Rousse)

Posted on August 21, 2025 by Dreamaticus

TPR was upset that I had chosen to sit next to HVJ rather than him on the tiny plane to Shetland. ‘That’s because I was thinking of our guest’, I argued.

HVJ was confused when she saw that the streets of Lerwick were identical to the streets of Cardiff. ‘That’s because we exist in two parallel dimensions, one in a familiar town and another in one that (technically) is not’, I explained.

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Fake retiree organist outed by the press (Rousse)

Posted on August 20, 2025 by Dreamaticus

All the shops on Edinburgh’s Broughton Street opened late to cater for Festival visitors. I felt particularly sorry for the staff at Crombies, still dressed in their white butchery outfits at 9pm.

Nevertheless, my father-in-law and I took advantage of the extended shop opening hours to buy some cut-price gifts (including a lime green snakeskin wallet), and to pick up a steaming joint of lamb that my sister J had paid for earlier in the day.

Our purchases were soon forgotten when we returned home. We found everyone glued to the television news. It seemed that a whistleblower had finally informed on the least popular member of our household.

When she returned home later, she marched into the flat screaming that all the accusations were false. She had not faked her retirement. Nor was she an ‘organist’, whatever that meant.

I did not respond, but simply wondered when the rest of my revelations would be made public.

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Kidnapped by vegans and rescued by a drugged fruit salad (Belle)

Posted on August 19, 2025 by Dreamaticus

The conference had taken an unexpected turn when a small group of people stormed the venue. They were reviewing the menus and checking the biscuits for butter content. The delegates spent the night sleeping on the floor.

The next morning, one of our captors sought me out. She offered me a bowl of fruit salad and winked at me conspiratorially. She told me I could easily leave the venue by carrying the bowl with me and to enjoy the ‘cream’ as it had “really good hallucinogens”.

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The trial of Nicola Sturgeon (Rousse)

Posted on August 19, 2025 by Dreamaticus

The trial of Nicola Sturgeon did not live up to the hype. Indeed, at times it was more entertaining for me to observe other members of the audience than fix my eyes on the screen. Given that we were in a cinema in Edinburgh, some of these people must have known the film’s two protaganists (Sturgeon and Alex Salmond). I actually slept through the most boring scenes.

Afterwards I lost TPR’s yellow and pink striped jumper and my navy blue swimming costume when cycling back through the city to our hall of residence for grown-ups.

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Extravagances of a cash-strapped couple (Rousse)

Posted on August 17, 2025 by Dreamaticus

I suggested to my cash-strapped sister that she offer afternoon teas as a money-making venture. Even if she only catered for paying guests at weekends, the extra income would help address her tricky financial predicament.

She turned her nose up at my suggestion, then invited us all to the massive show-off party that she and her husband were throwing in a huge gazebo attached to their house.

Despite our misgivings about the cost of this display of supposed wealth, TPR enjoyed playing bowls with our niece A’s boyfriend D at the party.

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Committee meeting expulsions (Rousse)

Posted on August 17, 2025 by Dreamaticus

Dressed in old stone-washed jeans and a tatty T shirt, and carrying a 4 litre plastic bottle of milk, I ran from my grandmother’s bungalow to the meeting venue.

I felt very out of place, and somewhat ashamed, when I saw the other members of the committee in their suits and smart dresses. And why ever did I think that my fellow committee members would appreciate the gift of a bottle of milk when there was a full trolley of refreshments in the meeting room?

I made a quick apology and scarpered back to my grandmother’s house so that I could change and rejoin the meeting in more appropriate, professional, dress.

By the time that I returned to meeting room, however, the only person left there was the chair. Furious, she had sent everyone else home because none of them had correctly completed the advance paperwork for the meeting.

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Cigarettes in colour (Rousse)

Posted on August 10, 2025 by Dreamaticus

As I sorted the cigarettes according to their colour (pink, mint green, yellow, baby blue), I wondered whether this brand might be less harmful than BR’s regular roll-ups.

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