The vice chancellor was going to the US for a fortnight and left SC in charge of everything, including finance.
Just before he left, he asked SC to read out the history of the University as printed in gold embroidery on three bolster-sized cushions. There were objections when she alluded to the library staff’s role in the development of the University’s elearning system.
‘We only did the initial data entry’, they argued.
We recognised the ghillie as the one from the Ardushiane Hotel. He had once asked on the last evening of a weekend trip to the Highlands whether we would be shooting the next day. At the time I had been tempted to answer ‘Yes, I’m going into the office tomorrow. Please prepare my guns’.
Now he was working for a less prestigious hotel with aspirations. Here evening entertainment was offered as a means of attracting guests. This included a weekend-long murder-mystery quiz at which audience participation was expected.
PS was selected to take to the stage first. SM couldn’t bear to think of her there on her own (albeit with the cast) so he followed her up and joined the chorus. He fitted in fine in his honeymoon outfit of oatmeal linen suit and brown and white correspondent shoes.
I watched from the stalls with KA and her daughter R, who thought that the whole show as a rehearsal for Dr Who. Next to us was a set of parents who were hot-housing their kids with maths puzzles.
My mother took up observing the wildlife of East Lothian in the dead of night using infra-red technology.
She invited us to join her one evening. David Tennant turned up to wave us off – my mother on a quadbike, carrying an enormous white handbag, and TPR and I with a shopping trolley for transport.
We reached a pretty tourist village with a white wrought iron bridge over the River Tyne. My mother recommended crossing the water to see deer and foxes on the other side. Then she zoomed off at top speed, flew across the bridge and the road at the other side, and smashed into an embankment. She was flung from the seat of the quadbike to the ground, where she was attended by two teenage boys.
I asked how she was. ‘She can recognise the number six’ said TPR, ‘That is all’.
The weather was fabulous in Orkney.
At the county show I bought the most enormous beef burger.
In Kirkwall we watched a parade of emergency services vehicles and ate free Maltesers in the art gallery.
TPR had fallen into the habit of shaming me in public. For example, he made lewd remarks about his choice of life-partner to our widowed bed and breakfast host. Then I caught him laying bets on the outcome of Wimbledon 2017 with my old colleague MM.
When I said to him ‘The headmistress will see you in the study’, he knew that he was in trouble.
I also vowed to take more interest in our joint finances when we returned home.
Three weeks into my mathematics degree I still hadn’t made it to a single class. Every time I tried to make my way to the classroom, I would be waylaid by Sir Ian McKellan and Michael York offering me small bottles of champagne to drink. I loved hanging out with those guys! Other distractions included the public red phone box located in my bedroom. Although I was compensated for the inconvenience with a massively reduced rent, men were wandering into my room at all hours to use it as urinal.
AM and I chased a man through the British Library demanding to know why he had done nothing to update the Library and Information Science Research Coalition web site since 2009.
Dreamaticus 
In-law social climbers (Rousse)
My in-laws were terrible social climbers. They forced me and my husband to enter a cycling race that – if we won – would reward us with a job placement with some posh person. (Of course, it was highly unlikely that I would come first, cycling solo on a tandem.)
My father-in-law embarrassed us further by following the race with a megaphone, through which he gave a running commentary on our progress.
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