Let’s get ready to rhumba (Belle)

Posted on December 9, 2025 by Dreamaticus

I got into a jostling-style altercation with a Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer and I shouted “You just prance around on the telly for a living”.

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Natural conception at 62 (Rousse)

Posted on December 9, 2025 by Dreamaticus

When I discovered that I was pregnant, my first thought was for our holiday plans next year. To my surprise, my husband was unconcerned.

It took some time before I questioned how someone aged 62 could find herself in this position. Did I really want to take care of a teenager into my 70s?

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Rousse’s ear-ring recovery

Posted on November 30, 2025 by Dreamaticus

One of Professor SR’s tiny ear-rings dropped to the ground. All the staff gathered around her tried to recover it by scratching through the dirt and dust, but I was the one who found it.

She told me that she was very grateful for the efforts of a ‘stranger’. I replied with the explanation that I was connected to her more closely than she might imagine, especially through my links to Professors DM and JS.

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Tackling Scottish ridge walks in winter (Rousse)

Posted on November 28, 2025 by Dreamaticus

NP was seriously considering TW’s suggestion that they walk ‘The needle’ in January. Neither had the fitness nor skills to tackle this treacherous ridge near Ullapool under winter conditions.

I hoped that my pleas would put them off such a reckless venture.

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Mother returns from the dead to interfere in household tasks (Rousse)

Posted on November 27, 2025 by Dreamaticus

My (deceased) mother accidentally loaded the tumble dryer with a pile of dirty laundry and a cup of soap powder. Before she switched it on, I retrieved all the clothes and carried them in a bundle to Corbridge.

On the outskirts of the village I found my (also deceased) paternal grandmother living in a handsome stone house next to a field of Shetland ponies. I complained to my granny about the mix-up with the washing.

I also questioned my granny about the appearance of my mother. What business did she have interfering in my domestic duties, especially since she was dead?

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Gatecrashing Edinburgh’s exclusive New Club (Rousse)

Posted on November 27, 2025 by Dreamaticus

MB’s mother IB and I blagged our way into Edinburgh’s exclusive New Club and cantered up the stairs to the top floor. With very little effort, we then gatecrashed a lunch served to a small group of delegates who had just completed an embroidery course.

We very much enjoyed our illicit, and most delicious, handmade hamburgers and salad.

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Illegal sandwiches (Rousse)

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Dreamaticus

OC-I broke the rules by bringing meat sandwiches on the pilgrimage. He really had to get rid of them before we reached the hotel at the end of the route.

He suggested that he could dig a hole in the ground and bury them. I wondered why he didn’t just eat them. I even volunteered to help with this task.

Later I saw my school friend JT outside ST’s bedroom. She’d heard that I had broken the rules, and asked whether I was ready for my interview with the police.

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A lonely love nest at the British Library (Rousse)

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Dreamaticus

PB volunteered to take over where JG-T left off. I sent him the instructions to meet in a quiet corridor of the British Library. He should bring all the equipment, including the foreign coins parcelled up in stapled packs made from old brown envelopes. I was very excited as I travelled to the venue for our midnight rendezvous.

I was so disappointed when I reached ‘our’ corridor. PB was nowhere to be seen. He had bottled out.

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Bigamist seeks two simultaneous divorces (Rousse)

Posted on November 15, 2025 by Dreamaticus

I was broken-hearted when TPR finally admitted what I had suspected all along: he had a lover and was planning to leave me. The killer detail was that the pair of them had joined the tennis club together. Why would he do that for her, but never for me?

Of course I harboured my own dark secret. Several years ago, I had taken SL as my wife. I now deeply regretted this bigamous act, especially since I was never really in love with SL.

PC listened as I related my tale of woe at the counter of the café that he ran in his retirement. He concluded that I needed to act fast and pursue two divorces simultaneously.

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Medicine as a mature student at the University of Cambridge (Rousse)

Posted on November 9, 2025 by Dreamaticus

Aged 25, and after several exam attempts, I was finally admitted to the University of Cambridge as a medical student. My mother and sister S came with me to Cambridge on my first day to help me settle in. They waved me off in the early evening as I headed to the dining hall to meet my fellow students for the first time.

I was rather disappointed that you had to walk through a bookshop en route to dinner. Did every aspect of higher education these days need to be so obviously commericialised? My other complaint was the state of the toilets. Whoever thought that open cubicles and a lack of gender segregation were a good idea?

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