I received a notice through the letterbox. The squirrels in the back garden had declared war against me and had formed an alliance with foxes.
The next morning I opened the curtains and saw that an elaborate network of trenches had been dug in the back yard. This was serious.
The university reunion in Birmingham was a very dull affair, attracting only the quietest of my former classmates.
I eventually managed to persuade JG into a conversation. She spoke of her preference for the study of Latin and Greek over French. I challenged her when she mentioned her enthusiasm for Aristotle as the author of Henry IV. Didn’t she mean Shakespeare or Pirandello?
I told her that I was in the process of buying a shop in Stirchley. When she asked the reasons for this, I was at a loss to come up with a single one.
Queen Consort Camilla was easily pleased with packs and packs of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes.
Prince Philip (not dead) was a more tricky customer. He suddenly remembered a family that lived on a remote ranch in the mid-west of the United States of America. Please could I find their house on Google Earth and – if possible – photos of the husband and wife?
Prince Andrew also appeared to be demanding. In fact he was only joking when he complained that the meat pie that I had served him was ‘disgusting’.
As well as helping the royal family, I gave some careers advice to a 12 year-old girl who asked the subject of my first degree. Ultimately she wanted to join the police force. I advised her to go to university first.
At the end of my day of duties serving others, I went home to ‘my’ new baby. She was a present to me from my mother. At a very advanced age she had undergone IVF, the pregnancy, and given birth – just for me.
Jack Dee was in love – with me!
As a token of his affection, he had already given me a red silk, traditional, Chinese Tang suit jacket. Now he was begging me to meet him on Thursday evening for a romantic rendezvous in a 5 star hotel. This was a difficult invitation to accept because I still loved my partner of 40+ years.
What were the chances that (a) I would enjoy a secret night of passion with one of the UK’s top comedians and (b) I’d never be discovered for the betrayal of my husband?
Perhaps Jack and I would be better advised to take our passion overseas?
I couldn’t wait for my friends to discover that I had a major part in a new sci-fi movie with co-stars Katie Price and Madonna.
Set in a theme park, the plot revolved around a mysterious invisible killer that lurked in the corners of ride machinery. When I witnessed Katie Price character’s death half way through filming, I wondered whether my own would make it to the end. So long as I avoided the areas where the enemy lurked, it looked like I would survive the nasty fate of full-body petrification.
Then the director called for me to mount the open mechanical lift to travel to the top of the rollercoaster. At the bottom, I had a brief chat with a young lad with bad teeth, who was sitting in the cab with a toddler and a new born. He explained that he combined his driver role with babysitting for the production team. When I climbed into the yellow metal cage as instructed, the lad took charge of the lift controls to jerk me upwards.
This was it then: I was to be flung from the highest point of the rollercoaster to my death. Still, as a mere extra I had done well to last this long into the story.
How long had our next door neighbours’ two grandchildren been observing us in the bathroom?
I had never before spotted the tiny window high up in our shared wall. It was only because the children were blasting out the Teletubbies theme tune that I looked up.
There was now no point in pretending that I had any privacy on the toilet seat, so I gave the pair of junior spies a weak wave.
I was consumed with envy as I watched FG lead SPL in an elaborate dance across the sprung dance floor of the cruise ship ballroom.
He was my godson. Why had he partnered with her and not me?
I could see a fresh doughnut through the back window of a parked car. I tried the door, found that it was unlocked, and stole the snack. I ate it a few steps further down the road.
It was obvious that the family was puzzled by the disappearance of the doughnut when they returned to the car. However, I was not going to admit my crime.
The next day, on the back seat of the same car I saw another tempting baked confection. Without hesitation, once again, I reached inside to extract the yummy treat from the vehicle. This time, however, it was barely in my mouth when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
‘So it’s you who is stealing our food!’ shouted the overweight dark-haired woman.
‘Yes’, I confessed, ‘But I can’t help myself. I am suffering terribly from stress.’
When I told her all about my current woes, she kindly forgave my transgressions.
I was up a long ladder cleaning the top of my grandmother’s kitchen cupboards while she supervised. Mostly I was checking sell-by dates on food items, and lying to her about them. When I found a box of ‘Apple-Cinnamon Breakfast Clusters’ that should have been eaten by 1998, I told her they had expired a year ago. Before she could say “Oh, they’ll be alright then”, I said, “the sparrows and squirrels will LOVE them”.
Later I was walking through a dismal Birmingham city centre when I realised that the new dry stone wall in the street had been built out of discarded shoes.
I arrived late at the school reunion in white jeans and a long-sleeved navy blue T shirt, perfectly in keeping with the outfits of my former classmates. However, I had dressed in such a rush that I had forgotten to tend to my toe tails. I was ashamed of their nakedness as they peeped out of the end of my uncomfortable gold sandals.
In one other respect, I didn’t match up to the glamour of the others. This was because – to date – I had made no investments in plastic surgery. In our party, I spotted several suspicious trout pouts and some unfeasibly smooth foreheads. We even had a ‘before’ and ‘after’ case study in the faces of the T twins. One had already gone under the knife, whereas the other was yet to do so.
The reunion venue oozed a particular old-fashioned elegance. All the rooms were decorated in heavy flowered wallpaper and soft furnishings, gilded antique furniture and risqué pictures. This gave customers the impression of a chintz and regency innuendo hotel.
Behind the scenes, however, I guessed that it was just like any other place offering accommodation on Exmoor. I was able to confirm this when I visited the hotel kitchen and surreptitiously tested two vats of melted chocolate.
The hotel laundry was rather different, however. There I came across a member of staff standing next to the lift delivering a lecture on the history of the printing press.
Dreamaticus 