My sister S stirred an enormous steaming pan of green beans on the Aga.
‘Why are you cooking in such quantities?’ I asked her.
‘I’m catering for my wedding next week, of course’ she replied. ‘Do you think I should add some more salt?’
The was the first that I had heard of her marriage plans. I pondered who could be the lucky bride-groom.
There was no room for a staircase when the house on Holy Island was first built. Portable suction pads were provided to the residents so that they could scale the walls to reach the upper floors.
My elderly mother was expert at internal wall-climbing. She could nimbly place one hand over the other and scamper all the way up to the ceiling. I was absolutely hopeless. I couldn’t even get the first suction pad to stick on the wall at ground level.
I argued with my family that it was high time they did something to save all this hassle. Surely now it was time to put in a modern spiral staircase?
I had moved to Brooklyn to join a commune of New York firefighters and I had taken the house I lived in in 1989 with me.
While I was standing nude in the bathroom I realised that Jack Nicholson was watching me through the mirror. Later he sent round his business card with a handwritten note and his email address, begging me to contact him. Not knowing what to do, I shouted downstairs to the men “Hey, you guys. Should I have sex with Jack Nicholson or not?”.
I was in Paris for an academic conference. Just a couple of stops along the Metro were my sister-in-law JLR and my niece F, now aged 16. I missed sessions, dressed in a white hotel towel and plastic high heels to be with my relations and dish out advice on acne.
It was a pity that my knowledge of the Paris streets had diminished over the years and it took me so long to get from one part of the city to another.
BC and GC’s house was bigger than I imagined from the photos. I was keen to confirm that I had come to the right place and looked around for green leather furniture.
When I returned home I realised that I had left behind my soap bag (in the bathroom) and my jacket (over the back of a chair downstairs). I hoped that the C family would bring my belongings with them when they came to visit.
In preparation for their arrival I asked my sister S to find her collection of Matchbox cars and toy garage. I knew that N would love to play with them, and that Z would join in. I didn’t appreciate, however, that Z had another half-sister and she would also be visiting. Would she join in?
I overheard TPR tell a conference delegate that he was God, and claim that this was why he was qualified to speak about social media use in higher education (even though he knew nothing about the subject). He also explained that his main priority was to look after just one mortal, and that was me.
While TPR delivered his speech I judged the ‘new product’ competition. I was a very lazy judge, drawing my conclusions on the value of each entry simply on a written description rather than a demo.
Afterwards we went down to the River Thames and watched a medals ceremony for a group of visiting dignitaries.
I had two new careers – and I was equally out of depth in both.
As the Queen’s midwife, I was uncomfortable with the sight of blood although delighted with how trim I looked in the uniform.
Later, despite my complete lack of experience, I was the owner of an exotic, tent-based, luxury beauty resort. In one of the white tents, David Beckham waited patiently for me to wax his bikini line. Horrified, I realised my lack of skills and knowledge was likely to be exposed to over a million of his Instagram followers.
Belle and I were having huge problems dealing with TIX. Although we were terribly impressed by her recent weight loss, we were distressed to discover that she had also lost her mind.
When she jumped out of the car in Leith and disappeared into the dark along the street we thought that she was gone forever. How on earth could we confess our carelessness to T’s husband? We would have to hunt her down.
I dumped the car in a disused entrance of an abandoned park, then set off to recover our demented friend. I eventually found her sitting in a chair in a neat hotel bedroom. She did not recognise me. However, she explained that she was very happy here and preferred to be left to her own devices from now on.
NP hosted the most fabulous parties in her enormous kitchen (about the size of our hall). Amongst her guests was my Granny H, brought back from the dead specially to entertain me.
Afterwards (as we drank the complimentary orange juice at the gym café) I struggled to find the words to thank NP enough for this kindness.
I couldn’t stay on for the formal dinner so I left TMX in the hands of IKX.
This arrangement was not to T’s liking. She disapproved of the ostentatious wealth of I’s new house, especially that evident in the home gym. She was also extremely uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping in a bedroom that displayed on its wall a poster entitled ‘Best Murders’.
When I rang to check how she was, T picked up the call in the Mermaid. She had swapped the claustrophobic atmosphere of the formal dinner (where she was well-known) for the anonymity of the pub. Here she had a chance to secure new friendships with people who knew nothing of her tragic past.
Dreamaticus 