‘And this is why we need Sunday opening too’ said the librarian as she led us through the main reading room of the National Library of Scotland (recently refurbished with lovely new blue chairs).
I glanced over and understood her message when I saw a six foot tall tower of books balancing in the middle of a highly-polished mahogany table. Some poor student was attempting to get through all this material in a single day due to the library’s restricted opening hours.
TPR and I and some friends invested in a buy-to-let flat.
One of our co-investors took the lead on the renovations and started by dismantling the navy blue bath. We chose the wallpaper (in the event too expensive for a tiny flat to be offered to students) and helped move furniture (including a mattress that we picked up on the street).
Then I volunteered to tidy up the sticky kitchen. It must have been fitted by someone very tall because I could barely reach the sink to do the washing up.
I also kept an eye on the cooking. I was rather suspicious of the potato and pea dish. It looked like it had been poisoned with washing up liquid.
A tall, thin, grey-haired man approached me as I walked along the Old Edinburgh Road with TPR. When he addressed me as ‘Miss’ I knew that this was some kind of scam. He wanted to know about my last encounter with my GP.
This was a different tack from the well-known ‘You have been involved in a road traffic accident’ approach. I pointed out that I knew that he was trying to fool me into parting with my money, and warned that he himself was probably being set up by someone else. He agreed.
I then asked him how I had become a target for this particular campaign. The man opened up his laptop and demonstrated how a range of social media profiles had led him to me – including a number that I didn’t recognise at all.
TPR and I bought an enormous country pile just north of Aberdeen. Granted it was right next to a massive housing scheme (thanks to my mother for pointing this out), but it would make a fantastic venue for our forthcoming 30th wedding anniversary party.
The old owners – a very learned but extremely talkative overweight nurse and her partner – and their friends struggled to understand that the house was now ours. I was sick of coming home and finding odd people in our bed, and others ‘just popping in’ to ask our servants for food and drink. Even other people’s laundered underwear would appear in our drawers. This explained why I felt so uncomfortable in my underwear one day. The size 6 black M&S knickers I’d put on that morning weren’t mine.
There was only one thing for it: to change the locks and risk becoming the most unpopular woman north of Aberdeen.
I had unwillingly become part of the Hairy Biker Tourist Team. We were enjoying looking at great works of art in a sunlit cathedral, but kept getting interrupted by footage of the Hairy Bikers wearing mankinis on the beaches of Brazil.
I had a quick conversation with some donkeys in a field about my forthcoming presentation (as yet unprepared).
Meanwhile TPR was in trouble because (a) it had rained so heavily that water had come through the ceiling of our flat and was now knee deep in our yard, and (b) since we came back from holiday he had been ignoring me in favour of his niece.
EH recommended the spa bath. I didn’t understand its attraction until I added the blue bath bomb to the water.
I was annoyed, however, to discover that I was under observation while I was meant to be relaxing.
My PhD students were at a conference that combined academic studies with motor cross. They had made friends with some of the practitioners with whom I’d had a lot of contact in the past, and taken to the racing track with enthusiasm.
IB called me over just as FR was about to take the wheel.
Nobody had ever told me that Belle was once married to my friend NS.
It had only been for a very short time, but from the video of the pair of them dancing at their wedding they both looked very much in love. Whatever happened?
Dreamaticus 