Doomed wedding (Rousse)

Posted on November 27, 2015 by Dreamaticus

I was helping AC prepare for his wedding. However, there was some doubt that we would make it the ceremony in one piece. My driving was terrible, both in town and on the motorway. There was sure to be a terrible accident before too long, and it was bound to be caused by me.

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A city sacking with knitwear (Rousse)

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Dreamaticus

We’d been enjoying a fun weekend with IS in front of the television replaying videos of our previous visit in 2006 when the door burst open and work security staff arrested our host. When we looked around we saw that all his belongings had been confiscated, as had ours (including my brand new, small, blue shell suitcase).

There now seemed no point in hanging around so I walked over to a rack of knitwear and pondered taking one of the Shetland jumpers. In the end I settled on the black Norwegian one: it was mine, after all.

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Granny on the Internet (Rousse)

Posted on November 23, 2015 by Dreamaticus

Granny T was very happily installed in the old people’s home.

In the upstairs residents’ lounge she had created herself a cosy corner with a desk, noticeboard, and view of the garden. She made this her base from which to spend the rest of her days surfing the Internet.

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Young David Attenborough (Rousse)

Posted on November 23, 2015 by Dreamaticus

I spotted a young David Attenborough standing beside the escalator on the day that TPR caught a flight to Belgium and I went to work without my iPhone.

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Trapped at the movies (Rousse)

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Dreamaticus

I sat all alone in the cinema. The film that I had been forced to watch was tedious all the way through until the last scene when – at last – it all made sense. All the main female characters confessed that they were engineers. The whole point of the film was to encourage women into engineering.

Afterwards I tried to leave the building, but it was very difficult. The staircase to the main reception was so steep that I risked falling and breaking my neck each time that I took a step.

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Holy Island hideaway drifts out to sea (Rousse)

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Dreamaticus

The house floated across the flooded causeway, drifting from its usual base on Holy Island. I assured everyone that all would be fine. The tide would reach the doorway, but was certain to subside soon afterwards, and we were all safe.

JC remained unconvinced, and jumped at the chance of rescue when her husband G turned up in an open top car.

G drove us to Haddington. Here we walked through a graveyard full of tombs that marked the final resting place of members of the Foil family, and met a woman who grew red wild carnations along her driveway in the middle of winter.

We ended the day on a pub and party crawl with our school friend NB, and Edinburgh pals JM and AC.

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Colin Firth’s tatty affair (Rousse)

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Dreamaticus

Colin Firth dressed rather tattily for a banker. I told him so as I pulled off his worn striped shirt while he was trying to dress. He didn’t seem to mind – nor did his wife Julia, who dutily tidied up around us as we continued our affair.

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Sleep, stations, Swindon, and Southampton (Rousse)

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Dreamaticus

It was our second day back in the UK after our transatlantic trip and I was due to chair a meeting in Swindon. I caught the train from London and took my seat – then, suffering from jet lag, I promptly fell asleep. I woke up again at the end of the line, several stops beyond my intended destination. The train guard advised me to disembark, cross over to the other platform, and catch the next train that was heading back towards London. I did so. However, given how late it was, I did not bother alighting at Swindon.

The next day I drove to Southampton along the motorway with my sister S and TPR. The road was especially difficult to navigate, especially at the point where you had to stop the car, get out, and open a wooden gate. Throughout the journey I felt terribly guilty that I had not given the secretary of the committee in Swindon the reason for my non-attendance the day before.

Our final destination was my mother-in-law’s house. TPR delighted her with a bunch of faded orange lilies.

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Competing priorities (Rousse)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Dreamaticus

Several ‘priorities’ competed for my attention.

  1. I needed to get everyone back to the cinema so that we could watch the rest of the film that I was carrying around on a DVD in my handbag.
  2. Someone should answer JM’s tan leather-covered phone.
  3. I had to get a couple of desperate members of our party to a public toilet. (In the end we found one some way away at the back of Arthur’s Seat.)
  4. I had to tidy up all the black beads and pearls that had spilled out of my mother’s jewellery box onto the floor without her realising that I was clearing it out. (I said that I intended to get all the necklaces restrung.)
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Puppies, a purchase, and a punch (Rousse)

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Dreamaticus

I travelled to Worthing with my in-laws to identify a puppy for purchase. I wasn’t certain that this was a good idea. I had not discussed it with TPR, and even if he agreed to such plans, I was beginning to think that it would more a better idea to commit to puppy training in the summer vacation rather than over the Christmas holiday.

Then I was distracted by a second hand clothes emporium. Some goods were available for purchase and others free of charge. I headed for a rack of running trousers and picked out a couple of pairs. When I asked how much they cost the tall, thin, black assistant questioned why I was buying school trousers for the purpose of exercise.

My next concern was a staff grievance case. My accuser had reported that I had hit her at work. I responded with a punch to the midriff – an act that I immediately regretted.

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