I could sense that the person approaching me from behind was tall. Indeed, at almost 7 foot in stature, he was very tall. We struck up a conversation and the man told me that he was Dutch. Just as I was about to say that I had friends who had lived in the Netherlands, one of whom was JM, JM himself approached us.
I ended my chat with the tall stranger the minute that JM announced that he had come to take me on a surprise trip to Paris.
We were a little embarrassed when P and S started calling the waiters over to take food and drink orders. At this hotel it was bad form to boss the staff around like this.
Later, when P and S left us to sit elsewhere, I started to sort out my mobile devices. It soon became obvious that I needed a box in which to store all the leads. I looked for one in the computer lab. Some of the plastic boxes that were being used as rubbish bins would have been suitable, but none of them had lids. Then I saw a shallow transparent pink box, complete with lid. It contained a few small empty cardboard cartons, some of which appeared to be labelled with tiny yellow post-its. I tipped the cartons out onto a table and took the box for myself.
When the new shift came into work I noticed that a member of staff looked particularly distressed. Then I overheard her say that all the work that she had done the previous day had been ruined. When she saw my leads neatly stacked in the pink plastic box (with lid) she was furious – and now knew who to blame for putting all her hard work back a day.
In a strappy black vest top and black trousers, I probably wasn’t suitably dressed for a memorial service – even if I had the approval of AH who peered lustily down my cleavage. My main concern was the fashion faux pas of a white bra under black top with bra straps clearly on display. I wondered why hadn’t TPR pointed this out to me when I got dressed. Then I remembered that he had recently announced that he was bored with me and our relationship was on the rocks. How I wore my underwear was no longer any concern of his.
Then on the train to the venue I realised that I all I had on my feet were white socks. I doubted that anyone else would be carrying a spare pair of shoes, but if I could find someone wearing dark socks under shoes willing to do a swap with me and I wore their socks instead of my own, then perhaps nobody would notice that I was unshod?
I asked my school friend ST, who was sitting in the next carriage, if she could help out. First of all she offered to lend me a pair of multi-coloured fashion Wellingtons – the choice was between shocking pink and lime green – or some drab khaki Crocs. I insisted that she give me her socks, then enquired after her marital status. Was that really my undergraduate pal MH sitting opposite her? Were they an item? What had happened to C? ST explained that she had met MH on Facebook, they officially got together following a torrid affair online, MH divorced C, and ST now enjoyed good relationships with her new husband and his two adult children.
I got very confused when we arrived in Swindon. There were three memorial services/funerals being held simultaneously and I couldn’t tell which one was which. I made a poor guess and found myself joining mourners who had come to pay tribute to an unknown car crash victim. When I turned up at the second venue I realised that this was not right either. Nobody I knew would hold a memorial service anywhere quite so tacky.
By now I was desperately late, as was another member of our party called Chris. He was struggling with the directions, and also because he could barely walk due to a life-long disability. I carried him to the last possible venue, which – thankfully – turned out to be the right one.
Fortunately for us the service hadn’t started. However, everyone was becoming rather anxious and a number of my academic pals (amongst them PL) started shifting in their seats and saying that they would have to leave soon.
I took it upon myself to track down the host academic of the event: the head of the Department of French at Birmingham University. She was in a strange emotional state having only recently been released from an institution for the mentally unstable. First of all she shouted at me for disturbing her in her office, then she apologised and said that she would be with us shortly. In the course of the five minutes that I was with her she changed her outfit repeatedly, becoming increasingly glamorous each time. I decided that she would be more at home on the set of an American soap opera rather than left toiling in UK higher education.
Now that I couldn’t even raise my arms high enough to pull my jumper over my head I knew that I was falling apart.
Gary Glitter sidled up to me from behind just as I was about to hand the dirty crockery from the Korean cookery demonstration over to one of the catering staff. I was struck by how much the disgraced pop star looked like DC – then panicked. I hadn’t accidentally snogged him too in the 1970s, had I?
When the fire alarm rang I was standing at my computer with EH.
‘I’m taking my handbag and coat’, I said, remembering the last time when we were stuck outdoors for ages in the cold.
EH didn’t hear me. She had already left, following normal procedure.
I took my time gathering up my stuff, then carefully locked my office door. The masked fire warden stationed at the top of the stairwell noted that I was the last one out and handed me a red square of cloth to pin to my coat. Now I knew that I was in trouble.
X and I were trapped in a damp, crumbling castle. Each time we turned a corner the cold, dark, wet walls closed in on us even further. How would we ever escape?
At last the time had come when I could take up my place at Manchester University on the Early English honours degree course. I wondered what it would be like going back into first year. I anticipated that essay writing would not be a problem for me.
My hall of residence room wasn’t ready when I first arrived so I was advised to take the pink lift up to the top floor and roost until 4pm with the three boys already up there. My fellow passengers in the pink lift included the black puppy who was working as the lift attendant, a rat, a blue cat, and the cat’s owner. The blue cat swallowed the live rat whole just as we reached the thirtieth floor.
The room where I was told to wait was far too small to hold three teenage boys and a mature student. Nevertheless I managed to find enough space to change into my pink moon-and-stars fleece onesie and sat quietly until the clock ticked round to the appointed hour.
At 4pm I set off to find TPR and his bald friend, both of whom had offered to help me to settle into my new undergraduate life. It took some time, but I eventually found them participating in an immersive Star Trek episode. They were enjoying themselves so much that they refused to come back to the pink tower with me to collect my belongings. Sorely disappointed (and somewhat puzzled) I left them fighting a red dalek.
I cheered up a little when I bumped into a fine young man in a suit who appeared to recognise me. When I asked him to remind me of his first name (pretending that I knew his last one, which I didn’t) he responded with the word “Yeast”. He then explained that he had completed his PhD and given up his job as a records manager to undertake another honours degree as a mature student, just like me. I could only conclude that I had spoken at a conference that he had attended. I certainly couldn’t remember ever meeting anyone with such a silly name before.
By this time TPR and his companion had escaped the clutches of the dalek and wandered over to offer their help. I took TPR back to my temporary room at the top of the pink tower. The teenage boys were now well into the freshers tradition of drinking and had scattered all my belongings all over the room. TPR asked why I hadn’t used the dead time while I was waiting for 4pm to pack all my stuff away properly rather than leave everything lying around the place in tote bags. I agreed that this was a very good point. I would need to learn to be more organised if I were to survive the start of undergraduate life surrounded by teenagers.
N and S proudly presented their newly decorated sitting room.
I was able to enthuse about like the fresh green colour scheme. However, I was unconvinced that the 1970s styling was appropriate to their low-beamed cottage. I also wondered who would be brave enough to tell them that three different patterned wallpapers in the same room was a huge mistake? It was certainly not me!
Dreamaticus 