Unkind husband forces wife to travel on car roof (Rousse)

Although TPR and I now lived apart, we continued to take holidays together.

However, there was still something seriously wrong with our relationship.

Each evening we travelled into town for supper. While TPR sat inside the car to drive, he forced me to travel on the roof. This was extremely uncomfortable, and often dangerous. I was terrified when TPR ignored red lights at junctions, and whenever he broke the speed limit on the motorway I was convinced that I would soon fall to my death in the path of another vehicle.

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Mysterious light and an untrustworthy Mexican (Rousse)

Just inland there was a dark forest. I walked along the track alone, listening out for evidence of other forms of life. I knew that it was unlikely that I was the only person there in the black. I didn’t want to frighten anyone else, or for anyone else to frighten me.

Then I saw the shaft of mysterious light. It came down through the trees in a long, straight beam, its intensity changing from moment to moment. It was so beautiful that I resolved to return later to photograph it.

Then I came a cross a man with a rickety bike laden with paniers. I questioned his request for me to push him along: wasn’t he fit enough to propel himself? He explained that he had hired the bike from an untrustworthy Mexican. It was about to fall apart and he couldn’t risk turning the pedals himself.

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Sausage rolls and small class sizes (Rousse)

I grabbed the hot tin tray of party food (with extra sausages rolls) and ran along the corridor to the classroom. I was 5-10 minutes late, but I knew that the students would wait for me. What I didn’t anticipate was just how many would do so.

The classroom was packed. Here were not only the students who had actually signed up for the module, but also around thirty Indian and Chinese student observers, and a gang of children. I couldn’t possibly control this huge group, so I embarked upon an eviction process, starting with the foreigners. Once they, the children, and anyone who begged “I know it’s week 6, but please can I still join your module?” had left, the number dropped to a more manageable 30.

Now, for the last time before the syllabus changed, I was ready to share my knowledge of business information sources with the class.

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How to get your life back on track (Rousse)

This was our first free weekend in months so what was I doing calling my cousin EB and inviting her to stay? And why were TPR and I haring along Edinburgh’s George Street in our pyjamas at 06:00am? We certainly would not be welcomed at Contini’s restaurant in such informal attire at that time of day.

We needed to get our lives back on track. A starting point would be for us to resume sharing the same bed in our vast farmhouse.

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Davina McCall and a husband hunt (Rousse)

I bumped into Davina McCall outside St Mary’s Cathedral on a buzzing Friday night in Edinburgh. She asked what I was up to just as my tall, handsome, fireman, pop star date, greeted me with a big kiss. I could tell that Davina was super-impressed that I appeared to be going out with someone so good-looking, young and famous. When I offered to introduce him to her she collapsed into a blush of giggles.

In fact my sixteen and three quarter year-old date was just a friend dressed up as Elvis for the evening. He and another young man had agreed to meet me and TPR for drinks at a pub beside the St James Shopping Centre. It was the case, however, that he’d found fame as a singer. His niche was cover versions of Squeeze tracks from the 1970s.

We waited for TPR in the pub until 9pm. I feared that he would not turn up, or that (more likely) he had gone to the wrong venue. We left our cosy table and set out to look for him in other bars at the top of Broughton Street. Sadly he was nowhere to be seen.

During our husband hunt we came across my school friends GB and JT. They were on their way to a fancy dress party, all dolled up in sparkly 1920s cocktail dresses. JT looked lovely, but GB just didn’t suit a dress. The problem was his legs. They simply looked peculiar in American tan tights under a pelmet of pale blue sequined chiffon.

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Objections to the open house (Rousse)

Every time that I visited the White House there was something else there to annoy me. This time I kept tripping up on the rickety metal stairs. I also disapproved of my parents’ open house policy, which meant that the place was overrun with random vagrant teenaged friends of my nephew and niece.

My sister J tried to cheer me up by tidying my bedroom for me. Her strategy worked to a certain extent, but I was still not happy.

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A kaftan and Kew (Rousse)

At the school reunion I whirled around in a huge brown tent of a kaftan dress.

Then I sat down next to AH who told me all about her job at Kew. She was in charge of all media and PR activities for the Royal Botanic Gardens.

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Bodies discovered after exercise class (Rousse)

Our elderly friends spent their days at their sitting room window watching the neighbourhood. I had a taste of this one day as I observed a group of local women practise yoga and pilates in the street. By the end of their session all the bodies of the members of the class were heaped along the pavement. This form of exercise was clearly extremely dangerous.

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Champagne and caviar versus washing up and weight loss tips (Rousse)

IH called up the stairs to MS that she would open the Prosecco.

“Don’t”, he cautioned. “Rousse is down there and she’ll guzzle the lot. Just uncork a bottle of wine”.

They didn’t realise that I had overheard them from the kitchen until I joined the conversation with my offer. If we (I) finished the Prosecco, they were welcome to raid the fridge. There they would find two bottles of Champagne (both of which were mine), ready to serve with caviar.

I spent the remainder of the evening helping MS with the washing up, and learning weight loss tips from IH.

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A missing slide deck (Rousse)

Although they said that it would never run again, I found that the conference was actually meeting in secret, and I was an invited speaker.

In the break on the last day I went up to the podium to upload my presentation to the computer. MW stopped me in my tracks. He took me in a ballroom pose, and started to waltz me around the lecture hall.

When everyone returned from the coffee break I took my seat next to JG-T to listen to the first presentation of the session. It was only then that I realised with shame that I had completely forgotten to load up my slides – and I was up next.

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