A record deal with Simon Cowell (Rousse)

Simon Cowell was much shorter than I could have possibly imagined. I tried not to stare at his stumpy little legs when he waddled over to join us. For the sake of my niece’s singing career however, I really needed to concentrate on the great news that Mr Cowell had signed her up for his record label.

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German treasure trove reveals its secrets (Rousse)

TPR was the jumping champion. He was the first person who had ever managed to leap from a standing start at the bottom of the pit on to the turf above. Everyone had said that it was impossible, yet my husband had done it and he was now the hero of the hour.

After all this excitement the farmer led us all back to the yard with a stop-off along the way to see the bull. Unexpectedly he invited us into the farm house.

“Oh, your wife must be a teacher” said SY when she spotted the work of school children in the kitchen.

The farmer was so absorbed in opening a chest in the middle of the floor that we thought he must have forgotten that we were there in the room too.

“Here’s our German treasure trove!” he proudly announced as he lifted the heavy chest lid to reveal its contents.

WB squealed with delighted at the heaped pile of gold chains, jewels, and Viking-style helmets.

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Boris Johnson’s PhD (Rousse)

Boris Johnson’s PhD thesis was so ancient that the yellowing paper cracked as you turned the pages.

Presented in two battered cream-cloth bound volumes, the content was somewhat disappointing. I’d hoped that it would come in useful as I did undercover work for Sun Microsystems at its Linlithgow base. These days every contact from another company who stepped into the building was considered a possible industry spy on a fishing expedition.

However, when I saw that Boris had used the disgraceful term “uni” in his text, I very much doubted the authority of his work as a whole.

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Tickled by a ghost at a high school reunion (Rousse)

I was incredibly excited that 23rd August had come round so quickly. Whatever happened to all those weeks since the reunion plans were fixed in May? I walked into the school hall and the first people I saw were LA and JT. This was going to be so much fun.

Then I noticed that there were some boys in the room. I recognised them from the comprehensive school. Who had invited them? MB had grown his red hair long, and was accompanied by a bunch of girls that included his sister and some others who also did not belong to our school. Amongst them was FF, who approached me with a mysterious message for my father: “Tell him that my uncle’s nephew’s second daughter is one”. When a graduate of mine popped up from nowhere to tell me a tale of having been run down by a bus on Princes Street (he offered graphic evidence by pulling down his jeans to show off his bruises), I was ready to leave.

But then XY came over and started to tickle me. This was so much fun. I laughed and laughed and laughed. Then I remembered that someone had told me that XY was dead. Who was this man? Or, indeed, was this a man? Perhaps I was being entertained by a ghost?

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How to avoid predatory women (Rousse)

The holiday was full of surprises:

  • A walk along the cliffs above the beautiful beaches of the Isle of Lewis
  • A huge dinner at the guest house with DE
  • A dash through a deserted Waverley Station with JM
  • A tea tasting demonstration (£2.40 per person)
  • Catching a glimpse of my parents enjoying a glass of white wine in a lay-by picnic as we whizzed past in the minibus on our way to visit the waterlilies

One of the participants thanked me for encouraging him to take a minimum wage job. Wealthy men, he had discovered, were at the mercy of female bottle blonde predators. He was better off single and poor.

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Running a successful antiques business (Rousse)

BM and RG’s sidewalk antique stall was such a success that I was seriously considering setting up one of my own on the pavement right next to theirs.

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Italy relocated to the West Country (Belle)

I was describing how my last holiday in the Bay of Naples had been interrupted by an earthquake and my friends wanted to know more.  Where exactly was the Bay of Naples?  With an air of authority I said: “Below Wales, above Cornwall, David Hockney lived there, home of the Italian ‘mod’ movement”. 

One of them checked Wikipedia and nodded in agreement – I was right again.

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Packing and a pizza (Rousse)

TPR and I had completely under-estimated the work that goes into a house move. We thought that we could just come home from holiday, pack a few boxes, pop up to Aberdeen for a pizza with V and C, and that would be it. For example, we hadn’t bargained on the amount of time it takes to show the house to potential buyers.

We cancelled the pizza and settled down to the long job of packing.

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A seaside discussion of the merits of the Marks and Spencer store card (Rousse)

My long-dead red-lipsticked granny and I clung to the sea wall bracing ourselves for the next wave. Although the scene might have looked tropical with its smattering of palm trees along the shoreline, this was the north east coast of England, and the water was freezing.

We passed the time discussing the merits of the Marks and Spencer store card.

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Marrying a fictional gay chef (Belle)

In a chaotic ceremony, I married Ian Craig, a character in The Archers. I wore a crumpled second-hand gown, while Ian looked smart and handsome in his morning suit. With no photographer, I was relying on our guests to capture the event on their mobile phones. Unfortunately I looked awful in every single picture. Later my new husband insisted on ‘breaking wind’ in my face.

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