My sister S was a nightmare guest. Since – in her opinion – we had so little food in the house, she persuaded my sister-in-law SLHG to deliver several kilos of carrots and sweet potatoes to the front door. She thought timing the delivery for 4:00am would keep it secret. She was wrong.
My sister J was also a bit of a trouble-maker. She burnt the pizza that was meant to be our supper.
KH handed me a small white box with a promise that he would explain the contents just as soon as he had checked the pan on the stove in the kitchen. When he failed to return, I popped the box into the pocket of my rucksack.
I forgot all about the box until the day of the Birmingham University reunion. I was walking up the wooded path in winter to campus with JG when the box dropped out of my rucksack. On contact with the snow, it opened up to reveal an elaborate engagement ring. I wondered whether KH missed it.
Also on the path we encountered a friendly fox, happily approaching walkers just like a domesticated dog, and one of JG’s friends dressed in army fatigues, firing pellets at us.
On arrival in our old department we clocked all the changes since we studied here. The most notable was a bed in the common room to accommodate students’ children, and private honorary carrells assigned to graduates who had published books since leaving University.
HVJ sat in her carrell surrounded by piles of papers and stationery. I introduced her to LM as one of my best friends, then burst into tears. TPR then pulled HVJ’s wrapped birthday present out of his bag, and she exchanged this with a present for me. I was delighted with my new child’s illustrated story book about a fox.
I gathered my newly retired friends into a circle to check that they were following the rules:
According to the ‘experts’, my sister wanted me dead because of an outward bound course in 1977. They concluded that she was jealous that my parents were willing to pay for just one of us to take part in this activity, and this would be me – not her.
The experts then pushed the pair of us into a quarry pool. They were keen to see if my sister would drown me. I knew that I was perfectly safe.
These experts were idiots. Just one glance at her would convince anyone that my sister had no interest whatsoever in outdoors pursuits.
I was trying hard to fit in to my new life as an American high school student. As I was walking away from school with a group of girls, a police officer stopped to talk to one of them. “Hey girl, I see you’re growing your brioches!” the officer said. A wave of emotions overcame me. First, I cringed slightly at his efforts to appear super cool. Then I wondered how did he know the term ‘brioche’? And what was the proper plural of ‘brioche’?
‘Brioche’ was the word we used to describe the awkward stage our hair went through when we were growing out a fringe. Which I now knew to call ‘bangs’.
My two metre tall friend – an amalgamation of the two JMs – said he’d come with me to find TPR once he’d popped the next piece into his huge three dimensional yellow plastic jigsaw.
I could see that all the other players at their low tables were struggling to complete their puzzles. It could be some time before JM would be ready, so I had a go at helping him. It was impossible. If only an ‘easy’ corner piece was left to do.
Then the organisers intervened to mess up the tables a little. At this rate nobody would ever manage to add to the building of their puzzles, never mind complete the challenge. I thought about making a complaint to our former lodger CW, who was serving as one of the stewards at the event.
This all put my earlier achievement into perspective. With Rob Brydon, I had won the Fringe Urban Orienteering Challenge, knocking our nearest rival into a distant second place (again). The organisers had not wanted to publicise our win because they were forced to withdraw the £100k prize at the last minute. This was due to funding cuts. Nevertheless, I was still determined to tell everyone I met about our amazing achievement.
My new job was to take care of injured professional footballers. I lay beside them in the stands during matches, falling in love with each in turn.
Of course, none of them felt the same about me. However, a tall sandy haired one did once tell me his name.
When I saw the ‘luxurious’ single beds behind the curtain, I wished that I had selected this option for the night rather than the shallow soil grave in the main section.
I further regretted my accommodation choice when my former neighbour threw several random backpacks, a knife, some peas, and a couple of carrots into my bedding area to clear some space around her own. When I called her lazy, she burst into tears then told me that she had slept with TPR. ‘Hasn’t everyone?’ I retorted.
Out in the field, I bumped into my ex-colleague JB, who had just run a 5k race. I also took a phone call from a comedian. He told me that he had cancelled his show for the following afternoon because I was the only person who had bought a ticket.
On my way home I rescued a black puppy and donated it to a grateful elderly couple.
I had made it to Oxford University! I couldn’t remember how this had happened – or what I was ‘reading’ – or why I had travelled back in time to the 1890s, or when I had become a 20-year old man. I was, however, very much enjoying my ground floor room with a lovely view over the green grass of what I later understood was called a ‘quad’
My American friend JG bought the old mews building a long time before I moved to Edinburgh. I did see her there once with her sister A – but only because I had mastered time travel. My sudden appearance rather took her by surprise, as did my parting words ‘I’ll see you on Facebook’. In her time this social networking platform had not yet been invented.
Now in the present, with my cousins R and A, I paid a visit to the mews and the surrounding land. Using Google maps in layers format, I traced our route there from the (old) St James Centre. My cousins just wanted to see the conversion of the stabling into self-catering apartments, whereas I was keen to photograph the new born lambs in the field and email the pictures to JG.
I had heard that the landowner was a rather nasty character, but hadn’t appreciated that he kept dangerous dogs. The moment that I stepped into the field to snap some shots of the straggly-looking lambs, a pack of dogs raced towards me.
A large brown Labrador-Alsatian reached me first, clamping my right arm in its jaws. The pain was horrific, and just made worse when I tried to shake off the animal. I only managed to free myself when the landowner’s grandmother called the dog away.
Dreamaticus 