The beach body (Rousse)

When we first arrived at our exotic Caribbean holiday destination I identified the poolside as the spot where we would spend most of the week. However, we were soon drawn to the beach from where everyone watched the huge waves while sunbathing.

On our last day we witnessed the swell grow bigger and bigger. Just how far would the water reach on this occasion? Were the boats in the bay safe?

For some reason TPR and I popped back to our room just at the point of high tide. By the time we came back to where we had been sunbathing we found all our belongings had been burnt black by the force of the water. The picnic bag and library books were destroyed, and I’d never be able to use my cycling helmet again.

We spotted two dead bodies stretched out on the sand near to our spot. One was a drowned teenage girl. The other, just a couple of paces away, wore a green T shirt over a red bikini. “Don’t look!” shouted TPR, but I did and discovered that the second dead body was mine.

The only consolation of coming face-to-face with my own corpse was to appreciate – at last – that I was not fat after all, but actually reasonably slim for a middle-aged woman.

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Who will be Wella’s next model? (Rousse)

The “campus as building site” experience was really getting to me. From the window of the union bar we watched as yet another structure was pulled down. Today it was the turn of the pier to be demolished. Stray shards of masonry and wood drifted out to sea.

“I’m glad I’ve seen you”, said the blonde woman who served behind the bar. “We need you to enter the Wella student beauty competition.”

“Me?” I replied. “Isn’t that for students? Don’t you know how old I am?”

“None of the students are interested, and it doesn’t matter how old you are so long as you have taken a Scottish degree. Wella is looking for models for hair products, so you are ideal. If you don’t agree to enter, the the University won’t represented in the competition.” These words persuaded me to pick up an application form.

Later that day a gust of wind blew up my skirt and revealed my black Marks and Spencer knickers to the world. Surely my sensible choice of underwear was enough to disqualify me from any beauty competition?

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A drunken trip to the tool factory (Rousse)

We’d always fancied a trip to the tool factory and here we were! There were rows and rows of saws, hammers, lathes and the like, all neatly lined up for us to inspect.

K was on the same tour as us, enjoying herself immensely. We weren’t sure whether this was because she had made herself the centre of attention by flirting with the staff, or was more to do with the half bottle of cheap white wine that she had polished off before breakfast.

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Leads left behind (Rousse)

I was enjoying the beautiful sunset over the Atlantic from the Isle of Lewis west coast train line when TPR suddenly announced that he had forgotten the pack the leads to the MacBook Air, the iPad and the iPhone. They were still in the guest house bedroom. I suggested that perhaps R would post them, but we knew that this would cost a fortune. We would just have to return to the house, collect our belongings, and catch a much later train.

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A posh yacht passenger and a PhD (Rousse)

I ran up to the deck when I heard that the CalMac ferry was stopping in the Minch to collect the dirty washing from a posh yacht. Helpful as ever, I lent a hand to winch the bundle of clothes up from the smaller vessel. In doing so, I somehow got caught in the rigging of the yacht, and when the CalMac ferry pulled away I found myself parted from the CalMac crew, the rest of the CalMac passengers, and TPR. How exciting to be setting off on a yachting adventure and leaving the dreary world of ferry travel behind!

Unfortunately I soon discovered that I was as an unwanted guest of the red-headed captain of the yacht. He barely acknowledged me with his greeting “I’ll dump you at Perth”. However, once we reached land I found that I was much more popular with the rest of his family, all of whom shared my pale, blue-eyed, ginger colouring. His twin daughters looked just as I did at 13 with long waves of red hair tumbling over their shoulders. They told me that all the children in this family went to the same boarding school (Mrs Crawford’s), and that they lived in Teesside (Billingham to be precise). I guessed correctly that the captain worked at ICI.

Then I suddenly remembered that I had LR’s PhD thesis to read. I tracked down KH and ED who were discussing the work. PR was sitting beside them. I guessed that PR must be the external examiner.

Before long an undergraduate spotted us and wandered over. He whispered in my ear that he was going to interrupt the conversation to tell PR that he had dreamt about him the night before. I strongly advised him not to do so: this would be most unprofessional.

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An unintentional cute kitten slideshow (Rousse)

Our first social media training session had gone so well so I had high hopes for the second.

However, perhaps it wasn’t the best of ideas to attempt to deliver my PowerPoint presentation from my bed. I kept loading the wrong file. Everyone moaned when IR’s slideshow of cute kittens opened again for the nth time.

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Talking seals take to the Scottish streets (Rousse)

The village was packed with seals. They emerged in small packs from the bay, crossed over the single-track road, then wandered around the village, chatting. I noticed that the black furry ones were the most talkative.

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Black M&S knickers laundered for the overworked academic (Rousse)

It was inevitable that I would eventually just give in to my workload and move onto campus. My new “home” was a small space at the end of a bench of computers in a noisy student lab: we had words about Radio 1 blasting out all day. As well as a machine I was allocated a tiny chest of drawers for my clothes. Each week a freshly laundered set of underwear would be brought to my workstation. I wondered how the laundry service knew that the black knickers from Marks and Spencer were mine?

Of course a permanent life on campus did nothing to lessen my workload. If anything, it increased. One day at 12:10 a student appeared at my desk to ask why I had not turned up to a meeting. I didn’t even know that this particular meeting had been called. I dropped what I was doing and hurried along the corridor. As soon as I walked through the meeting room door I understood why I was so desperately needed. This was yet another committee that needed someone to whip it into shape. I was supposedly the only person with the skills for the job. “I don’t suppose I’ll get any workload allowance for this?” I asked my boss. She was already shaking her head before the words even escaped my mouth.

Meanwhile outside the sun was setting over the autumn hills and all I really wanted to do was to get out there with my camera.

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From danger in the Scottish hills to a ski-ing trip in Surrey (Rousse)

I struggled up the mountain side, the gap between us widening with every step I took. TPR was miles ahead of me and I would never catch up with him. The terrain was particularly difficult over the grassy banks. If you made a mistake with your footing here, you could dislodge the fragile sand beneath the thin layer of grass and slip further back down the mountain. This happened to me on numerous occasions (perhaps because I was wearing TF’s spare boots?) and soon any hope of joining my husband at the summit disappeared.

Then I noticed that TPR had changed direction and was charging down the scree in the distance at top speed, pushing other walkers out of the way en route. I screamed after him to wait for me. If I lost him now, I would never get home – and I also needed to know where he had left the car keys.

I knew he could hear my shouts – everyone could – but TPR chose to ignore me. It was only later that he confessed that he had abandoned me because he had annoyed another set of walkers. He was convinced that they would kill him in revenge if he didn’t make his descent as fast as possible.

Afterwards we returned to our bed and breakfast where we were served egg on toast, even though we had already checked out. At the breakfast table a Masters graduate called Dave recognised me and asked for my number, much to the amusement of other guests who declared it an “amazing coincidence” that we were “reunited”. Meanwhile I was planning a winter sports holiday on the Surrey downs. There might be only one ski lift in operation at this resort, but the snow forecast was good.

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Going underground with Laurence Fishburne (Belle)

The old gang was reunited and we returned to the scene of our most successful night out. I led the nameless Korean honeymoon couple and the leather-coated Laurence Fishburne down flights of spiral staircases taking us several storeys below platform level at Borough tube station.  I knew the paparazzi would be waiting for us at street level but, for now, we were free to enjoy ourselves.

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I dashed into the kitchen and dragged all my flatmates out to witness a natural phenomenon.  I wanted them to enjoy the sight of millions of ‘black-brown beetles’ moving into a tree trunk while I lectured them about how this only happened “fourteen years after the trunk began to rot”.  Once again, I was presenting as fact something I had just made up.

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