The cost of milk and kittens (Rousse)

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Dreamaticus

They’d been messing around with our office accommodation again. My temporary desk at the side of an enormous public room was the first port of call for any student enquiries.

The latest question to come my way was ridiculous. A young woman asked “How much do things cost?”

“That very much depends on what kind of “thing” you are talking about”, I replied. “A litre of milk is about £1 at the corner shop. You can probably get a kitten for no cost at all if it’s from an unwanted litter that’s about to be drowned”.

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Beyond the office window (Rousse)

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Dreamaticus

After all the fuss over our new accommodation I was anxious to learn whether I would still merit a sole-occupancy office. We’d all be informed that nothing was guaranteed.

At 01:00am I learnt that my new work space could be found in an old classroom that had been partitioned into four units. My neighbours were SS, JB, and an (as yet) unidentified stranger. I was reasonably pleased with this arrangement.

Best of all was the view from my new office window. Stretching into the distance were rolling hills, and in the foreground a clutch of trees that was turning brown in the autumn sunshine.

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How to write a novel: Rousse explains her strategy to imposter “Dave”

Posted on October 19, 2013 by Dreamaticus

“Dave” claimed that he was a veteran of the Edinburgh Coffee Morning, and old friends with “Andy”. I couldn’t ever remember seeing this Dave at the Friday gatherings before, and on close questioning he couldn’t come up with a surname for his Andy, even though there were plenty of regulars of that name. Yet I still had a feeling that I knew Dave from long ago. Was he perhaps my school friend SA in disguise?

Still curious as to his real identity, I led Dave to the table at Centrotre and introduced him to the others, including my university pal MP and his soon-to-be-wed son SP. I was disappointed that Dave showed little interest in them.

However, Dave listened very intently as I explained that my visits to the coffee morning would soon be less frequent. I confessed that I was giving up my job so that I could pour all my energies into writing a novel.

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Cool accommodation in Edinburgh (Rousse)

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Dreamaticus

Our student accommodation was the best in Edinburgh. SL, ED and I shared a cool open-plan penthouse of pale wood and glass, with its own eight-person indoor jacuzzi bath. Everyone wanted to come and stay with us, including TPR and AC (an Irish girl who I knew from external work events on research methods).

This was in complete contrast with the student union building up the road. In freshers’ week I experienced the filthy state of the toilets, at the cost of 20p per visit. Fortunately I was not obliged to spend long there and instead enjoyed watching Fringe shows on the big screen in a narrow corridor while TPR peered into a maths lecture.

We would have also attended a seminar at the Royal Society off the Strand, but we couldn’t reach London in time.

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Meeting mix-up means Rousse misses Belle (Rousse)

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Dreamaticus

I had two competing commitments on Friday morning and I chose the wrong one! Whatever would Belle think of me, especially since she had travelled all this way so that we could spend some time together?

The only compensation of my meeting mix-up was that I saw ED and was able to wish her a happy birthday in person.

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Bodies on Birmingham’s Bristol Road South (Rousse)

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Dreamaticus

TPR and I lay naked on the tarmac on the Bristol Road South next to the pedestrian crossing. I was freezing. Many of the cars that passed slowed down to look at us, yet nobody offered to pick us up and take us somewhere warm.

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Tricky theatre seating (Rousse)

Posted on October 15, 2013 by Dreamaticus

This was not the easiest way to reach a theatre seat. You really needed to be very precise about your row and seat number when you were dropped in from above. I kept my fingers firmly crossed as I focussed on my target of E5.

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An encounter with the monochrome set (Rousse)

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Dreamaticus

Unused to running late, I was full of apologies when we finally pulled up the gravel drive of the White House in Hartburn. The cyclist was waiting, leaning against the dining room window with his white bike. I learnt later that the woman beside him was his wife.

They both approached us, followed by a small group of people that I half-recognised. It wasn’t obvious until we came face-to-face that their bodies and clothes held no colour. It was as if they had stepped out of an old black and white film into our coloured world. When they started introducing themselves as members of Blipfoto I understood: their lack of colour matched the livery of the Blipfoto web site. They all seemed pretty friendly, but when they all started to sing I had to make my escape back to Edinburgh.

I struggled up Leith Walk. I couldn’t understand why the street was littered with mattresses, nor why I could not see. Had they just forgotten to switch the street lights on, or had I gone blind? And where was TPR?

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An embarrassing toilet tale (Rousse)

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Dreamaticus

We drove west for miles, the entire family squashed into a tiny black car, to Dumfries and Galloway. At our final destination I inspected the bathroom facilities. Whoever thought it sensible to install the toilet in the open conservatory next to the dining room was wrong (even if the green and white fern-patterned lid was pretty). It was highly embarrassing to make a visit there in full view of everyone else, both indoors and out.

What I did enjoy, however, was bumping into my Auntie L (in reality my second cousin one removed) and one of her daughters (my third cousin) with my parents in a car park en route.

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Commune cycle reunion of sorts (Rousse)

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Dreamaticus

I can’t say that it was the most comfortable of nights, but the setting for sleep in the open was beautiful, right next to a beautiful Scottish salmon river. TPR and I would have been better off lying down on the river bank, rather than sitting upright at a picnic table. However, it would have been more advisable to have slept in our hotel room, just a few paces away (despite the problem with the plumbing).

The following day we joined NY and AH for a cycle ride in the hills. I found it very difficult to manage to the tandem on my own, and wondered why TPR had grabbed a solo bike.

Afterwards we found SY (but not CS) and one of the Y sisters, plus assorted friends, all seated at a big round table.

Across the room I saw ECM sullen and dressed in layers and layers of black, so I called her over. She chatted with JMH for a while, then lay flat on the ground. A woman who claimed that she was ECM’s mother (she was not) explained that “her daughter” had never been the same since she took the job in Sudan.

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