My mother and I dived into the undergrowth to hide from the natives. When they passed by we could make out their cargo piled high on the trolley. Neatly stacked like a Tesco pallet delivery, it carried a variety of dyed pig body parts: heads, ears, trotters etc.
I considered crawling out to take a photograph of this multicoloured meat spectacle, but my mother cautioned against this. It would simply be far too dangerous.
For authentic Saturday afternoon entertainment I decided to take my weekend guests to a football match. The Hiberian ground wasn’t too far away, so I slipped out of the house first thing on Saturday morning to go and buy some tickets.
Although it was before 09:00am when I arrived, I was surprised to find that the ground was already busy with football fans, some decked in green, and others in maroon. Then I remembered that this was the big day of the Edinburgh Hibs-Heart derby. I’d be very lucky to get tickets at all, even after blagging my way into the members’ common room where the less rowdy fans were collecting tickets ordered in advance. I considered stealing some of the labelled white A4 envelopes laid out on the table, but this would be very difficult due to the number of plain-clothed security men in attendance.
Just as I was about to leave the ground (ticket-less) JM appeared. He was dressed very smartly in a suit, and a looked a little shorter than usual. “I’ll be right with you” he called, and dived through a door off the members’ common room. When he reemerged we left the ground together and I attempted to persuade him to come back with me to my flat. I knew that my sisters-in-law JR and SMcC, and former colleagues AT and JB plus JB’s wife E, would love to meet him. He was interested in the invitation, and would come over from Portobello beach just as soon as he finished his morning conference call to the US.
A more urgent priority, however, was to shake off the woman following closely behind us. We knew that she was called Catherine, but we had no idea why she found it so amusing to creep up and poke us in the back.
I wandered around the crowded room and performed a little dance. I hoped that this would please my new friend and that she would agree that I had mastered the “dancing like a cat” routine. She observed my technique, then snapped her fingers to bring me out of the trance.
The verdict was good. Not only had I passed the cat dancing test, but during my short period under hypnosis they had discovered that I was a skilled hypnotist myself. Apparently I had been practising unknowingly for years.
Now there was an explanation for the amazing attendance rates for my modules. Everyone had suspected for ages that none of the students were genuine, willing, participants. Finally here was the proof that every student had been unwittingly coerced into class.
I was living in Paris, where I shared an enormous communal bedroom with a bunch of strangers. However, I was not always completely friendless: one day PA, JB and CS from my first secondary school passed through as temporary residents. Two of them – JB and CS – were using the boarding house as a temporary stop-off on their way to work contracts in Philadelphia.
My main priority each morning was to dress appropriately for the changeable weather, preferably in clothes that fitted me. Unfortunately my over-indulgence over the summer meant that I struggled to get into much of what I had packed. I could feel the pitying looks of my room-mates as I discarded yet another piece of underwear that would not stretch around my fat back.
I also missed TPR terribly, but I stuck to my resolution to stay here for the rest of the year. This was the only sensible strategy if I were to find the peace and quiet required to finish my (second) PhD.
When on a Little Red Riding Hood mission to deliver a supply of cottage cheese in my wicker basket to the S family, I came across TF digging muddy trenches in a field. He and has son T were committed to spend the entire weekend labouring at their country cottage. T’s wife L and daughter K were nowhere to be seen: it turned out that they were in town (shopping).
T was so delighted to see me that he invited me in for a cup of tea. We made an arrangement there and then for TPR and me to join him and the rest of the family for dinner that evening.
Were those basking shark fins cutting through the water? How marvellous that a shoal had made it all the way up-river to Hexham! I’d never seen basking sharks in fresh water before, and what a thrill to find them in the Tyne.
I was mistaken. These were not basking sharks, but dolphins. From the river bank I watched their cheery faces popping out of the water and wondered how close they would let me come. By the time I reached them, however, I realised that I had been taken in completely. These weren’t sea mammals at all, but children from the local primary school out for a late-summer splash in the river.
I busied myself making bacon sandwiches in the upstairs kitchen of the White House.
I thought I was doing well at the training session where we were learning how to turn exam papers into comedy performances: my multiple choice questions were hilarious. What a shame that nobody else shared my sense of humour.
After a while we became a little suspicious of the workshop leader. Every time she claimed that the next activity would be fun she tapped her left nostril. C and I read this as a sign of coke addiction.
