I’d made it as a member of the Blipfoto elite. Personally invited by JT, I was a guest at a movie première at the Church Hill Theatre Edinburgh to celebrate Blip’s latest venture.
Unfortunately the sound dropped from the black and white reel just a couple of minutes in. Still, it was at least long enough for me to experience yet another thrill: Mr David Beckham in celluloid.
MSB and I set off on our secret mission to Russia by EasyJet. Our challenge was to retrieve the sky blue C90 cassette tape and return it intact to the UK. We ignored our Macedonian intern’s fears that we’d never get out of Russia alive without valid visas. Against her will, we forced her to accompany us as our “local” translator.
In the event the most dangerous part of the journey came as we attempted to cross the ungated railway tracks, dodging commuter trains. The guards at the border barely glanced at us, showing no interest whatsoever in our travel documents. This was all too easy.
Indeed by the time we found the cassette tape I was beginning to wonder if we were in Russia at all. The complex of out of town superstores that I could see from the window looked remarkably like Fort Kinnaird, just off the Edinburgh city bypass.
When exactly had I booked my place on this ‘Surburbans Go to Europe by Coach’ holiday? And since when had zone 2 in south east London been considered ‘suburban’? I was a fish out of water stuck on a hot coach, with perfectly groomed and attractive middle-aged couples.
When we piled off a coach in Italy, a delicious banquet awaited us. But the venue was unprepared for an unaccompanied adult and there was nowhere for me to sit. I was forced to wander table to table asking people if I could join them. They all refused and I resorted to stealing a potato croquette out of a food warmer and trying to make conversation with the waiters.
The young Irish woman standing by the window declared “I know you from somewhere”. A few minutes later a slightly older one said exactly the same.
We eventually worked out that long ago we’d trained together at my old running club. I was ashamed to admit that I barely ran these days.
MI caught up with me on Middle Meadow Walk. I called TPR over on his bike and we looked at the print-out of the work that MI had completed.
“It only took one iteration and now it’s ready”, she claimed.
Sure enough, in just a few minutes she really had created a complete new technical infrastructure for the tracking of UK library and information science research.
Everyone in Edinburgh was on the move.
Local KL put her tiny two-bedroomed flat overlooking Bruntsfield Links up for sale.
Then G and JG gave up their big family house in Devon for a flat in Marchmont. Their new place really didn’t have much to recommend it other than a huge, beautiful green and blue stained glass panel that hung in the kitchen opposite the fabulous fireplace. However, with both daughters now living away from home – one in Sheffield and the other in Chile – G and J had moved north for a better quality of life, and a higher standard of education for their young son under the superior Scottish school system.
I had a huge row with NP over conference badges. Our relationship would never survive this – and all all because she thought it wouldn’t matter if delegates were asked to hand-write their own names on sticky labels…!
I thought differently. For this reason I brought 100 beautifully crafted, laminated and logo-ed badges in my briefcase to the conference. NP should have waited for me before dishing out the cheap felt-tipped pens and tawdry stickers to the first arrivals.
The bed and breakfast owner was exceptionally generous. When he heard that I didn’t have a camera to photograph the sunset he gave me three brand new iPhones.
So now I knew the reasons why I looked nothing like either of my two sisters, and my parents clammed up whenever the topic of genetics came up in conversation.
AP confessed to me that back in 1962 he embarked on an affair with healthcare librarian Sheila Moore in Newcastle. Sheila was now dangerously ill and it was time that I learnt the truth: I was their daughter!
I looked up Sheila’s profile in an online community and could see a family resemblance. What puzzled me, however, was why my adoptive parents were considered suitable candidates to look after an unwanted new-born baby. They were only just married themselves, and my father still a poor student at the time that they kindly welcomed me into their lives.
The first person to whom I revealed my new secret was BP. I told him as we implemented the new University measures to deal with postgraduate students upset with the changes to the academic calendar: placating them with bowls of fresh fruit and ice cream.
The next person in on the secret was AB. We were working on a joint paper at the kitchen table when the Internet went down. It seemed as good a time as any to share my extraordinary news.
When I first took the phone call I thought it was my mother speaking, but as the north east accent became stronger I began to have doubts. If she were to be believed, an aunt had died and the funeral was on Thursday 1st February. I needed to make plans – fast.
First of all, what would I do about work? I taught on Thursdays. Then there was the more important question of my hair. I couldn’t tun up to a family funeral looking like this!
I jumped into the yellow Volvo estate and followed the A286 to the retail park. I should have gone directly, but I made a short diversion up Walwyn Close in Birdham thinking that this would save my having to turn right later. I was wrong: this decision cost me even more time.
By the time I reached the retail park the car had conveniently transformed into my tandem so I was able to take my vehicle into the main mall.
Here I bumped into SS who had just bought a stained glass ornament for her nephew from a rather good-looking bald security man. The ornament snapped when I took it in my hands so SS sent me back to buy a replacement. The route back to the stained glass stall took me through a series of luxurious bathrooms. Here women soaked in bubbles side by side in neat little rows. I was very tempted to jump in with them, but there was still the question of my coiffure.
Eventually I made it to the hairdresser to see what could be done about my shocking hairstyle. None of the stylists was willing to take me on. Eventually the boss talked one of her employees into giving me some advice. This man was clearly wearing a toupée: I could see the plastic slots in his skull to which his black wig was attached. There was no way I would trust him with my hair, even after his smooth sales talk of “nourishing unctions” and “flamed ends”. When he announced that the estimated cost of all this treatment would be £150 I made my excuses and left.
Dreamaticus 