Rachel wins Ross back – again (Rousse)

My name is Rachel Green. You may remember me and my friends from a television documentary broadcast 1994-2004. We don’t see each other so often now – perhaps about once a month. Monica and Chandler are still married, have a couple of kids, and live near to me in New York. Phoebe and Joey have moved a bit further away. Of course I still see Ross a lot: he is supposed to be my boyfriend after all, though not that you would believe it from his behaviour last week.

I caught him flirting with one of those hard-nosed business women that we seem to breed here in New York. You know the type? They are coiffed and manicured down to the very last keratin filament of their ambition-fuelled bodies. Their real faces are disguised under an elaborate make-up superstructure. Then they spoil the whole look by cladding their delicate feet in lumpy old trainers to march through the Manhattan streets to work.

I think Ross was seriously tempted. He’s lost quite a lot of confidence since he was sacked from his teaching post at New York University and took up work as a UK schools inspector. So it must have been quite a thrill that someone showed interest in him at all, never mind that the person flirting with him was a successful business woman.

Of course I was furious, and I did well not to show it. I just told him that he needed to make up his mind between me and her. Eventually he saw sense and the yuppie pretender was despatched back to the land of stocks, shares and spreadsheets.

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Menu bingo for those in the know on the Isle of Lewis (Rousse)

The Isle of Lewis guest house had gone up-market. Its pink laminated menus listed sophisticated seafood dishes. Still RG couldn’t resist a joke. If you looked carefully at the text you could find the names of his regular guests hidden in the text.

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A cat-assisted attempt to avoid divorce (Rousse)

There was only one way that I would find time to do my own research ever again: to register for a second PhD. I considered several options. I could return to the University of Birmingham where I had studied as an undergraduate. If I chose Newcastle, I could be near my parents and ask JM to supervise me. But then I hit on a brilliant idea. The Oxford Internet Institute was sure to welcome me! I popped in to make an enquiry.

There I met an elderly female lecturer overcome by a pile of marking. She was pleased to take a break to chat and offered me a choice of small metal badges. I rejected all the ones that displayed goggly eyes in favour of the last one that simply read “TPR”. “Those are my boyfriend’s initials” I told her, “I will take the badge home to him. I am sure that he will like it”. This was, in fact, completely untrue. TPR was my soon-to-be ex-husband. It was highly unlikely that the gift of a tiny scrap of metal would dissuade him of his determination to divorce me.

On my way out of the building I bumped into the Institute director. AD introduced me to him as “Amanda”. Unsurprisingly the director had no idea of my true identity.

Back in Edinburgh once more I passed two gigantic African women in colourful traditional dress practising their dance steps on Annandale Street. By the time I reached East Claremont Street it was dark and the street lights had failed. I had to feel my way along the Claremont Crescent garden wall and the railings to work out the route home.

When the starry black cat and I eventually reached the front door I rang the doorbell. We both doubted that the husband who no longer wanted us would let us in, but we felt it was worth one final attempt at a reconciliation.

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Top spring fashion trend 2012: the maroon leather jacket (Rousse)

I photographed my niece AF and six or seven of her friends looking fabulous in the latest fashion for Spring 2012: short, maroon, leather jackets worn over dresses and jeans.

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Tom McNair’s coffee morning werewolf competition (Rousse)

When TPR appeared covered in mud and twigs I assumed that he must have travelled to the coffee morning by the underground tunnel. Then I noticed that Tom McNair was sitting next to my sister J at the table. Was this proof at last that my husband was a werewolf?

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Lives saved, but with a fine to pay (Rousse)

It was meant to be a short walk to get some fresh air between sessions at a conference based in a Marriott hotel somewhere in the US, but within minutes disaster struck. One by one we slipped from the footpath into the river.

It was a real struggle to haul ourselves out of the water, but fortunately we all made it. The only problem was that the extremely over-weight delegate (and the last to emerge) pulled with such force on the chain fence that he also uprooted several concrete posts. He would surely face an enormous fine.

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Bedroom design ideas (Rousse)

I stood at the top of the steps that led down to my sister’s master bedroom, astonished that she could possibly accuse me of self-importance. She and her husband had built their bedroom on the scale of a Norman cathedral. They had adorned it with lettering and symbols just as Henry VIII had decorated his many palaces. Their son and daughter were clearly spoilt too. Each child occupied an elevated section of the room where they enjoyed the luxury of their very own massive emperor-sized beds. Clearly there was no better way to pay homage to this family’s magnificence.

By now it was way past 1pm. I was appalled that the children were allowed to sleep in so late. I could see my niece AF all tucked up, dead to the world, hair spread out across the pillow like a medieval princess. I threw a pebble at her to wake her up. I wanted her to see that I had restocked her bathroom, and to enjoy the half bottle of Listerine that I had left out for her.

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Ceremony blunder (Rousse)

When my nephew PF ran back and told us that he had spotted a small man in a loud shirt at the ceremony we all knew who this was. The photographer and I sneaked up to the group. CO was playing a leading role, dressed in a long dark cloak, and reading his script from his iPad.

Then the photographer started blowing raspberries at the celebrants. Disgraced, we were immediately dismissed.

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Dangerous driving in the United States (Rousse)

After a quiet Christmas Day, TPR and I set off to visit KR. It was a long time since we had driven in the US, and the first time that we had taken our own right-hand drive vehicle on the American freeways.

I was quite happy in the passenger seat until we hit a medieval town. TPR panicked as he struggled to negotiate the narrow alleyways and tight bends of the one-way traffic system. The most terrifying moment came in the underpass when a host of beggars crowded round the car demanding hand-outs.

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Hall of residence handicrafts at the University of Birmingham (Rousse)

Nobody needed any persuasion to take to the floor at the Manor House reunion disco. With the first beat of the first record it was filled with enthusiastic dancers. I mentioned to TPR that we should list all these popular tracks for our own party playlist.

In a break between the records I wandered into the library to look through papers and card piled onto a big wooden table. I soon worked out that somebody had been making new Christmas cards from the scraps of old ones. Amongst the source material were several years’ worth of hand-painted cards by my father.

From the way that everything was laid out I guessed that this was all the on-going work of someone whose surname fell towards the end of the alphabet – perhaps HW (now HJ)? It was HP, however, who eventually admitted that the handiwork was all his.

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