RK hesitated when I said that I would help the French student put his poster up on the wall at the back of the classroom. He asked if I would do this later. For the moment he wanted no distractions in class. The full attention of the students should focus on his opening lecture about the days of the week.
When I listened to his explanation that the weekend does not start on a Thursday afternoon I guessed that he must be fed up with a high absence rate in his Friday classes.
While antique shopping in Blackheath, I found myself drawn to a wooden display cabinet. Inside I saw an incomplete collection of ‘London Borough medals’. I had no idea such things existed, or that Lewisham’s emblem was a ‘deer’s leap’.
I was busy in the kitchen admiring my glug jug collection when KT called the meeting. I reckoned that I should wear more than a pair of lacy black knickers in the company of my colleagues so I rushed through the bedroom to get dressed. There I pulled on my favourite stiff pink netting tutu and topped my outfit with a thin white vest. I looked so much better covered up, even though I had no time to brush my hair or clean my teeth before everyone else (including the Dean – it was an important meeting) arrived.
At first I was disappointed that only two of my three male room-mates were in attendance. However, when KT introduced the main agenda item I was relieved that the third was absent. KT was concerned about his personal hygiene. She’d never met anyone else before who brushed himself with sticks rather than took a shower or a bath. “Is this a common practice?” she enquired.
While top fashion designer MSB prepared for the visit of AF, my sister J and I headed for the Pentland Hills. We timed our visit to watch the release of geese at the start of the shooting season. We didn’t appreciate that this quantity of birds overhead would turn the sky black. Nor were we prepared for the deluge of guano.
By the time we returned AF had transformed into a sulky version of her Auntie S. I was incredibly embarrassed. I tried to make up for the teenage bad behaviour by showing enormous enthusiasm for the snack that MSB had kindly prepared for us all. The Danish version of Marmite on toast wasn’t quite as bad as I expected.
I was well aware that for over a decade my colleague A dismissed my work as completely trivial. It was well-known that he had no respect for me whatsoever.
Then one day we happened to be assigned to the same placement visit in France. I would never have imagined that my aptitude for modern languages would be the one talent powerful enough to win him over. From the moment that the first French words spilled out of my mouth he just couldn’t get enough of me.
LF and TF both glanced at me sitting on the futon. “No, that’s it. We’re definitely not getting him one of those“, said L.
This declaration came at the end of a long debate on bedroom furniture choices for teenage boys on sleepovers. Apparently the final choice was to be an expensive sofa bed. I would have thought that bedrolls on the floor were good enough, or perhaps bunk beds? Which teenage boys would want to share a double sofa bed with a friend?
My suggestions were rejected. The bunk bed option was particularly unpopular. Had I no idea how difficult it is to make a bunk bed? It was also obvious that I had never witnessed the damage that bunk beds wreak on woodwork.
The conference launch event was a Victorian-Edwardian music hall concert in the style of BBC’s Good old days show. I thought this a bit OTT for a librarians’ conference, but this was the US, and it did make a change from the usual first night drinks reception. Afterwards I attempted to mingle with my colleagues, but something wasn’t quite right. Every conversation I started was cut dead. Even full-on flirting with male delegates (completely out of character for me) failed to garner any response (although I almost won over the very tall man leaning against the wall). I had clearly upset the entire conference community, but I had no idea how or why.
The Manor reunion was different. Here everyone was keen to catch up on one another’s news, including ours. The moment TPR chose our seats at an empty table a dozen others raced over to claim places next to us. My highlight of the evening was the discovery that my school friend JB and her husband were at the dinner. As an Oxford graduate JB had no entitlement to attend an event for the alumni of the University of Birmingham. However, because she had already missed our school reunion in November and was really keen to catch up with me, she and her husband had taken the decision to come over from California and gate-crash the Manor House event.
I really enjoyed the conversation with JB. I explained how TPR had spent a lot of time in Mountain View in the 1990s and that I’d investigated doing my PhD at Stanford or Berkeley. She was just about to tell me how she’d ended up in San Francisco when we heard the wail of sirens. A fleet of fire engines raced into the dining room to deal the F1 car in the corner that had suddenly burst into flames.
After years of unheeded complaints about his overworking, BB’s wife followed through her threat to throw him out. With nowhere else to go, he turned up on our doorstep. I always suspected that he would not be terribly domesticated, but even I was shocked to find that he had no idea how to operate a tumble dryer.
