Belle to go blonde!

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Dreamaticus

Every time I admired my new flatmate’s changing hair, she told me which two colours she had mixed to create the desired effect (“apricot-peach and smooth mink”).

How dull I was by comparison! I decided to go blonde for the summer.

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Gloop for non-coffee drinker Rousse

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Dreamaticus

I was just the placement student so I tolerated yet another change to arrangements to my office accommodation. When my boss realised that the two other heads of group had taken advantage of my sweet nature I made sure that I kept out of the way of the ensuing arguments. All was forgiven at lunchtime when I joined the three of them and all the other staff for the traditional midday office meal. A mix of whatever ingredients were at hand went into the blender and came out as a thick slop of brown gloop. I just had to confirm that no coffee went into the concoction before I took a taste.

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Kit Kats, crisps and claustrophobia (Rousse)

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Dreamaticus

We were cycling down the glen over the bumpy grass. TPR took the front, a male friend followed behind, and I was in the middle in sole charge of the tandem for the first time ever. I had really got to grips with it now, adept at wheelies over streams and other minor obstacles. We stopped for a break in a field, helping ourselves to Kit Kats and crisps from a solar-powered fridge. When QM graduate MG appeared and said that she would like to rest inside the fridge for the afternoon it made me shudder. Who would choose to sleep in such a confined space in the cold? Not me, for certain.

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Boy racing and GCSE results (Rousse)

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Dreamaticus

It difficult to tell what was the more shocking: (a) my colleague PC terrifying my Volvo-driving parents by goading my father to race his souped-up Subaru around a supermarket car park in Peebles, or (b) my nephew’s one and only GCSE result – an E in maths, which my sister was vainly trying to claim was a pass.

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Kevin Towler – Olympic athlete (Belle)

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Dreamaticus

They were an unlikely pair of gold medal hopefuls. In fact, they looked more like young media types out on the town in Hoxton, and yet here they were being filmed for a documentary about Britain’s Olympic hopefuls.

It had all come about during a holiday in Greece a few years previously. When Kevin leapt to catch a falling bread roll the waiter had joked “Hey, Olympic athlete”.

In the documentary’s re-enactment, a thought bubble came out of Kevin’s head. “Hmmm. Olympic athlete? Hey why not?”. On his return home, he and his best friend began tumbling in the back garden and before they knew it they were the best pair of male tumblers in the land.

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BA cabin staff lay on a special treat at Heathrow airport (Rousse)

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Dreamaticus

There was no real hurry before my next flight so I sat wrapped up in my long black coat in the departure lounge at Heathrow airport. When it was time to board the plane I walked to my gate. It was a little embarrassing to find that everyone had been waiting for me for ages. More disappointing for me, however, was that I had missed the red-uniformed, pom pom brandishing, BA cabin staff perform their cheer-leading routine in the newly-built special arena by the gate. If only I could have been bothered to turn up a little earlier, I would have witnessed the whole spectacular routine.

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How to make a Buddhist cross (Belle)

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Dreamaticus

It was my first day in a new job and it was already going disastrously wrong. My boss, an old friend, had shouted drunkenly at me before I had even hung up my coat. I had no desk, telephone or computer and it seemed the established method here was to fist-fight for the right to any of these items.

Meanwhile on the village green, onlookers were allowed into the back of the meditation tent to observe the Buddhists, provided we handed in our dogs at the cloakroom. I was horrified when my ex-best friend A was in there and started to chatter away loudly with my new best friend before being thrown out by monks. I ran away only to discover that what I had thought was a field was in fact an ice-rink. I fell over in a cartoonish fashion.

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The assassin’s wife (Rousse)

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Dreamaticus

I wept on the number 11 bus as it worked its way through the Leith traffic. When the stranger came over to comfort me I listed all my woes: I was always getting lost on public transport (especially trains to Edinburgh), I never got to see my family, my colleagues were unreliable, and I had no friends.

The main cause of my loneliness, however, was that my husband was rarely at home due to his demanding work as an international assassin. Most recently he had taken out two terrorists in Italy. On a rare trip home he showed me the tiny corpses. He’d packed them in layers of cooked rice to keep them fresh.

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Scandinavian packing essentials (Rousse)

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Dreamaticus

I made it to Finland with only one packing mistake: no gloves. My hosts assumed that we knew that gloves were essential all year round in Scandinavia. For this reason they had not warned us that they were a necessity, even at the height of summer. At the airport I considered stealing a pair from another passenger, but when she spotted me rummaging through her bike trunk I made an excuse and wandered off.

Separated from my hosts I came across a man holding up a hand-written cardboard sign that said “Native English speaker. First class service.” It was my friend MC offering private English lessons at the airport. He was very pleased to see me and within minutes I was recruited as the external examiner for his current client.

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The FBI get their man (Belle)

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Dreamaticus

After carrying out an elaborate armed robbery, the man in grey army fatigues (how trendy he looked!) went on the run in America and I floated along beside him for the ride.

Was I his conscience? The narrator of a book? Or was I directing the movie of his exploits? Although I was not a participant I seemed to be around for every key moment of his life of crime.

After running up hills and through valleys painted like pantomime sets, we arrived at a holiday camp, populated with charming elderly women. They took a shine to the outlaw and never questioned who he was or how he came to live with them. They even failed to make the link when FBI helicopters hovered overhead and armed officers arrived looking for a criminal.

The outlaw gave himself up and the women wept.

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