Rousse survives tsunami, but misses the talking bee

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Dreamaticus

Everything was picture-book perfect. By complete chance we had reserved the beautiful holiday cottage in Cornwall for the sunniest week of the season, and through the dormer windows of the massive loft conversion bedroom we woke to the most glorious, blue summer sky. We heard the wave before we saw it. TPR screamed “Tsunami!”, grabbed me by the wrist and pulled us to shelter in the bathroom. We agreed to take a deep breath as soon as the wave hit in the hope that we would emerge safely afterwards. Our plan worked! Later we observed the bikers’ wedding on the beach, greatly admiring all the custom-made celebratory red, white and blue bunting hoisted everywhere on flags, sailing boats and windsurf boards.

The next holiday was not so cheery: on bikes in northern France in a dark downpour. We sought the fastest route home.

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They were after me – again. I recognised the escape route through the undergrowth and then down the steep wooded bank to the loch. But where was the friendly talking bee? Last time it had passed on vital intelligence. I would be lost without him. Was he SJ in disguise, temporarily out of the country?

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Time travel with a drum and bass soundtrack (Belle)

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Dreamaticus

Which attraction should I visit first at the village fete? Discovering that A and his wife were starring in a play, I decided to sit in the front row of the tent as the curtain opened. I was astonished when the first scene started – it was set in a pirate radio station. This was bizarre, counter-intuitive casting. Banging drum and bass was NOT what I was expecting.

A bandsman was struck by lightening and died. I tweeted all about it. When I had the opportunity to travel back three hours in time, I was unsure if I should leave a warning at the marching band stall. I wandered down gravel paths in Nunhead and ended up at Rackhams in Birmingham.

Waiting for the Central line at a City station, there was a surge of commuters and they all fell over. S had made it onto the train and I was sure someone would offer her a seat. There would be more room for those of us left on the platform if only someone hadn’t put up a clothes drier covered in wet washing.

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The otter and Harry Potter (Rousse)

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Dreamaticus

It was the final morning of our holiday on the Isle of Lewis. On the advice of TPR I asked for sausages and eggs for breakfast. Bored with waiting for my meal to arrive, I stepped down from the table and set off for the beach. There was still some snow on the ground and the views were well worth photographing, even though I only had my Blackberry camera on me. I struggled over the wet grass in my stocking feet. The grey-spotted socks were soon soaked through. I hoped that their real owner (possibly RG?) wouldn’t mind. Where the river normally hugs the edge of Uig sands I discovered three otters playing in an enormous open water tank. One swam all the way up to me, popped his little paws over the side of the tank, and we rubbed noses. He disappeared back into the water, then reemerged as a small brown dog, completed with a collar that told me that he belonged to a croft called Luach. I didn’t manage to take any photos. I hoped that everyone would believe me when I returned to BnC to enthuse about the friendly otter.

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It was already September (presumably 1985) and HW (now HJ) and I still hadn’t organised our accommodation for our final year at the University of Birmingham. We knew that we had the option of living with TPR in his little house in Northfield, but hesitated over the “authenticity” of such an arrangement. Shouldn’t we be with a bunch of other single girls sharing a flat? Whether or not we solved that problem before we went back up to Birmingham in the autumn, I do not know, but it was a lovely feeling to be crowding with everyone else at the railway station – just like boarding the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter novels, excited at the prospect of the start of the new academic year.

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Belle fakes expertise

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Dreamaticus

As a member of a west end supper club I felt it was my duty to explain to the management how they could improve their marketing to attract new members. The women who went were great, but the men were of a pretty low standard and there weren’t enough of them.

I then spoke to members of a student band, extolling the music of the great invented bands of my childhood. Josie and the Pussycats were great, but then I couldn’t think of any more and, trailing off, I muttered something about “the Tiswas house band” before waking up to avoid further embarrassment.

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Andy Murray innovates with new “tennis” game (Rousse)

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Dreamaticus

Andy Murray’s new approach to tennis would surely soon be all the rage. Watching him catch tennis rackets into a growing pile in his arms was highly entertaining. What a shame I couldn’t stay until the end of the game. As usual, I had to rush away to jump on the train to London.

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Belle and a bull

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Dreamaticus

I had to drive a colleague’s car to Manchester so I could nip over to a Famous Five-style island and manage some workshops. I had to leave the room when I found out that the workshop (not very popular) was about how to bleed a bull prior to making some sort of meat product.

At a jumble sale for a charitable cause I bought some sweet little vintage tins with old boiled sweet wrappers in them and then arrived back in London by train only to realise I had forgotten the car. On my return train journey I heard an advert “stuck for something to buy mum? Give her cross tennis tickets”.

Cross tennis was apparently a crossrail train ticket to see exhibition matches in the run up to the Olympics.

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RAF fighter jets, and “terrorists” in Pitlochry (Rousse)

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Dreamaticus

RAF fighter jets skimmed the water of the loch at high speed, then vanished out of sight. Then some friends on jet skis came racing by. The small tourist audience was thrilled by the spectacle. I wondered what would happen if everyone competed for loch space at the same time?

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QM graduate AR sent me a screen shot of her recent Facebook status updates and asked if I could pass it on to the final year students as a warning. The detail told a tale of misbehaviour at a major online publisher. AR had been sacked primarily for poaching sales prospects from colleagues and drunken antics at corporate events.

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Our coach tour of the highlands reached Pitlochry. I knew that the Coffee Pot cafe would be popular, so ran the length of high street and down the hill to beat everyone else to the remaining free table. The staff hesitated to give it to me: was I a terrorist? When they saw the rest of my party, including MH and the large man who had never been this far north before, they passed over the menus.

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Richard Branson and Rod Stewart keep Rousse company in economy

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Dreamaticus

Richard Branson took the seat next to mine on the airport bus. He explained his campaign to persuade the authorities to relax the rules on passenger transfer between airlines in cases of travel disruption, such as those experienced in the UK due to the recent snow.

On the plane, my school friend JP (now JC) and her husband GC only sat with me for a few minutes in economy before the British Airways hostess came over to confirm that there were two seats available for them in business class. Shocked at JP’s unguarded enthusiasm for the free Champagne and a prospect of decent leg-room in the cabin upstairs, I was disappointed that I would now be all by myself for the whole journey. I tried to cheer myself up. At least I now had two empty seats to the left of me across which I could stretch out later on. How much happier I was, however, to discover that the passenger to the right of me was Rod Stewart. Before take-off we chatted about portable recording technology, and Rod showed me a variety of solid silver state of the art music storage devices, all about the size of two inch memory sticks. Later on we played laser fight games. I couldn’t helping noticing that Rod’s skin was very smooth for a man in his sixties, but I resisted all temptation to ask him about plastic surgery.

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A bendy bus trip to Diagon Alley, but Harry Potter nowhere to be seen (Rousse)

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Dreamaticus

What was it with TPR and clothing? Here he was cycling towards town along Morningside Road in Bruntsfield on a sunny day wearing a navy blue T shirt – and nothing else! His response to a request to please put on some shorts was “It’s too hot, and there is no need for me to cover up. Nobody will be interested.” If only he knew the truth.

On another occasion TPR was cycling down from Craigleith to Comely Bank. We’d just been for a swim in the QM pool, and I was now struggling on foot to keep up with my cyclist husband. I gave up and jumped on a bendy bus, expecting to reach home first. The bus then embarked on a massive detour to London. It took in all the sights, including Ollivander’s Wand Shop in Diagon Alley. I was quite enjoying my trip up to the point that the driver announced that he was a terrorist and the vehicle was now hijacked. I reached for my iPhone or Blackberry to call for help, but of course I didn’t have either because I was on my way back from a quick trip to Corstorphine for a swim. A couple of strangers at the back of the bus offered me their phones: one an inoperable relic of the mid-90s, another so new that it had not been set up for use. I wondered if it would make more sense to tweet an SOS, but hesitated over which of my many accounts would be the best to use. Then the “terrorist” came to talk to us on the back seat, confessed that he really was a bus driver, and hoped we understood that he was just having a laugh. His drunken demeanour spoke volumes.

GW was helping me collect everyone together. She discovered that the best route to (that boy from school again) ST was through a hospital ward. I felt a bit embarrassed following her past rows of sick people in bed, and I tried hard not to stare at the poor patients. We found ST working on his PhD in an outdoor tent/cubicle about the size of a portaloo. I felt very sorry for him to have to toil in such poor conditions, especially in the cold weather. It was curious that he was wearing a white T shirt branded with the SSFC shield on one side and a cartoon of the Scottish Falsetto Socks puppets on the other. Surely the Socks didn’t exist when we were in the sixth form (1979-1981)? Or perhaps I’d missed a school reunion at which the Socks had topped the bill? If this proved to be correct, I would be dreadfully disappointed.

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Belle is obsessed with coats

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Dreamaticus

Walking towards a parade of Japanese warriors twirling swords on horseback, I tried to get my bearings. Was I in the far east in the fifteenth century? I panned my vision out and realised I was actually in Canada. I sat in a cinema in an oriental coat and realised I was not dressed for the torrential rain outside.

I admired a tan leather coat with a big fur collar and offered to buy it even though I had one just like it at home. Sitting at a desk, reading with my head down, a colleague’s appraisal was taking place next to me. That’s how I found out she earned £62,000 a year.

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