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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Household marvels and a late puppeteer (Rousse)

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Dreamaticus

P and S had now settled into their new house and we were so honoured to have been invited over for lunch. I marvelled at the waterfall and lagoon that had been landscaped into their back garden. In the kitchen I offered to help with the food preparations, impressed at all the mod cons, and the beautiful bespoke blue porcelain (that would be replaced as “unfashionable” the year after next). I felt guilty that we had failed to invite P and S to our humble cellar for such a long time. As things turned out, I was also asked to stay the night, so I made myself useful in concocting a snack of fried onions, cottage cheese and tomatoes in a savoury biscuit shell. For some reason SC (now SL) was there too, but she wasn’t much use because she kept stepping outside for cigarette breaks.

TPR and I were waiting for KFS. We were sure that he had said 17:00, but it was almost 18:00 by the time that he arrived. He eventually turned up, but it was too late for me: I had to rush back to London.

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A party and a police officer (Belle)

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Dreamaticus

It had been a big night out. At some point I had been wearing night vision goggles at a party where everyone was having a wild time except me. There was a steamy sauna and lots of loud music. The goggles helped me see more of the fun I wasn’t having. Two former female colleagues were propping each other up in the stairwell.

I tried to walk home down a crescent shaped City street that was criss-crossed with ladders hundreds of feet high. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to work in such dangerous conditions. Every man in a hard hat was climbing a wobbly ladder and there were drunk people making their ways home. Couldn’t they easily knock the ladders over? As it was, I was sober and had to crawl through some small spaces.

For the next part of my commute home I was standing up in an open top bus like an FA Cup winning team.

Then a policeman walked me home and offered to recreate the moment when my friend, SG, blew a big bumble bee out of the overflow pipe coming out of her kitchen. I didn’t think SG would be happy to be woken up in the middle of the night and told the policeman she had been out enjoying herself and should be left alone.

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Rousse to star on reality TV

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Dreamaticus

There was a straightforward reason why I slipped through customs unnoticed and TPR was held back: I had lied about our trip, whereas he had admitted to the farm visit. Now I had to intervene to persuade the airport official to admit my husband back into the country. This proved much easier than anticipated: I simply lied again. So long as they knew nothing of our afternoon with the cows in the milking parlour, we would be fine. I was so relieved when the official gladly let TPR through the barrier. I was less than pleased, however, on hearing from this stranger that my Christmas present was to be an appearance on a reality television show. Now I was burdened with an acting role on Christmas Day. How could I feign both surprise and delight at the “news” that our flat would be the star of a Who do you think you are style show about buildings?

Changing nappies was much harder than I remembered, especially since this particular baby had a habit of disappearing into thin air. I needed to find her mother. I barged into the bathroom as my ex-colleague SAR emerged from the shower. I instantly forgot about the baby, distracted by the biggest personal collection of make-up and toiletries that I had ever seen in a domestic environment.

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Belle’s bare bottom beauties

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Dreamaticus

I don’t know how anyone had talked me into taking a four line speech in the company pantomime but I had handled the situation in an adult way by ignoring it and hoping I would get run over before the performance date. So now here I was, on the afternoon of the show, trying to learn lines in a half-hearted way but still hoping some disaster would befall me. When I walked past a group of school girls one of them managed to put a spell on my pumps and I stopped dead in my tracks. Twice. I said “I am going to punch you in the face” but even I didn’t believe myself. For some reason I had a New Zealand accent.

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I watched live footage of 100 members of the public chosen to stand in a marbled hall and greet Prince William and Kate. I scanned the group of women with hats. Scattered throughout the group were about ten blonde beauties who had made ‘wedding dresses’ out of toilet roll. Most of them were showing bare bottoms and a lot of flesh. “That’s why they’re there and I’m stuck watching in the ugly cupboard”, I thought bitterly.

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Let me leave Loughborough (Rousse)

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Dreamaticus

We were gathered around a table at Loughborough University to discuss the establishment of a new research centre for visiting library and information science researchers, and this was getting embarrassing. For the third time I asked the chair of the committee to repeat his question, which he did, and I still couldn’t make sense of anything that he said. Was he garbling his words, or perhaps I was going deaf? None of the others looked as puzzled as me, yet nor did anyone else attempt to answer the question. This was going to be a long, confused, committee meeting.

In the break I popped outside and was surprised to emerge into heat and beautiful countryside: the East Midlands in mid-winter reminded me of rural West Sussex at the height of summer.

Back in the committee room again, the “meeting” had taken on the appearance of a confused workshop where multiple conversations along the table debated flipchart lists. I secretly checked my British Airways boarding card, wondering whether I could negotiate with those flying to Newcastle to leave early at 15:50.

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Karaoke? Shoot me now please (Belle)

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Dreamaticus

The rest of the firm was preparing for the big night’s entertainment – an evening of dinner, drinking and karaoke in the barn. No-one asked me if I was looking forward to it. Surely they must all know by now that this type of thing is worse than hell to me. In the attic a man held me at gunpoint but a colleague snuck up and disarmed him. Then they walked away together, joking.

When I heard that AL, a former director of the firm, was attending the party and had ‘prepared a Doctor Who medley’, I decided to run away.

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Removal, Radley handbags, monster Range Rovers and another rescue for Rousse

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Dreamaticus

The Institute was moving into less costly premises. As we crowded round the door of the new office ES snapped at the suggestion that the staff clock-watched at work: “Eight days a week is the norm here!” he declared. The new office was a small public library. Unfortunately it soon became obvious that there was insufficient space for everyone to have their own desk. Since I was not a permanent member of staff, my place was allocated last. I raised the issue of occupational health when it was explained to me that I was expected to work perched at the end of a book shelf. In response, the grey-bearded boss handed over a battered copy of Navigating business information sources (Burke & Hall, 1998) and instructed me to get on with my duties.

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The new arrangement for running club would waste the entire day. The plan was first to meet at RA’s flat mid-morning, hang around there until midday with TPR and LM, run for about an hour, and then go out for lunch together at about 13:30. I became so fed up with waiting that I headed straight to the pub. I saved a table for the others by ordering a bowl of Strawberry Crisp Oat Clusters, and eating them very slowly.

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Life was dangerous in 2015. The tall men in charge were in total control, supported by an army of small, nippy blonde women carrying tan Radley handbags (which SC would like). Privacy was long dead now that there was 24-hour surveillance. We were doomed from the moment that we were snatched from a London street and shoved into one of the massive metallic Range Rover transporters. I lost count of how often we were kicked and punched. The only enjoyable moment came when we drove into the chasm. I loved the sensation of floating downwards. Poor TPR, however, hurt himself when he fell and lost a “stave” from his front teeth.

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The world around me diminished to a feint photocopy in slow motion and now I knew the truth: I’d finally been found out and they were coming to get me.

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Belle loses out to a toddler and calls in sick

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Dreamaticus

I was sitting opposite my new, breakdancer boyfriend at a diner when he suddenly mentioned he had a wife and baby. The baby, now nearly two years old, was already being followed on Flickr and Facebook by people all around the world and was popular for her good looks, trendy outfits and exotic locations. Once again, I realised I was playing a minor role in this story.

In a big round wooden room, not unlike Eltham Palace, I was finding pictures to sell in a big garage sale and was then commissioned by an industry illuminary to write a book. As the snow came down, I realised I should be on my way to the office and pretended to be at the doctor’s.

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