My sister S eagerly led me up the stairs.
A wonderful surprise greeted us when she pushed open her bedroom door. Behind it was a bright, airy space, completely free of clutter. The only furniture was the yellow formica table from the upstairs kitchen at our childhood home. This was covered with a blue tartan rug. My sister was rightly proud of all her efforts to clear her bedroom.
My only query was about the heating. Were seven wall-mounted gas fires absolutely necessary to keep the room warm?
A huge group of educational development specialists, appointed to improve teaching practice at the University, swarmed through the campus. I considered this ‘investment’ a complete waste of money. If there was funding to spare, I felt that it should be directed to supporting research rather than excessive and unnecessary teacher training.
One of these ‘experts’ stopped me in the corridor to ask if I was coming to the latest teaching and learning seminar. I declined politely, using the excuse that I was retired. However, in reality I believed that there was nothing left to learn about engaging students after an academic career of 30+ years.
I kept my belongings in Container 78 at a storage facility in central London. While this was a convenient means of dealing with my clutter, accessing it was problematic.
Whenever I parked my red Peugeot 205 nearby (assuming that I could find a space), the cost was astronomical. This was especially the case whenever I was fined for leaving my car on a yellow line.
A further issue was that the storage company had a habit of shifting containers around the site. Sometimes it took hours to find number 78.
TPR and I came into ownership of a hotel in Florida. Whenever we visited, we stayed in a separate adjoining apartment with access to three private swimming pools.
One day as we crossed the hotel lobby on the way back to our quarters, a very tall pale young woman with lank dark hair, and dressed in an old fashioned cotton smock, approached me.
‘I’ve just landed in the US and I’m here to do my internship’, she announced. ‘Where should I put my stuff?’
Until she explained that she and I had corresponded by email briefly about eight months earlier, I had no recollection of this woman. Then I remembered seeing a very bare CV on three slips of paper. However, I had certainly not made any offer of a position for her at the hotel. I told her that since we were returning to the UK in a couple of days, she was welcome to take a holiday in our apartment and make the most of our swimming pools.
Then the woman’s loud mouth Geordie father came into view – followed by her smiling Afro-Caribbean mother, and a succession of eight or nine small siblings. It was not long before the father started preaching his brand of Christianity to anyone who would listen, and I deeply regretted my offer of accommodation. This woman had not come to work for the hotel, but to spread the Lord’s word through the foghorn mouthpiece of her father.
LM had warned me that her teacher practised ‘fast yoga’. Regardless, I signed up for the open-air class. There were two other newbies, both of whom looked extremely unfit. I’d be fine with some pilates training already under my belt.
As soon as the class started, the regulars started complaining that the three of us had been permitted to join the class.
I was more minded to protest that the teacher had removed all her clothes and was now performing the plank completely naked.
I could have done with TPR’s help as I hosted a small dinner party. Had he been around, the guests would have probably eaten at the kitchen dining table (rather than in our bedroom), I would have remembered to serve the sherry, half the chocolate mousse mixture wouldn’t have ended up on the floor, and the washing up would have all been done before we had even sat down to eat.
Disaster struck when RL and another male guest decided that a tall kitchen cupboard crammed with heavy earthenware and cast iron Le Creuset pans would fit into a more ‘convenient’ space against a wall. All that they needed to do was to shave a little wood off its side. As they attempted to do this, the cupboard toppled over and flattened RL. His wife SPL and I looked on in horror.
Was he dead?
First I visited my new gym for a swim in the beautiful, calm, quiet pool.
Then, by-passing the card swipe system, I sneaked back into my old gym. The pool here was very crowded. Many swimmers sported tattoos, some even swam naked.
As I dressed in the changing room of my old gym, a woman that I used to know peered over the lockers and handed me a badger hair shaving brush. She hinted that I would have a use for it. I didn’t. I would pass it on to TPR.
My resident magpie returned from his morning walk leading a mouse on a tiny leash.
I’d never really considered that my pets would want pets of their own and I wasn’t too happy about a mouse moving in. However, within the hour the two were squabbling in the kitchen and the mouse stormed out of the back door. I heaved a sigh of relief.
Our Highland holiday accommodation was more like a hostel than a hotel, full of young people who signed up for activities each day. I quite fancied joining them on the morning that they floated down the rapids of the nearby river inside enormous rubber rings.
A small proportion of the guests were closer to us in age, and profession. In fact, a few recognised TPR from his working life – and they did not like him. It appeared that they had never forgiven him for causing chaos when he died in the States about a decade earlier.
I was just grateful that he had regenerated after his death and became my husband once more.
BM and RG ditched their Morris Minor for a very early black motor car.
They filled their new vehicle with random passengers including a toddler, a sheepdog, and an exotic rare squirrel ‘acquired’ from the zoo.
Whenever they reached a steep bank, everyone – including the animals – had to get out and push.
Dreamaticus 