Cyclist motorway menace (Rousse)

Posted on January 30, 2022 by Dreamaticus

Drivers hurled insults at cyclist TPR, and for good reason.

He endangered everyone as he pedalled in elaborate loops across all three lanes of the motorway.

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Purple wallpapering mistake (Rousse)

Posted on January 29, 2022 by Dreamaticus

While the rest of the house was still in complete chaos, my sister S had made a huge effort and managed to tidy her room. Nothing was out of place and at last you could see the floor again.

She’d even redecorated. However, I feared that few would appreciate her choice to cover four fifths of the walls in pale wallpaper, with the remaining section in deep purple.

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Premature plane ticket purchase (Rousse)

Posted on January 29, 2022 by Dreamaticus

I was already annoyed that my colleague had submitted a conference contribution without first sharing his work for review with the rest of the team

When I found out that he had already bought return first class return flights to China before he even knew whether or not his work had been accepted, I hit the roof.

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Dirty girls work from home (Rousse)

Posted on January 28, 2022 by Dreamaticus

When the order came through to work elsewhere, I signed up for a new life with my younger girlfriends and some of their contacts in a large house. This meant leaving my elderly mentor and her cliff-top home. I saved two polished pebbles as souvenirs of our life together.

The main living space in our new abode was the huge dining room. Here there was a spot for everyone at the enormous dining table to ‘work from home’ – although I did wonder how we would cope with simultaneous conference calls. At night-time we spread out for sleeping. I shared a narrow single bed with SL (formerly SC).

My only real complaint was the washing up. I seemed to be the one person bothered about the piles of dirty dishes in the kitchen area. It had all been left so long that the first challenge was to clear some space so that it was possible to tackle the mess.

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Zoë the admin (Rousse)

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Dreamaticus

My long-legged friend MH, who had recently taken to calling herself Zoë, announced to everyone that she had some news that would be of particular interest to me. She had successfully applied for the new admin role in my research group and would be my right hand person within the month.

I gave her a big congratulatory hug. However, I was rather concerned that (a) she was over-qualified for the job and (b) I would not have any suitable work to assign to her. On the other hand, she would enjoy meeting my handsome Canadian cousins, who were currently eating their way round town.

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A husband murdered over metal gates (Rousse)

Posted on January 25, 2022 by Dreamaticus

TPR and I left the theatre after enjoying a play that starred Mathew Baynton (Thomas Thorne in Ghosts).

On our way back to the station, we took a short cut through a multistorey car park. To enter it just as it was closing was a huge mistake. Massive metal gates came down and trapped us in a large concrete construction that no phone signal could pentrate.

TPR wondered whether he could force open the metal gates. He gave it a go and managed to create a space just large enough to squeeze through and seek help. However, he never returned.

The next day a librarian approached me with a book of poetry in her hand. ‘Your husband is dead’, she said. A bunch of builders had murdered him because he destroyed their handiwork.

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Selecting ski clothes (Rousse)

Posted on January 24, 2022 by Dreamaticus

I was in the most expensive, and snootiest, dress shop in town, selecting ski gloves and a scarf. The staff hovered over me, giving the impression that they thought I might leave without paying.

Afterwards I went to the gym to retrieve my ski jacket from my locker. It was such a long time since I had last used my locker that I had great difficulty remembering the code for the combination lock.

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Frail old lady on the wrong train (Rousse)

Posted on January 24, 2022 by Dreamaticus

I’d mixed up the two rail tickets. I had that of mother, and she mine. The main consequence of this was that a frail old lady was about to board the ‘wrong’ train, and there was no way that I could stop her doing so.

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Flirting at work (Rousse)

Posted on January 24, 2022 by Dreamaticus

A flirty red-haired engineer from Bolton helped me complete the missing student records for KS and RS.

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Exotic tank life at the beach (Rousse)

Posted on January 24, 2022 by Dreamaticus

Just above the beach, my mother and I came across an enormous fish tank stuffed with turtles and goldfish.

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