Protecting Prince Harry from tiny footprints and an assassination attempt (Rousse)

Prince Harry was about to be presented to the public dressed in a suit covered in tiny silvery footprints up the right leg – and it was all my fault. I’d left his suit lying across my bed, then let a five year-old, who had been foot-painting, run across it. The only way to put this right was for me to hold Prince Harry still as I peeled the prints away from the cloth.

A little later, I noticed that our hosts had placed Prince Harry on the top tier of the small stadium. There he was, joking and taking selfies with my father-in-law – and a perfect target for snipers. I needed to relay a message as fast as possible to the organisers: that they needed to move our guest of honour down the stadium, or risk an assassination attempt.

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The crop crusher (Rousse)

The main role in my new job was to drive a tractor through the fields and crush crops.

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Big changes at the University of Birmingham (Rousse)

Childhood friends SB and KH met me in Birmingham to scope out venues for next year’s university reunion.

We were in for a shock when we reached the University of Birmingham campus. The French department was completely unrecognisable. The corridors were so narrow that they could only be accessed single file in one direction. The reception areas and lecture halls were so huge that they gave the impression of being in open air. We also noticed that most of the students were Chinese.

Most bizarre of all was access to the main teaching block. To reach this, you had to walk through a large, high-ceilinged, hall hung with a huge electronic banner that reached from the roof to the floor. As you approached the banner, it moved backwards, with the images that it displayed changing according to your positioning in the room. We had no idea of the banner’s function. It just seemed to be yet another annoying obstacle to navigating the building.

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University finance genius earns special treatment (Rousse)

DM brought a sudden end to the lunch party, reminding her guests that some important afternoon commitments now required her attention.

As she shooed us out of the door, she checked that I had remembered to collect my raspberries and redcurrants. I had not done so, so I returned to the scullery to extract the fruit from the tin where they sat amongst DM’s potatoes and bay leaves.

At the back of the house I spotted BB at a desk, poring over a massive ledger covered in gigantic cursive script. Unlike the rest of us, BB was allowed to stay with DM for the rest of the day. This was because she considered him a genius when it came to university finances.

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Cargo bike crisis in Newcastle (Rousse)

I travelled all the way to Newcastle by cargo bike. Almost at my journey’s end, at Haymarket another cyclist rode up to tell me that I had lost my cargo, and that I had a flat tyre.

I was grateful that my phone and purse were in the inside pocket of my bright yellow cycling jacket. One phone call later, ever-reliable TPR came to the rescue.

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Teased by a £50 note (Belle)

I was walking down a tree-lined street and autumn leaves were falling around me. Admiring this spectacle, I noticed that one of the leaves was in fact a £50 note. As I tried to catch it, it was caught by the breeze and I began chasing it. It danced in front of my face and flew away again. I picked up speed and eventually I caught up with it at the end of the street. It simply fell into my outstretched hand and I thanked it for choosing me.

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Trapped at the death clinic (Rousse)

TPR had previously campaigned vigorously against assisted dying, almost causing a riot outside when GG and his ex-wife J entered the clinic to seek its services.

It therefore came as a terrible shock to learn that TPR had switched sides. Worse still, he had booked an appointment for the pair of us, plus JH and KT, at a top-notch death facility. He tricked us into entering the dome by enthusing about all the data that had been collected about each of us over the course of our lives. I looked up and watched a series of infographics that whizzed by, able to make out that they displayed TPR’s impressive training statistics.

Then it struck me that all four of us really were all about to meet our maker. I tried to pull away from TPR, but his huge arm muscles trapped me against his body. I screamed as loud as I could ‘Let me out! I am far too young to die!’

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Greeted by a huge sawn-off-at-the-shoulder bloodied arm (Rousse)

Both my mother and TPR were released from their respective care homes for the day.

My mother was in particularly fine fettle. She was able to keep up with my father’s walking pace – albeit at a distance – and cogent enough to understand the reasons why she no longer lived at home. TPR’s sudden decline into dementia was much more worrying.

Meanwhile my sister S was working with a librarian in a secret meeting to track down details of the 1970s green and white flowered china that I was keen to collect. I was somewhat miffed not to be included in the discussions, especially given my qualifications for the role.

While everyone else was occupied, LvZ approached me for an interview. They hoped to bring back the annual online conference and I would be one of the key attractions. LvZ pressed down two buttons on the old-fashioned tape recorder and listened intently as it put down my memories.

It was soon time for me to deliver my mother and TPR back to their care home accommodation so I rushed off to find the pair of them. I made a mental note to the tell the manager that I didn’t approve of the huge sawn-off-at-the-shoulder bloodied arm that lay on the grass right next to the care home entrance.

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Time-saving Victorian costume changes (Rousse)

To save time in costume changes, TPR wore both his outfits simultaneously. To the left he was an navvy in a brown overall; to the right he was a Victorian gentleman.

He dressed like this all day, even when looking after DM’s grandchildren.

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Party treats of burnt prawns and carbonised sausages (Rousse)

Our lodger FR hadn’t quite got the hang of our kitchen. She crammed far too much blue and white crockery into the glass-fronted cupboards, then cleared a drawer to store a single cake. More annoying, she didn’t clean up after baking bread. Now all the surfaces, including the kitchen floor, were covered in lumps of sticky dough – just as we were expecting our guests to arrive.

Most at the party were my former work colleagues. These included ED, PC and WD, plus GR and his mother. Some people I recognised, but could not name. I served them burnt prawns and carbonised sausages.

Meanwhile TPR was absent, opting to spend the day with his lover. I wondered whether I should retaliate by spending more time with PC?

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