Sir Keir Starmer in tottering platform shoes was a useful distraction on the day of my mother’s funeral.
BR was busy organising meetings to address his latest work predicament, my sister J was about to arrive in town at the invitation of her daughter A, and my deceased father was almost completely submerged in the water of Loch Faskally fishing for salmon. It was all happening in Pitlochry.
I took my mother’s car keys without her knowledge and set off in the Granada to the meeting at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. I followed the car in front, stupidly assuming that the driver was also heading in the same direction as me.
I felt rather foolish when the driver pulled into the golf club, parked in the car park, and pulled his clubs out of his boot. I would have parked next to him had I known where to find the brake on the Granada. Instead I lost control of the vehicle and bounced across the greens until the car came to a standstill in a bunker, much to the disgust of the golfers.
Conscious of the urgency of reaching the meeting, I restarted the car and drove the rest of the way to Hexham. I parked the car in a side street and took myself, plus pen and paper for minute taking, to join the others at the board table.
By the time that the meeting was over, I had completely forgotten the location of the car. I hunted all the side streets to the west end and back again, passing the police station, brothel, and the wide expanse of the Seil.
Still car-less I bumped into my cousin R. He told me that he had an amazing secret to share, but he couldn’t get it out.
I paid attention as the air steward ran through the safety announcement.
The instructions had changed. In an emergency, we were to exit through the roof of the plane. The route was through small marked holes in the ceiling. We should now check the small saucer-sized circles above our heads.
If I breathed in, I might be able to squeeze my way out, but what about the overweight man in the row in front of me?
I stopped worrying about all this when Avery (the young American woman seated next to me) complained that she couldn’t find her entry in the Edinburgh Fringe programme. I found it in seconds. She wasn’t looking hard enough.
I ran back to the train carriage just in time to collect my forgotten belongings. A few seconds later, and the cleaners would have scooped up everything for disposal.
Out of the station and onto the Edinburgh streets, I ran into a climate change rally. Protesters were marching along Lothian Road wielding axes.
I stopped in my tracks with a scream when a modest-looking middle class woman nicked my clothing with her weapon. Highly embarrassed, she helped me out of my grey cashmere cardigan with a promise to darn the garment and return it to me.
I continued my walk home amongst the protesters. Along the route I fell into conversation with another woman. She advocated for a local host scheme that offered a ‘good time’ to business visitors to the city. She explained that rather than sit in a hotel room preparing for her meetings the next day, she would much prefer a riotous night on the town with teacher training students.
Following the accident on the A9, TPR pushed our Peugeot 205 into a nearby car park.
We should have been more aware of our surroundings when a family of four, plus dogs, forced their way into our car and started to empty our bank accounts. We eventually managed to throw them out and reclaim our vehicle, but when we called the police, they had no interest in the stolen money.
How would we manage to buy fuel for the rest of the journey home?
My mother served me a tiny dinner on a large plate. Nine peas! She was definitely trying to starve me.
I quickly forgot this shocking state of affairs when I saw my two, giant pet stag beetles on the patio. I asked them a burning question: “What exactly is the difference between puddings and cakes?”
My brother-in-law M owned an original blue Chopper bike. He was shocked when I told him that it was worth around £2,000.
My sister J – looking slim in yellow chiffon – was very pleased to hear this news.
Now that my youngest sister had cleared our parents’ house (albeit a year later than the ‘final’ deadline), my middle sister and I felt able to accept the new owner’s invitation to visit it once more and look at his renovations.
We loved the new botanic print curtains in the drawing room, but were appalled to see that our sister had been lying about having completed the clearance job. There were still several soft toys littered around the dining room. These included a collection of Garfields as well as our sister’s teddy YE.
Dreamaticus 