He called himself ‘Rikki’, but we really had no idea of the real identity of the dark, masked stranger. He could well be a con man.
Even when he spilt red wine all over the cream sitting room carpet at my in-laws’ house, they instantly forgave him.
By now I was beginning to doubt that he was even a living creature.
I opened the oven door for the first time in months, only to discover a whole roast chicken inside. How long had it been there, I wondered. Still confused, I opened the parcel I found on my doorstep. Two packs of frozen peas, that should have been delivered to a gentleman in Doncaster. “What a loser,” I thought, “buying frozen peas from Amazon” – only to remember he wasn’t the person with a mysterious forgotten roast chicken in his kitchen.
My office was the size of a bus shelter. It contained a desk, shower cubicle, and a toilet – plus two other workers. It really was too small for three, and was quite unpleasant whenever any of us used the facilities. There was a also a large shared kitchen across the corridor, but nobody ever took responsibility for keeping it clean and tidy. If you needed a dinner plate, there were plenty available – so long as you were prepared to do the washing up.
I escaped for an hour or so in a borrowed Smart car. My driving was even worse than ever. I nearly rammed into the back of a small truck at a busy road junction, took a wrong turn on to the walkway that ran along Mason Hall (on the University of Birmingham Vale campus), and almost knocked over two students as I bounced to a halt.
Life would be so much easier if I could just continue to work from home.
The room started to rumble, three women in British Airways uniforms stepped to the front, and it felt as though we were in flight. However, since we had not heard the safety briefing, I doubted that this were possible. When I ask the cabin staff, they pointed to the notice on the wall. We should all have read this, rather than expected to rely on verbal instructions.
Our room landed at Heathrow airport and we disembarked. For months, I had not seen so many joyful crowds of people gathered in such close proximity. I concluded that the pandemic was well and truly over.
A rag tag mix of former colleagues and students – including ED, LG, DMcA, and JC of the National Library of Scotland – formed a loose company of actors. We gathered for ‘rehearsals’ in the mews building of my childhood home.
As the date for our opening night approached, it was obvious that our play would never be ready to perform in time. So we changed our plans and created an exhibition about climate change instead.
Later LE and I gave into our feelings and kissed. We’d be in a huge amount of trouble – especially with our husbands TPR and GE – when the world at large came to know of our deep love for one another.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Dreamaticus 