Tag Archives: 1980s

A missed meeting in Smeaton (Rousse)

Posted on May 5, 2018 by Dreamaticus

I remembered that I had agreed to catch up with LM at 4:30pm, but I had forgotten to check the venue of our meeting. I was shocked when I saw in her Facebook message that we were to meet in … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1980s, cancel, cassette, clod, forget, health, landline, meeting, miss, mobile, phone, primitive, shrub, Smeaton, soil, tape, telephone, venue, voicemail, worry | Leave a comment

George Clooney and a Sisters of Mercy lookalike above the snow line (Rousse)

Posted on February 20, 2018 by Dreamaticus

We were going camping with our French friends above the snow line in the north west of Scotland. Access to the site was via Forestry Commission trails, first on the dirt track along the shoreline of the loch, then up … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1980s, BBC, camp, camper, camping, case, corner, crew, crowd, delivery, dining, engineer, Forestry Commission, French, friend, George Clooney, glamorous, glasses, groceries, house, jeep, loch, marital, Mati, merry, mountainside, mud, party, shop, shoreline, sister, Sisters of Mercy, snow, status, summit, TPR, track, treat, wander, warm, widow | Leave a comment

Bicycle thief Mr Almond’s attack (Rousse)

Posted on November 18, 2017 by Dreamaticus

Every time that we returned to our house there was further evidence of attempted break-ins. We knew that it was only a matter of time before we would come home to a crime scene. The day finally arrived when we … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1980s, accomplice, Almond, attack, attempt, attic, avenge, £50, baby, bicycle, bike, black, break-in, broken, burglar, crime, dark, door, dress, fat, fear, front, glass, green, hat, house, insult, man, middle-aged, notes, roof, scene, smash, spotty, thief, wad, wedding, window, woman | Leave a comment

Wooing by old rowing boat (Rousse)

Posted on September 16, 2017 by Dreamaticus

I remembered IK best from hogmanay parties in the late 1980s. It came as something of a surprise when he popped up in my life again, super-keen to win me over as his next romantic conquest by showing off his … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1980s, battered, boat, conquest, hogmanay, old, party, romantic, row, rowing, TPR, woo | Leave a comment

Bid to honour Hartburn home (Rousse)

Posted on August 21, 2017 by Dreamaticus

There was a move to honour the White House (Hartburn, Stockton-on-Tees) as a national monument on account of the parties held there in the 1970s and 1980s. I doubted that it merited such attention: it was not as if my … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1970s, 1980s, art, dining, Hartburn, home, honour, Louis XVI, mess, monument, movement, national, party, room, sofa, Stockton-on-Tees, wallpaper, White House, will | Leave a comment

The velvet-clad cyclist choir (Rousse)

Posted on May 31, 2017 by Dreamaticus

JS and her cycling friends founded a choir. Their uniform comprised navy blue velvet dresses adorned with huge 1980s bows. Worse, however, was the ‘music’. None of choir members could sing.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1980s, blue, bow, choir, cyclist, dress, music, navy, sing, uniform, velvet | Leave a comment

A 1980s GTi love match (Rousse)

Posted on May 14, 2017 by Dreamaticus

AH confessed that he almost proposed to me in the late 1980s. This was with the encouragement of my mother, keen to recruit him as a son-in-law. This was nothing to do with love for me. Rather, AH and my … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1980s, 205, black, car, Golf, GTi, love, match, mother, Peugeot, propose, silver, son-in-law | Leave a comment

Windfall for Scottish bed and breakfast owners (Rousse)

Posted on January 7, 2017 by Dreamaticus

Under a Scottish Enterprise scheme established in the 1980s, on retirement bed and breakfast proprietors across Scotland could sell their businesses back to the Scottish Government for huge sums of money. Our friends on the Isle of Lewis were very … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1980s, bed, breakfast, business, friend, government, Isle of Lewis, money, opportunity, owner, retirement, scheme, Scotland, Scottish, Scottish Enterprise, sell, sum, windfall | Leave a comment

Hairy-legged daughter of schizophrenic dances in the tropics to hits from the 1980s (Rousse)

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Dreamaticus

I managed to reach my father by phone from overseas. He chatted happily about his schizophrenia as if I had always known about his condition. In fact, this was all news to me. Then I joined TPR at the bar … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1980s, assist, band, bar, Boarding, chat, colour, countryside, dance, daughter, famous, father, floor, hairy, hits, holiday, journey, leg, local, overseas, pass, phone, print, return, schizophrenic, skin, song, staff, student, tone, TPR, tropics | Leave a comment

Funny faces in the Stockton Arms (Rousse)

Posted on July 14, 2016 by Dreamaticus

The Stockton Arms had undergone a dramatic change since I was last a regular sixth former visitor in the early 1980s. The biggest difference was that children were now welcome. All those sitting near to me were very well behaved, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1980s, children, face, father, funny, Hartburn, likeness, notebook, notes, photos, pint, sister-n-law, sixth form, sixth former, Stockton, Stockton Arms, table, visitor, welcome, White House | Leave a comment