Tag Archives: childhood

House clearance woes (Rousse)

Posted on July 28, 2024 by Dreamaticus

We truly believed that our days of house clearance were over. So we were all shocked when my brother-in-law and I unearthed yet more (mainly) junk hidden in an alcove of my childhood home. My brother-in-law took a fancy to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged alcove, auctioneer, brother-in-law, childhood, clearance, desk, home, house, Japanese, walnut, watercolour | Leave a comment

Top meeting venue (Rousse)

Posted on December 17, 2023 by Dreamaticus

I thought that my childhood home had been abandoned, but now I found that various committees considered it a top venue for their gatherings. A woman asked me directions to the room for her next meeting. I ignored her. All … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged abandon, bedroom, best, childhood, committee, home, meeting, room, top, venue, woman | Leave a comment

Mystery childhood relic unearthed in Glasgow (Rousse)

Posted on April 4, 2019 by Dreamaticus

SC and I ‘picked up’ the Glasgow University academic just outside Queen Street station. Rather than catch our train back to Edinburgh, we followed him across town to his office, intrigued by an invitation to consult his exercise book. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1970s, academic, address, book, childhood, exercise, Glasgow, mystery, Queen Street, relic, station, university | Leave a comment

Incidental divorce lawyer advice (Rousse)

Posted on June 10, 2018 by Dreamaticus

My parents, sisters and I travelled in our pyjamas to Dryburgh Abbey for my father’s last hurrah. On the way back home we stopped off in Corbridge. Here we called in on my grandmother’s house (which had not been knocked … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1980s, abbey, advice, bedroom, bedspread, brown, chest of drawers, childhood, Corbridge, divorce, door, dressing table, dryburgh, father, friend, furniture, grandmother, grandparent, incidental, lawyer, lock, media, old people's home, Orange, parent, Redmires, sister, The fighting temeraire, Turner, wardrobe | Leave a comment

Party food from LIDL and footwear for the poor (Rousse)

Posted on February 23, 2018 by Dreamaticus

I had heard much about the fabulous parties that were hosted by the residents of Trinity (Edinburgh), and at last was invited to one! I turned up early at S and AC’s house to find them laying out the last … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged acquatic, Amazon, childhood, dining, disappointment, Edinburgh, equipment, food, footwear, house, invite, jelly, kitchen, LIDL, Loch Lomond, party, plastic, poor, room, shoes, table, Trinity, water sports, watersports | Leave a comment

Back to the old house for BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions? (Rousse)

Posted on February 15, 2018 by Dreamaticus

The venue for this week’s BBC Radio 4 Any questions was Stockton-on-Tees or – more precisely – the childhood bedroom that I shared with my sisters at the White House, Hartburn. The room had been cleared of bedroom furniture to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Any Questions, armchair, audience, BBC, bed, bedroom, bird, broadcast, childhood, cream, dolly, fireplace, furniture, Hartburn, house, lady, marble, mother, old, Radio 4, red, seating, sister, Stockton, Stockton-on-Tees, velvet, vinyl, wallpaper, White House | Leave a comment

Chinese burns in Cincinnati (Rousse)

Posted on March 25, 2017 by Dreamaticus

We were going to join FR in the US. The idea was to first fly to her town in the north. then we would travel south with her to Cincinnati. We checked our bikes in as hold luggage in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged America, arm, behavior, behaviour, bicycle, bike, burn, child, childhood, Chinese, confront, cruel, cycle, fly, hold, luggage, minder, monster, north, protect, regress, TPR, uncle, US, USA | Leave a comment

An essential old fashioned grey bread tin (Rousse)

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Dreamaticus

TPR and I really struggled with the eleven bags and cases that we had packed to take on holiday. I did not understand, however, why we needed to take a plastic chopping board, or the old fashioned grey tin bread … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bag, board, bread, case, childhood, chop, chopping, essential, grey, holiday, home, old-fashioned, plastic, struggle, tin, TPR | Leave a comment

Unemployed Sunderland couple give daughter away (Rousse)

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Dreamaticus

Who was this small dark-haired, short-legged child with a Scottish accent living with the mother of my childhood friend ECM? She couldn’t possibly be ECM’s little sister: her mother had been widowed for years. A neighbour (and known fantasist) suggested … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged accent, bath, brother, care, childhood, colleague, couple, dark, daughter, fantasist, father, friend, leg. child, little, long-term, mother, neighbour, nonsense, polytechnic, redundancy, Scottish, sister, small, Sunderland, Sunderland Polytechnic, unemployed, widow | Leave a comment

Sister spies (Rousse)

Posted on February 14, 2016 by Dreamaticus

My sister decided to get a job. First, however, she’d need some experience for her CV. How would I feel if she volunteered as my assistant over the summer? I agreed to take her on – so long as I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged assistant, backwards, bedroom, campus, car, childhood, confuse, CV, danger, experience, folk, home, job, old, park, residence, reverse, sister, space, spies, spy, summer, traffic, traicky, travel, window, work | Leave a comment