Tag Archives: house

The perfect Scottish coastal retreat (Rousse)

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Dreamaticus

J and J moved from Benderloch to the far north of Scotland. They had such fabulous open views of the sea from their new house that it was now my ambition to live there too.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Benderloch, coast, house, move, retreat, Scotland, sea | Leave a comment

When roux sauce goes wrong (Rousse)

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Dreamaticus

I knew that he should have kept his mouth shout. Instead, he opened up the invitation to dinner at his house to everyone at the meeting. “My wife won’t mind”, he boasted. Indeed she did mind – very much. She … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Aga, boast, butter, cake, carrot, cheese, circular, dinner, eight, grate, house, informal, invitation, layer, meeting, mouth, posh, roux, sauce, supper, table, twelve, volunteer, wife, wrong | Leave a comment

Police incompetence in Berwick-upon-Tweed (Rousse)

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Dreamaticus

At long last we had come to a compromise and I would soon be the proud owner of a house with a sea view in Berwick-upon-Tweed. I popped into town to check the facilities. “Perhaps Berwick isn’t the place for … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged assailant, attack, Berwick, Berwick-upon-Tweed, blame, house, police, professor, public, sea view, tall, toilet | Leave a comment

Floods, Scotland’s obesity problem, and the Great British Bake Off (Rousse)

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Dreamaticus

PR was at a loss as to what to do with the flooded garage attached to his house. “Apply for a grant to turn it into a swimming pool, open it to the public, and solve Scotland’s obesity problem”, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged flood, floods, garage, grant, Great British Bake Off, house, indoors, obesity, option, pool, problem, public, Scotland, swim, swimming | Leave a comment

A call for a highlands home (Rousse)

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Dreamaticus

Normally JG would be the last one to pack up the island house at the end of the season, but this year it was me. “You’ll need to have your cases ready by 13:00”, he instructed. I reached over to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged black, blue, call, cases, catcher, catchers, CD, highlands, home, house, island, luggage, music, Oban, oyster, pack, packing, pain, player, red, spin, summer, white, window | Leave a comment

Birmingham’s Grand Canyon (Rousse)

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Dreamaticus

We now lived almost permanently in a tiny house on a rough estate in Birmingham. Even so, we welcomed many visitors, the majority of whom were young men taking breaks along the route of their very long journeys south. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ablutions, bath, beauty, Birmingham, bowl, canyon, dirty, door, estate, geological, geology, girl, girls, Grand Canyon, house, journey, lavatory, men, natural, outstanding, photographs, photos, porcelain, rough, route, significance, south, steps, teenager, teenagers, toilet, visitor, visitors, wash, white | Leave a comment

CPD trainer at Edinburgh University struggles with workload, Apple iOS7, and an unwelcome photograph (Rousse)

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Dreamaticus

SR came out of retirement solely to summon JB and me to a meeting. He passed on a message that our colleagues thought that we were slackers. It was high time that the pair of us made a serious effort … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Apple iOS7, assessment, assistant, bathroom, betray, calendar, colleagues, collection, continuing professional development, courses, CPD, driving, e-mail, e-mails, Edinburgh University, effort, event, fish, headshot, house, Inspace, interface, iPhone, lead, location, marketing, meeting, operating system, pair, phone, photograph, Pleasance, promise, rascals, retirement, school, shop, sister, slackers, struggle, summon, telephone, train, training, trust, University of Edinburgh, university-wide, unwelcome, venue, walk, workload | Leave a comment

A weight-busting walk to Tom Robinson’s Stokesley (Rousse)

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Dreamaticus

The only way to lose weight was to take more exercise. My new regime was ambitious: to walk the mountain route from the south of Scotland to North Yorkshire on a regular basis. I wasn’t the only one with this … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1970s, aunt, boys, bungalow, design, destination, Edinburgh Academy, exercise, follow, foot, garden, girls, hideous, hills, hostess, house, lose, modern, mountain, North Yorkshire, path, regime, route, school, Scotland, sleepover, soak, staircase, staircases, Stokesley, stone, teenage, teenager, teenagers, Tom Robinson, village, walk, weight, West Green | Leave a comment

Sharon the fine art vandal and a welcome Christmas gift (Rousse)

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Dreamaticus

As she moved the pictures around our flat, the woman with long dark hair complained to me that she hated her name. I suggested that if she really wanted to do so, she could change it from Sharon to something … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged antibiotics, art, canvas, canvases, Christmas, compensation, dark, drawing, drugs, fine art, fir, flat, frame, frames, gift, hair, hate, headache, house, model, name, picture, pictures, pin, pins, present, red, Sharon, soap bag, tablets, tree, valueless, vandal, wood | Leave a comment

Woman in a pink nightdress “haunts” modern Georgian house (Rousse)

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Dreamaticus

At first I thought that this “modern Georgian house” was pretty dull. Of course the drab paintwork and the tall presses on the ground floor were in keeping with the Georgian ideal, but you could find this kind of decoration … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ballroom, books, conservatory, decoration, drab, Edinburgh, estate, Georgian, house, housing, landing, modern, nightdress, nightie, paintwork, palm, pink, press, RBGE, Reader's Digest, Royal Botanic Garden, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, The cookery year, woman | Leave a comment