Tag Archives: house

(More) conference confusion (Rousse)

My sister S drove the rickety old grey Land Rover. Her passengers were my other sister, her husband, their daughter, and their daughter’s partner. They carried hardly any luggage having ‘gone minimal’ after their recent house clearance experiences. This meant … Continue reading

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House clearance discoveries (Rousse)

It was a miracle. My sister had cleared the floor of her bedroom of all her junk! The carpet was finally visible and all the furniture could now be seen. Added to this, my sister had discovered that behind her … Continue reading

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Grand designs in south west Birmingham (Rousse)

The suburb of Northfield in Birmingham had smartened up considerably since the late 1980s. The tumbledown garages behind our old street had been demolished and replaced with a row of neat new houses. Our old house had been vastly extended at … Continue reading

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An inconvenient house in the Highlands, with stunning medieval hall (Rousse)

Why did we ever buy this inconvenient house in the Highlands? The only advantage of living here was that you could leave your front door unlocked without any risk of burglary. The layout of the building was ridiculous. You walked … Continue reading

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Sara the stranger (Rousse)

The extra member of our book group was DM’s new mentee: a large woman called Sara. From now onwards, she would meet DM three hours before the start of our meetings, then join the rest of us for the dinner … Continue reading

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Shabby Sheffield living (Rousse)

TPR still lived part-time in a shabby Sheffield terraced house. He bought it as a temporary measure several years ago when he moved to the city to join a new firm (which made him redundant within a year). How anyone … Continue reading

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Thursday Next movie adaptation in trouble (Rousse)

There were two RJHs in the lift: one, a miniature, was a little shorter than me; the other a six-footer (at least). Both were built to scale of their normal counterpart. The fourth person in the lift was a stranger. … Continue reading

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Hospitality industry staffing shortages (Rousse)

I overheard TPR intimating that we would be more than willing to look after our landlady’s guest house on the Saturday of our week’s stay. Then he gave this stranger a detailed analysis of our financial standing. It appeared that … Continue reading

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New miniature railway attraction in formal French garden at Uig Sands (Rousse)

The proprietor of the bed and breakfast was just as surprised as we were to find a formal French garden, complete with a miniature railway, laid out between his guest house and the vast beach of Uig Sands.

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Greedy goldfish and slapdash workmen ruin house and garden (Rousse)

The house and garden were a complete mess: the house because workmen had damaged the newly wall-papered corridor at the back of the flat; the garden because two enormous, greedy goldfish had taken charge the pond, recently flooded to cover … Continue reading

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