Tag Archives: visitor

A bonus bungalow (Rousse)

Posted on August 26, 2025 by Dreamaticus

TPR and I thought that we had bought just one house in the country. Then the estate agent pointed out that the dormer bungalow along the lane was also ours. This would be a great bonus for our guests. If … Continue reading →

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Axe-wielding climate change protesters damage personal property (Rousse)

Posted on July 2, 2025 by Dreamaticus

I ran back to the train carriage just in time to collect my forgotten belongings. A few seconds later, and the cleaners would have scooped up everything for disposal. Out of the station and onto the Edinburgh streets, I ran … Continue reading →

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Care home pros and cons (Rousse)

Posted on March 29, 2025 by Dreamaticus

The care home had its attractions. My favourite activity – for residents and visitors alike – was to leap with the others into a field of soft, waist-high, broad-bladed grass. However, the broken blue and white crockery in the galley … Continue reading →

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Parking scam at the University of Edinburgh (Rousse)

Posted on June 16, 2024 by Dreamaticus

Bold as brass, TPR pulled into a ‘visitors only’ parking space outside Edinburgh University’s Informatics building. A parking warden immediately scurried over to us to ask about the nature of our visit. TPR guessed at the name of a host … Continue reading →

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Newly-invested monks launch into Edinburgh (Rousse)

Posted on October 9, 2020 by Dreamaticus

I needed to get home quickly to welcome our unexpected American visitors. This was a couple that we knew from the dot.com boom days of the late 1990s: we had met them on an incentive holiday in the US. My … Continue reading →

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Unexpected visitors and missing friends (Rousse)

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Dreamaticus

QL rang me in a panic. ‘Lucy thinks that the reunion is still on. She didn’t receive the lockdown cancellation email. She’ll arrive in Edinburgh tomorrow.’ I ignored the message – indeed forgot about it – until the following afternoon … Continue reading →

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Terrorist YouTube treat on campus (Rousse)

Posted on May 29, 2019 by Dreamaticus

Following the previous year’s success, I invited my colleagues at Scottish Enterprise back on campus for a week. This time, however, they treated their visit as a jolly, crowding around my computer singing along to karaoke videos on YouTube. As … Continue reading →

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Food shortages in the Outer Hebrides (Rousse)

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Dreamaticus

It was well-known that this was the last season that the bed and breakfast on the Isle of Lewis would be welcoming guests, and for this reason it was mobbed. Most visitors were returning guests, keen to relive the fun … Continue reading →

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A cave holiday with a two-husband trip to Edinburgh Zoo (Rousse)

Posted on December 5, 2018 by Dreamaticus

TPR booked an unheated cave for our summer holiday in the far north of Scotland. Although compact, its floor-space was still greater than our first house in Birmingham. Red curtains at the ‘door way’ mouth provided adequate privacy. When my … Continue reading →

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An Australian body search for Earl Grey tea (Rousse)

Posted on October 12, 2018 by Dreamaticus

‘I don’t even smoke! What would be the point?’ I screamed at the man who accused me of stealing a pack of cigarettes. He was actually referring to the two Earl Grey teabags on the reception desk. Had I taken … Continue reading →

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