Trapped inside

I told a couple of friends this dream and they looked at me like I was mad. They might be right.

I was round at my sister in law's mum's house, with her and my niece and we were getting ready to leave and go to town. I got to the front door, then realised that my knee high, lace up boots had come undone.
I went back to the living room, did them back up, then walked back to the front door. Only to see that they had come undone again.
Sighing, I went back, laced them back up and walked to the front door again.
Then, I saw that the tongue on the right boot had had come loose and was flapping around. So once again, I went back to the living room, sat down and tucked it back in. Double checking that everything was right, I went to the door again.
This time, the tongue on the right boot had grown so it was sitting right under my tummy and was rock hard so I couldn't move properly.
Massively frustrated, I went back to the living room to try and sort it out. But when I got there, everything was normal.

I went back to the front door, only to find myself back in the living room, completely naked.
I started panicking, desperately trying to find my clothes before anyone came in. I was on my knees, frantically searching for my underwear when I woke up.

Diagnosis dinner

There's not much to this particular dream but it was so odd that it had to be on here.

Here goes: Me and my stepmum were having cookery lessons from Dick Van Dyke, in his Diagnosis Murder persona.

That's it. Told you it was odd

A visit to Albuquerque

Albuquerque is somewhere I have always wanted to visit. Ever since I was a teenager and I read Lois Duncan's 'The Eyes of Karen Connors', I wanted to go and see the city that she written about.

As an adult, I became facebook friends with a few people who live there. Their descriptions and pictures only increased my desire to visit. And last night I did! In a dream anyway

I flew in to visit my friends S & C, very excited to finally be in the place I had wanted to visit for so long. The weather was perfect; all blue skies and sunshine, and we decided to go out and visit the town.

Leaving the house, we walked a little way, then to my surprise, we came to a river and S said we would boat it in from there. Turned out the town was like Venice, with rivers all through it, no streets at all!. I was more than a little surprised as I had not read anything about this; nowhere in all my readings or any pictures had there been rivers or any mention that the town could only be navigated by boat.

Nonetheless, I climbed aboard a strange boat that was an odd mix of sailboat and canoe, and we set off. It was a nice journey - the river was wide and smooth, the scenery was gorgeous and I chatted away with S & C and their two kids.

After a while, we decided to go to a restaurant for some dessert. We pulled up alongside one, moored up and climbed up on to the dock. I don't remember the name of the restaurant, just that it seemed quite posh. The desserts were lined up in tubs inside a cabinet, the way icecream is at the cinema. It was very warm out and I quite fancied some icecream to cool off a little.

The desserts all looked a bit strange, kind of spongy and odd combinations of colours - there was one that looked like chocolate pudding but with ketchup - and there were no names to show what any of them were. This didn't seem to bother anyone else; they picked up a bowl, then used a huge scoop that actually looked more like the pyrex jug I use for gravy, scooped up what they wanted and went to sit down.

I am quite fussy over flavours, so I asked the girl behind the counter what each of them were. The brown spongy one was indeed chocolate pudding with ketchup. I was quite revolted over this but no-one else seemed to share this. I asked about another that looked like it might be some sort of mixed fruit, only to be told that it was [something I can't remember] with grey pheasant. Now I was really revolted.

I couldn't understand how anyone could eat such gross things, and I was reflecting with confusion that so far, Albuquerque was nothing like I had seen or read about, and wondering how that could be, when I woke up.

An interesting dream to say the least!

Runaway Bride

I dreatm that I announced to my family that I wanted to get married. The next thing I knew, it was my wedding day and I was marrying a girl named Trish that I went to primary school with. It was in a church, which I didn't like, there were 5 bridesmaids, none of whom I knew and they were wearing pink dresses, carrying little wicker baskets with pink flowers. There was a row of musicians holding trombones, which I also didn't want and to top it off, I didn't even have an engagement ring.

As soon as I noticed this, my cousin called me over to see Trish, who then gave me a rather ugly gold ring which had lost its stone. She said she would replace it soon, with a pink diamond, to which I rebelliously told her I wanted a red garnet. Then I left, saying I needed to go to the bathroom.

So there I am, in the bathroom, suddenly realising I'm wearing this poofy white dress with massive veil. I started to panic and realised that I didn't want any of this, that I should have been allowed to plan my own wedding and have the colours and dresses I wanted, not what someone else wanted. And I didn't want to marry Trish!

At that point, a bit of reality inserted itself. I knew that I hadn't wanted to get married the first time (which is true), that I should have cancelled it, even though it was the last minute (also true) and that when I had confessed this to my parents many years after the divorce, telling them that I hadn't had the guts because of all the money they had spent, they had said that wouldn't have mattered (not entirely sure if this is true, but I think it might be).

Remembering this, I decided that surely they would understand this time if I called it all of. Then I looked at my watch, saw it was 11.30 and realised I didn't have time to ring and call it off. So I decided to just make a run for it.

I was just trying to work out how I could escape without anyone seeing me, and thinking that it was very like the scene in Smokey and the Bandit when Sally Field escapes in her wedding dress, when I woke up.

Took me a minute to realise that I wasn't getting married with a bunch of pink bridesmaids, and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Holiday blues

THis dream is possibly one of the weirdest I've had - and that's saying something! Started with me and my friend N at an unnamed London airport, waiting to catch a flight to Istanbul. I was very panicky, because I didn't know where anything was, I kept thinking that I had lost my tickets, was trying to find somewhere to have a smoke and the loos had weird symbols on them that I couldn't understand so I walked into the men's by mistake. Then, to make things worse, the flight was delayed. First by 20 minutes, then it kept creeping up until it was an hour. But it was hard trying to find out what was going on and I was terrified I might miss the flight. Then, for some reason, I decided to check on what B was up to. As is possible in dreamland, I suddenly appeared where he was - in a small boat in shark infested waters somewhere in the Indian Ocean. This had me even more panicky, especially when someone told me that part of the fun was that they were going into the water to ride on a whale, called a 'ridge'. I went mental and told him that there was no way I was going to allow him to ride a whale, nor to go into the sea that was full of sharks. Then I thought that the boat was far too small and flimsy to withstand a shark attack and demanded to see the skipper. He was a young kid, no older than B and I thought there was no possible way he could be qualified for this. So I demanded to see his qualifications, at which point he produced a small bit of paper, like a till receipt, covered in a foreign language that I couldn't understand. I was yelling that there was no way this was real and did not prove that he was qualified, all the time worried that sharks would attack, that B would die or be maimed and that I would miss my flight to Istanbul. Even though I had decided I didn't really want to go anyway. Next thing, I was back in the airport. The plane had arrived and people were being ushered onto it, while airport staff were walking around offering refunds to people who didn't want to go on it now because it was so late. I was frantically trying to find someone because I wanted a refund and to get back to get B out that boat, but the man I eventually managed to find told me I wasn't eligible for a refund. I was so anxious by then, I was practically in tears but I kept being pushed onto the plane. N was saying how much she was looking forward to seeing Istanbul, completely unaware of anything else happening. I was panicking and screaming that I didn't want to get on the plane, I just wanted to leave, when I woke up. Took me a good half an hour to stop feeling anxious!

Breaking Dawn: A Prophecy

Yes you read that right. Breaking Dawn is a prophecy. Or at least it was in this particular dream of mine. I was living in West Bay, hanging on the green by the pub one ordinary afternoon. Then I was kidnapped by extreme Twi hards. They thought that Breaking Dawn was a prophecy and it was their duty to see that it came true. In it, there was another wedding, between Charlie Swan (father of the wet and extremely irritating 'heroine' of the Twilight series), and a woman whose identity I did not know. These Twihards had decided that I was that woman and therefore it was my destiny to marry Charlie Swan. Or rather, the man they had decided was the living embodiment of Charlie Swan. Utterly bewildered and wondering what the hell was going on, I tried to reason with my kidnappers - all women - and tell them that the book wasn't prophecy and why on earth would they think I would marry some man I didn't know just because they thought I should. I remember one woman looking at me with that fervent zeal in her eyes. You know the one, it's the same one that extremely religious people get when they're trying to convert you. Or the one that the student midwife gave me when she was telling me how fascinating it was being in the room when I gave birth. Anyway, my reasoning didn't work, she just gave me that look and exclaimed in a breathy voice about how this was an honour for me and how happy I was going to be. That did it for me; I jumped up, lost my temper and yelled that there was no way I was going to marry this man and that they were all a bunch of whackjobs. Then I stormed out. Clearly they hadn't thought that this would happen as the doors weren't locked so I just wrenched them open and walked out. Back down the Bay on the green, I was telling my friends what has happened, when all the Twihards walked past me, wearing an expression of rueful sadness mixed with bewilderment, like they couldn't believe what I had done. I turned to them and shouted that Breaking Dawn wasn't real. The one I had spoken to before looked at me and said ' I know it isn't real' in a voice that people use when they're giving a really lame comeback. Then she tossed her head with a sniff and told me I needed to get a job. I looked at her with bemusement, shook my head and turned back to my friends. Then woke up, wondering what on earth my brain was on.

The Vanishing Tattoo

I took the plunge yesterday and splurged on a new tattoo. It's a beautiful pentagram on my right wrist and I absolutely love it. Did not love the price of it though. I forgot to get them to quote me before they started doing it and only when I went to pay did I discover that it was £40. £40!. And I could have got it for £25 up at a different studio.
This must have seeped into my subconcious and come out in my dream last night.

I dreamt that I woke up and found that the ink had come off in scabs during the night. The only thing left was a faint purple dye that was only a tiny part of the original design. I was absolutely furious, so I stomped off down to the studio to see if I could get it redone. But apparently my skin rejected the ink, so anything else they put on would just slide off again.
So they gave me a cheque for £57 to cover the refund and apologies. Which I was quite happy with, I admit. Still muttering, I stomped off down to the bank to put the cheque, all the while thinking 'I knew I should have gone to Black Pearl!'

And the lesson is: always get a quote before you get tattooed.

I want this bonnet!

I just started getting into hatmaking and whilst watching - for the millionth time - the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, I decided I want one of Lizzy Bennet's hats. The one on this link in fact.

Jane Austen Today: Jane Austen Movie Fashion Throwdown: Bonnets

I've printed out a picture and I'm going to show it to my millinery course teacher and see if I can make it!

Falling in love

Last week, I fell in love. Completely, utterly, head over heels in love. Who is the lucky man you ask? Well actually, it's not a man. It's a painting. Yup, you read that right, I fell in love with a painting.

I was in Bridport for the weekend and I paid a visit to the Pierrepoint Gallery in South Street.
I oohed and ahhed a lot over the paintings as I went round and then, I saw it. The most amazing, fantastic, inspiring, powerful piece of art I have ever seen.
It depicts a sunset over a rough sea but not the vaguely inspid, sweetly sentimental ones you usually see in photographs. No, this painting showed Mother Nature at her most powerful. I felt like I was watching her exerting her dominance, or, in more West Country terms, giving it some welly.

I stared at it for a while, sighed, then went off to have a look at the rest of the gallery. But I couldn't stay away, I had to go back and have a look. Unlike the rest of the artwork, it didn't have a plaque with the name of the artist and price, in fact.it wasn't even mounted. Instead it was resting on an easel, as if it hadn't found a home yet.
My friend D said I should get it but I scoffed and said there was no way I'd ever be able to afford it as it was bound to be over a grand.
The gallery owner noticed my interest and came over to chat. He informed me that the painting was just £695, information which made my heart leap. I'm not sure why, as that is about as out of my range as £1k would be but somehow, it didn't seem so. What's more, it had only just been finished. It seemed like fate.
Then he passed me over to his colleague who turned out to be the artist himself. (Simon Read, in case you were wondering, you can see more of his work here)

Unlike other sellers, these two lovely men didn't try to pressure me into buying, though they did inform me about a scheme called OwnArt which is designed to help people to afford to buy art. That way I could make ten monthly payments and have my very own genuine oil painting.
I ummed a lot and that's when he said he would reserve it for me, ready for me to make up my mind. No pressure, no obligation, just there so if I do decide to buy, it won't be too late. What a difference from being talked into buying something so you don't miss out!

So there you have it. My love affair with a painting. Will I decide to splurge on what could be the love of my life? Watch this space.

Don't you think it's strange...

That we live in a world where a man is paid more to kick a ball around a field for 90 minutes than one who holds a life in his hands everyday?

That a woman can earn more to walk down a length of wood than one who shapes the minds, the ideas, the futures, of our children?

That someone who spends their life pretending to be someone else is more valued than one who spends theirs entering burning buildings?

That in an era where people can earn billions, there are still people who are forced to choose between eating and being warm?

That in a world where people can own as many homes as they want, there are still people living on the streets?

That in a country that used to pride itself on its compassion, its people are abusing their vulnerable neighbours?

This is what I was thinking about while trying to sleep last night

A change

I have decided to make a change. This blog will now be a general one, not just for my dreams. Important huh?
Well no, but I'm doing it anyway. Hope you enjoy my ramblings as much as my dreams!

Painting and Portland

It has been a while since I'm remembered enough of a dream to write it down but this one is stuck in my head now.

I've been on a decorating binge recently and this has showed up in my dream. Here goes:

I was painting a wall in my room, which for some reason was in my dads house, and I ran out of paint. I hadn't noticed the name of the paint just that it was from Dulux, was chocolate brown and I could remember where it was in the colour booklet.
I sent my brother down to Homebase to buy some more but he came back with the wrong colour. I went off on one about this, yelling about how it was the wrong colour, how I wouldn't be able to finish painting now and the room wouldn't be how I wanted it.

I then went off to do something else and when I came back they had painted the wall and were looking very pleased with themselves. Except it was the wrong paint. It was all glossy like silk and the rest of the wall was matt and they had also used it to paint the wood work. They thought they'd done something good and couldn't see the difference in the two paints.

I left in disgust and went down to Homebase myself to buy the paint. Only when I got there I couldn't find it. I looked through the colour catalogue knowing I'd recognise the name when i saw it but nothing was the same colour. There were no paints that were dark enough. I was going through everything with extreme frustration, knowing damn well that I'd bought the shade I wanted just a few days before. I couldn't even find it on the little cards for mixing colours up.

I went off to the counter and found that the bloke working there was someone I'd known back in Brid, R. He was a little condescending, as if he were the same person and treated me as if I were exactly the same too. I wasn't having this so I went off to find something that was the colour I wanted so I could show it to him.
I rummaged through all sorts of things, the bed linens, the sale bins untill eventually I found a duvet cover that was the exact colour I wanted.

I took it back to show him and he sighed in a snooty manner and said 'why didn't you say so?' then took me round the side to where some sale stuff was.
He pointed out these brown containers and said they were what I wanted and I should have looked harder. I retorted back that I wouldn't have looked at these because they looked like brown gardening baskets. Which they did.

I bought then anyway and set out to drive home. Somehow I had acquired a couple of passengers, my friends C and S.
I soon realised that we weren't driving home, we were driving through Portland, Oregon. I was in no way perturbed by this and being dreamland, I didn't question how I'd managed to get across the Atlantic Ocean the whole of the the United States to arrive in the Pacific North West. Instead I excited decided that since we were there we should go and pay a visit to my friend L.

Despite only have ever been there once several months ago, I remembered the way to her house and even which turning her road was from the main entrance. But we ended up going to far (somehow) and instead of turning around we decided to carry on and just turn off at the end and come in the back way.
C had left us by this point so it was just me and S. The road seemed unending but eventually we turned off and drove up another road that apparently was way off where we wanted to go. But then a bloke appeared who told us there was a multi storey car park just up the road and it would take us where we wanted to go.

We drove in and parked the car. I took the paint out and wondered how I was going to carry it up to the house (why I had to take it I don't know) and then saw that there was a handy mini lift, like a dumb waiter system. You opened a door, put your stuff inside and then pressed the button you wanted it to go to.

Having done this S and I stepped onto what was half escalator, half stairs. You took a few steps, then it would become escalator, then another few steps, and so on. It was very difficult not to fall over.

But we made it eventually and then ran up the road to L's house, just behind C. As I went up, L had come running out and was excitedly hugging C and saying how nice it was to see her,which I thought was odd since they had never even heard of each other before.

We went on into the house and then realised that L and her hubby had only just arrived home that morning from holiday so they were tired and there were bags all over the place. And they had another visitor - some strange old man who seemed very interested in the fact that we were young women.

I was just apologising for dropping in without notice when the postman rang the doorbell and woke me up.

Very interesting dream!

A political nightmare

It's not very often I have nightmares. I have bad dreams but not usually no horrible that I'd call them nightmares. Last night's dream was definitely worse than a bad dream. Horrifying in every sense of the word.

I dreamed I was having an affair with Ed Miliband. And was then discovered by Sarah Palin. She grinned with glee at having the power to ruin someone's life while I was desperate to do anything to stop her from revealing what she knew.

Having ones life in the hands of Sarah Palin? Definitely a nightmare

A quick wedding

My friend J was getting married for the second time. She was very laidback about it while everyone else was panicking about getting things ready.
The night before the wedding, I ran into her in a shop where she was trying on this hideous poofy, turquoise and red dress. I was aghast that that a) she hadn't bought her wedding dress the night before the wedding and b) that she would think of buying such a hideous dress.

I marched her up to the nearest bridal shop, thanking our lucky stars that there are so many of them here. On arrival however it seemed that there was only one rack of dresses and they were all a bit grubby. So we left and hurried on to the next one.
Here we had slightly more luck. It seemed that there were hardly any dresses that were decent left but she managed to find a couple that she liked and then took ages to decide which one she wanted.
She finally decided on a brocade, two piece corset and skirt outfit that I had secretly been hoping she would choose.

Somehow it was then time for the wedding - it seemed shopping had taken all night.

People were milling around outside and people were wondering what to do with J's youngest son so I took him with me (even though I'd never met him before so he didn't know me from Adam) and slipped into a pew in the back.
Looking around, I saw my brothers there and to my surprise, J's ex brother in law. He had the eldest with him.

J came in and walked up the aisle, the vicar started all the marriage bit. Then my brother whispered to me that he thought it a bit odd that J was getting married again. I whispered back that it was a bit odd, they'd only been together five minutes, and she hadn't been split up from her husband all that long. then felt like a bad friend.
Then started wondering how she had managed to get divorced so quickly and realised she hadn't.
That's when I realised it was a dream and woke up.

To go or not to go?

I was in Bridport, staying with my family, and realised it was time to take my tablet. I scrabbled around in my bag, moving all the junk out of the way, which seemed to multiply the longer I looked. I finally realised that I must have left them at home.
This was a major disaster as I'm on a drug trial (in real life, not just the dream) and the tablet has to be taken at the same time everyday.

With a sight I knew that I would have to go home and get them. This was not a pleasant thought as home was 2 hours away to get there and then 2 hours to get back.
But it had to be done.

So I climbed into the bus after successfully trying to persuade B to come back with me.

Halfway home I started wrestling with myself; if I was going all the way back home just to get my pills, wouldn't it be easier to just stay there and not go back to Brid? But then I'd have to tell the family that I wasn't coming back and they might be upset. But I was only staying for a couple more days and then coming home anyway.

And so the internal monologue went on. I'm so indecisive that I was still trying to make up my mind when I woke up

Baby alert

Horrifying dream last night - I had a baby. Ugh.
My dream self took it all in her stride though - total competence, not a step missed. You'd have thought I'd picked it up in the supermarket.
It was a boy by the way.

The biggest problem I had was picking a name. I didn't want anything boring but I didn't want anything too outlandish either. And I kept saying that my dad would never forgive me if I named him something odd. I like the name Lorcan but wasn't sure so I decided to ask the baby which name he liked.
I reeled off names to him while looking for a sign that he liked it. Finally, when I suggested the name 'Tam' he got very excited and waved his arms around so I knew he wanted that as his name.

I'd had my friend C with me all the time so I decided to honour him by giving the baby his name as a middle name - Tam Clive. Then decided it only worked if 'Tam' became 'Tamlyn'.
But this was too girly for me so 'Tam' stayed as and the middle name became Sebastian. Absolutely no idea why.

I was still deciding if this was the right name when I woke up. And then shuddered.

The perfect shirt

I was in a shop looking for a blue check shirt, sifting though all these nasty ones on one of those rails that spins round.
Then I found it, the perfect - and I mean perfect - shirt. Right material, right colour, right check size, everything. But as soon as I went to grab it, it moved on the rail. I kept trying to grab it and ending up with one of the nasty ones.

So I'm chasing this shirt round the rail getting really frustrated because I'd finally found the perfect one and it wouldn't let me have it.

I really need to find the perfect blue checked shirt now so I can stop dreaming about it.

I believe I can fly

Last night I dreamed I could fly. This is nothing new for me, it's a recurring theme which possibly reflects my sense of feeling trapped.

What's peculiar though is the way I do it. No graceful zipping through the air like Superman, or flapping of elegant wings like a fairy.

No, I fly by launching myself into the air and keeping myself afloat by doing the breastroke. Yep, you read that right, I use the breastroke to fly. And I have to do it really fast to gain height. Talk about ungainly.



Imagine this in mid air

Runaway wedding

In last night's dream, Bridget Regan was my mate. Wishful thinking I know.
But anyway, we were fairly new friends and as girls do, we were chatting about men. I was telling her all about the great features of some of the men I know when we cam across them, and she was on the lookout for a bit of new romance.

We were hanging out in an old building - who knows why - and I introduced her to my friend P. They clicked immediately, which was nice to start with.
After a couple of hours though I was getting annoyed because they had both deserted me and were holed up in a room talking in whispers and hiding behind sheets. Nothing dirty, just the kind of thing you do when you're a kid and you're really, really close to someone.

The next thing I know, P and Bridget are holding hands and giggling and making their way out of the house. They didn't say a word to anyone, just vanished, after changinf clothes into something a bit smarter.

I was a bit peeved at having been left out and deserted by my two friends so I turned to P's mum and dad, who just sort of magically appeared, and asked if they knew what was going on.

I don't know why I thought they would know since they hadn't spoken to either P or Bridget, but anyway, I asked.

His mum told me, completely nonchalantly, that they had run off to get married. That she could tell by the way they looked.

I was gobsmacked at this, especially since they had only met a couple of hours before but P's parents didn't seem to think it was a big deal at all!

I was even more peeved then, that they would just run off like that without telling me and was feeling a bit stroppy.

And then I woke up. Still feeling stroppy

Non family gathering

I went to what I thought was a family party and was a bit bemused to see a load of friends from Brid there. I was a little scared at the thought I might actually be related to half of Brid.
We were all camping in a field next door and they had left a tiny space right at the top for me to put my tent up.
I wasn't at all happy about this cos it was too far for me to walk and I kept falling over people's stuff so I went down to sit in the foyer (the family member's house was like a castle).
I was even more bemused when P and J from America walked in! And I know I'm not related to them.
I was a bit startled to say the least and more so when P produced a blender to make milkshakes. Only he used yogurt, whipped cream, chocolate mousse, ice cream and some kind of food colouring to make it.

Maybe I was really hungry last night...