A Cold Nose

The dog wakes me up almost every day. Which dog? Sometimes it is Judy who pads into my bedroom and bumps me with her cold nose. Sometimes it is Roy who barks insistently from a downstairs room. If it is Roy there will usually be a cat sitting on the other side of the patio doors. The time will be somewhere between 6-7:30am. I get up, make coffee and when all dogs and cats are inned, outed and inned again, I return to bed to drink coffee and read. On Saturdays, I throw on some clothes and drive to the garage to buy the Guardian.

Today I was awakened from a vivid dream, which some might even call a nightmare. I was lying on a filthy bed in a derelict house. Derelict houses regularly feature in my dreams. In this dream/nightmare, I could not move and thought I might be dead. There were at least two other nameless people lying on beds near me and they were definitely dead, rotting in fact. I decided I was still alive and got up and left the house and the dream segued into that one where one is out in public improperly dressed. It was quite a relief when I felt Judy's cold nose against my face.

Six More Sleeps

Nellybert received an unexpected Christmas gift yesterday evening and it was just as well I had my amazing, covers all eventualities, delicious chilli jam to reciprocate. Awesome on turkey sandwiches, I said. He said, how is it on beefburgers? Even more unbelievably awesome, I said.

The gift sat on the kitchen island. I'm perfectly happy to wait until Christmas Day before opening but I suspect it is biscuits. Bert says, what is it? I urge him to wait and see. He picks it up and rends a great tear in the wrapping. I pounce on it, sellotape in hand and re-wrap before he gets a chance to peek.

Did your mother allow you to open presents before Christmas?

Aye. Pearlie didn't give a fuck.

Honestly! That woman didn't have one single ounce of Christmas spirit. Apparently, they had tinned peas with their Christmas dinner. Can you imagine?

Not one thing prepared for Christmas today. I thought about the wreath. And I helped the postman. He was delivering mail on the road where I was out walking (briskly) and he asked me to put some cards in a postbox at the end of some farmer's lane. I mightn't say which road as it is, no doubt, a disciplinary matter to allow the unanointed to handle Her Majesty's mail. One other thing I did which was sort of Christmassy was get up at half-three in the morning and take Hannah to her work which she is starting particularly early because of Christmas. Home again within thirty minutes and straight back to bed. I awoke at seven from a dream where I was about to hang a raggedy, bearded man. Yesterday I was skinning my favourite cat. It's such a blessing that I am able to escape my violent and bloody nightmares.

The wrong kind of peas

Boring Post About Being Happy

Apparently accounts of happiness are rather tedious, whereas tales of misery are tremendously interesting. This makes sense. If happiness were interesting there would be no country music, no soap operas, no Game of Thrones, no murder mysteries, no Celeb Culture. Imagine a world where Kerry Katona had a trouble-free birth or Katie Price had a happy marriage. How horrific would it be that a soap opera wedding should pass without incident, or a Game of Thrones wedding pass without mass carnage and regicide? Unhappiness and misery are very newsworthy.

This is why today's post will be boring.

I started my day with an early morning dream.

Other people's dreams are so very tedious, are they not? But this is my blog and I'll be boring if I want to.

My dream was tremendously entertaining and quite surreal - as dreams often are. My younger brother and I were driving slowly down the length of the road we lived on for most of my young life. And where he still lives. It was the gloaming. Things had changed. There were new houses on the road and  many of them had the same interesting flower growing in the gardens. It was tree height, but not a tree. It was a sky-blue campanula, gigantic, with flowers bigger than a human head. And there were birds roosting in plum trees at the side of the road. At first I thought they were magpies but then saw they were jays, hundreds of them. Just as campanulas do not grow higher than houses, neither do jays flock in hundreds. We decided to visit our neighbour. She was just as she always was, always has been for more than fifty years. And this too was surreal for, in real life, our neighbour is not as she was.

I was wakened by someone calling - Mary. For this is my real name, not Nelly. I pretend to Nelly. It was part of the dream and it called me to wakefulness.

An enjoyable dream can just set up the day. There was good weather. I did necessary chores then I spent the rest of the day gardening. Nothing makes me happier. I did not have to go out, visitors were scarce. At six I started dinner, at seven we ate it, at eight I poured us a gin, at nine I had a bath. Happy all day. What an achievement. What a delight.

Dragging My Feet

I awoke this morning from an unpleasant dream in which I had hacked an unknown male to death with a kitchen knife. At first I was very relieved to find it was a dream but then felt disturbed to have dreamed the dream.

I am trying to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button but am rapidly losing interest. It was moderately enjoyable when Benjamin was old and decrepit but now he is looking more like Brad Pitt I don't care for it so much.

I could watch this week's episode of Homeland instead.

Or I could finish this blog post.

I have two books on the go and I have a chapter left of each one and I cannot seem to get round to finishing them.

I did not go to the post office today to post Kerry Sister's present.

I have a cold and feel very tired.

But is it any wonder I feel a bit flat when I read this interpretation of my horrible dream?

Murder

To dream that you have committed a murder indicates that you are putting an end to an old habit and a former way of thinking. This could also refer to an end to an addiction. Alternatively, the dream indicates that you have some repressed aggression or rage at yourself or at someone. Note also that dreams of murder occur frequently during periods of depression.

Knife

To dream that you are carrying a knife signifies anger, aggression and/or separation. There may be something in your life that you need to cut out and get rid of.  Perhaps you need to cut ties or sever some relationship. Be more divisive. Alternatively, a knife refers to some sexual tension or sexual confrontation.

Blood

To see blood in your dream represents life, love, and passion as well as disappointments. To dream that others are bleeding signifies an emotional cry for help.

Guilt

To dream that you feel guilty about something relates to how you are handling your successes and failures or competence and incompetence. You may feel undeserving of your achievements. Or on the other hand, you feel that you have let others down. Alternatively, the dream is symbolic of repressed and negative feelings that you may have about yourself.

Here is a photograph of a kitten to cheer us all up.

What Was That All About?

I stayed at Matty's last night supposedly 'on call' but had a relatively undisturbed night. Undisturbed, that is, apart from dreams. I awoke abruptly at ten past four, went to check on Matty who was snoring softly. As I returned to bed I remembered the dream from which I had woken. We, the immediate family - Matty, my siblings and I had committed a murder and were making plans to flee the country. I wanted no part of it, was certain we'd be caught and wanted to distance myself from the rest of the family. Who did we murder? Some old guy. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it was an accident, maybe a mercy killing. I tell you - I was almost frightened to fall asleep again.

In my second dream I had discovered the knack of making babies without the necessity of sexual congress. I had a selection of the little blighters in swaddling wraps lined up on the office counter. They were pretty babies, created with purloined genetic material from my work colleagues. I was hoping to find them good homes but had some little frisson of guilt for having got carried away with the project with no thought for eventual outcomes.

So in my dreams I take away life and then I create it. And all done in worry and guilt. What is it they say? Freud would have a field day. I bet he wouldn't. I bet he'd yawn politely and say,

How very humdrum.

Dream Holiday

A friend of mine who is a diesel mechanic decided to have a holiday in the sun. He'd never been on a package holiday before but after a long damp winter lying under lorries in a cold shed he thought he deserved a break.

About a week before he went he had a dream.

I dreamt I was on a beautiful tropical beach. The sun was beating down and a balmy breeze was riffling the air. The sand was soft and white and the beach was fringed with coconut trees. The sea was dark turquoise. There were a few other people around but not too many. I was in my bathing trunks and the sun was warming my skin. In front of me was a trestle table and on it was a big old engine that I was stripping down. I breathed a deep sigh of contentment and thought to myself, 'Holidays are great. I should do this every year from now on.' 

Creak

I got into housework last night. It all started when a bottle of washing up liquid spilled over my Lidls shopping and I had to wash my groceries. Funny how washing and drying a packet of pastrami can put you in the cleaning mood.

Also, I'm finished with the Wee Scrabulous Tourney so have more time for domestic matters. It wasn't as total a humiliation as I'd expected for I did manage to win one game - and against the formidable Lady Cassandra no less. 

So with all the washing of groceries and hoovering of floors I found myself wide awake way beyond my usual sleepy-time. I'm sitting up in bed reading the Sunday papers (and not even last Sunday's - I'm behind with everything) and I look at the clock and it's nearly one and I think, time you had the light off missus. Then there was this strange, brief, creaking, achey noise like nothing I'd ever heard before. I put it out of my mind, went to sleep and dreamed I was a serial killer.

In the dream I kept disposing of the bodies in the water beside Dinsmore's factory. I was hefting the seventh or eighth one in when I thought to myself, 

Oh God! I am a serial killer. 

The corpses were nobody I knew. Just middle-aged men. Just men who'd annoyed me in some way. Earthquakes are very unsettling.

I Had A Dream (I Woke Up Screaming)

Can you guess which fellow blogger I dreamed about last night? Semi-nudity (theirs) was involved.

Clue: I have actually met this blogger.

Dreaming of Old Friends

Did you ever have a dream where you felt that you resolved something? This morning, just before waking, I dreamt that I met an old friend in an antiques market in an unfamiliar city. We encountered each other at a stall selling old fabrics and lace. Her grown up daughter was there too. There had been difficulties between my old friend and me and after some initial awkwardness we both realised that these didn't matter any more. I woke up feeling happy.

Nelly Gets A New Boyfriend. In Her Dreams

I've just heard the thud of a big bass drum and was contemplating going upstairs and telling the resident who lives above the office to turn her bloody music down. I'm feeling crabbit as I didn't get enough sleep last night due to their shenanigans. But the thudding got louder and it turns out it's an effing band marching through Spidesville. Have I missed something here? Why is there a band marching through Spidesville on Easter Monday? Everybody knows that the Orange Lily won't bloom until June at the earliest and that now is Easter Lily time. Personally I blame the Parades Commission for mixing everything up.

Yesterday The Paramilitary Arms held a Karaoke night. Some of the little darlings were going and appeared in the office beforehand so that I could admire them in their finery. They'd all made a huge effort with their hair which, thanks to the wizardry of straighteners, hung long and poker straight. Some of them had even washed it. The big one was wearing white Yeti boots with three quarter length hipsters and a vest top from which her belly protruded large and pale. The sensible one wore clean jeans, a shirt and a touch of make up. The wee one wore a short baby pink Mac with mottled bare legs in knee boots. It was a strange look. She had clarried on so much slap she looked like she was suffering from radiation burns. I gave her a wee touch about that and she started on a huff. I reminded her that I hadn't done the cleaning rota yet and if she got stroppy with me I'd put her on cleaning the toilets. An instant mood improver that though I don't know why she'd worry as she never does any cleaning anyway.

I must have been asleep for an hour when I heard what sounded like a party taking place just under my bedroom window. I got up to investigate. I found that the revellers had just come in - well some of them were in - some were still partying out on the pavement. I brought the stragglers in and shouted a surly "Away to hell !" to the non-homeless standing about outside. Then they all started telling me about the great night they'd had.

"Hey Nelly! The police are after me."
"Well if they come in here to arrest you don't be getting me up. And make sure the doors are all locked up tight after you when they take you away."
"I took a swing at some doll! Pulled her down by the hair and put the fut in her."

(This fut would be encased in a huge hairy boot. Scary! )

"That's nothing to be proud of. What did she do to annoy you?"
"Give me cheek. And she was foreign."
"Huh! That's no reason to attack someone."
"Well. It was great crack anyway."

So with stern admonishments to behave themselves I stomped off back to bed only to get up again 30 minutes later as it sounded as if it had all kicked off again. Downstairs I found them all sitting like angels with wings. I returned to bed now so thoroughly rattled that I needed something, anything to help me sleep. I then had the bright idea that a bowl of muesli and some cheese would be just the thing. Bad idea! When I finally got to sleep I dreamed I was in London with my new boyfriend Paul. He was quite a looker with his brillo pad hair and a pitted face that looked like he was suffering from radiation burns. He was delicately built and about three inches shorter than me and that's small. We were walking through London Town with Ganching. She was striding ahead and we were tootling behind holding hands. We found ourselves outside the Tate Modern and Ganching says, "Are you coming in to see the new Rachel Whitereads?"
Paul made a petulant little face and for a moment I hesitated. Then I said to him, "Paul, I didn't come to London to get a new boyfriend y'know. I came to visit Ganching. Maybe we can meet up later?" He stomped off in a huff and I knew I'd never see him again. I felt relief. Ganching said "What. A. Prat."
I was so pleased when I woke up and realised I hadn't been unfaithful to Bert. Not even in my dreams.

Shite Or Right?

When I was in my late thirties I resumed my education. For a year I attended the local FE College to take A levels in English and Sociology. There was only one other student who wasn’t a teenager and as I was a fellow oldie she latched on to me like a cleg. She was 20.

At first I found the whole process very difficult. My first attempts at essays were dire, simply because they were all over the place. One of the lecturers gave me this piece of advice, which I intend to apply to the remainder of this post. Then I invite comments on how shite the advice was – or not.

The advice was this

Tell them what you are going to tell them.
Tell them it.
Tell them what you have told them.

So here goes –

I am going to tell .you about a weird dream I had last night.

I didn’t realise quite how anxious I was about returning to work today until the dreaming started. There were several dreams which were all work related but this one was the weirdest. I was out on the razz with three work colleagues and we were having a hell of a night. My only difficulty was keeping up with them and worrying about what crazy situations they were going to drag me into. I managed to slip into the ladies at one point to chill but whilst there I gave birth to an infant. My main concern was that my colleagues would think I was a party pooper for having done this and I was wondering how I could keep it from them. It was obvious that it was not going to be easy as the infant was a cross between a large foetus and a monkey and was very active. In fact it kept climbing up the curtains, perching there and glaring malevolently at me. I realised that I did not like it very much then immediately felt guilty about this, as after all I had given birth to it. So I decided to knit it a cardigan in an effort to bond with it. But it kept coming down off the curtains and unravelling my knitting. The third time it did this I strangled it with a piece of yarn.

That was the best dream I have had in ages and I know I will remember it forever.