pumpkinstrokemarrow

More seriously for me, another demonstration of fallibility. We thought we would walk out of the back of Donkey Green towards a viewpoint looking north - with the main viewpoint looking south being at the front of Donkey Green. We walk through the woods, admiring the various large trees - some notable beech and yew among them - to come out on an old bridleway. A few yards later and we are at a viewpoint. Fine view down over the flat lands below, with a town in the middle distance. Clearly Leatherhead since we are pointing that way, despite not being able to see the River Mole and the railway not being in quite the right place. BH not so sure at all but prudently keeps quiet. She then suggests that if we carry on down the bridleway, we would get back to where we started. Very long way round sezzaye. We need to head back south, not east. So we retrace our steps back to the car park - to my credit we do not get lost - to inspect the map. To find that the second viewpoint was just to the east of the first viewpoint and does indeed face south towards Dorking, not north towards Leatherhead. Absence of Mole and position of railway now explained. And the bridleway would indeed have brought us back, on a slightly shorter route than that we had actually taken. Quite apart from BH being right, very shocked to have had such a failure of sense of direction. Not completely hopeless as I did get us back OK; but fairly hopeless nonetheless. Next time I shall take a compass to avoid further embarrassment.

And then there is the question of dreams, with the ones that I remember getting less and less coherent. I remarked on one on May 26th and now this morning I have had another. Not odd in the sense of something being one thing and another at the same time, rather in being a jumble of impressions; a jumble not a narrative. Not even a rather odd narrative. I enumerate some of the jumble.

Being vaguely at our house in Cambridge discussing the edibility of various large but dodgy looking fungi with people that I only knew long after we left.

Marching sturdily through deep yellow mud of the back garden, on the way to the compost heap with a tray full of condemned fungi, wearing veldtschoen - shoes which I had when young and which did not turn out to be as sturdy as they were cracked up to be. Old fashioned construction not all that great after all.

Most of my back garden having been parcelled out into very small allotments for various dodgy looking people. Very carefully tended allotments, around 8 feet by 4, plus small but ancient looking sheds. One per allotment. Most of the things which had been in the garden now missing. The odd tree left to remind one of bygones.

The bit I had been left at the bottom having been further colonised by more dodgy looking people on account of my not having been there for a year or so. But they had left my shed, notable for being mounted on a post, a bit like a postmill. The contents included some things which I recognised, like my father's pruning knife, and some things which I did not, notably a small garage chain hoist. The sort of hoist which I used to know a special name for and which now, neither I nor Mr. Google can recover. Decided to abandon ship and leave the dodgies to it.

BH and a neighbour whom I recognised in the front room, the only catch being that the front room in question was that in Epsom, that presently occupied by FIL, who did not, as it happens, come into the dream.

Being at a desk at work and being puzzled by lots of paperwork about people who did not concern me. Started shredding the paperwork only to realize that I was at the wrong desk and was grubbing about in the wrong files.

Being unsure about whether I was supposed to be at work or not. Getting rather het up about it. Started grubbing around in more files to try and find out whether I had resigned or not and if so, from what date effective. Clearly have an odd relation with packing up work as this sort of thing crops up in dreams quite often.

Moving onto maps and I could not be sure which one I was supposed to be on. Getting very het up about the various titles and subtitles of these maps. If only I could work it out, I would know which map I was supposed to be on. This bit presumably maps back to the Dorking experience.

Waking up I start to ponder about Surrealists, whose work I had always associated with dreams, without ever having dreams of that sort myself. But now I am. Clearly a case of very late development.