To sleep, perchance to... have nightmares!

It's 5.30 am and I'm awake.  Again with the birds, 'cept the birds have now buggered off as my neighbour The Major says, into the fields to gorge themselves on the fruits of this years harvest.  Mmmm yes, time for some Cornflakes.  Nonetheless, I'm laid in bed in the early morning light quietly thinking about last nights dream... and contemplating my plans for the day ahead.   

With a groan, I reach for the wooden headboard and pull myself up.  As though raising an old storm ravaged hulk from the bottom of the North Sea.  I slowly rise, waddle into the bathroom to have a shave, a shower and a sh*t, not necessarily in that order.  I rest my back by leaning over the sink propped up on my elbows as I prepare to brush my teeth and in a flash last night's dream is there, all bright and as shiny as the crystal clear water in the sink beneath me.

Every night I dream.  Some people I know say that they never do.  They close their eyes and the next recollection is opening them with the birds.  Some of my dreams are so vivid that I can actually taste, feel and see detail like I'm watching a 4K movie in smellivision with surround sound, projected onto the back of my eyelids.  Last nights dream though was a shocker.  Not scary in how some dreams can be but again I'm in an impossible situation and no matter how hard I try - there is no way out.  

Last night I was lost.  In a huge city on a hot bright summery day.  It was an important day.  It was my sister Barbara's funeral today and there I was miles from home wearing my rags with only 45 minutes to go to the start of the service.  How do I get home?  Which way do I go?  It's a long way away isn't it?  And I'm not prepared.  I have to shower and change.  I cannot, nay I MUST NOT miss it cos it is my sister's funeral!  

I'm tumbling in bed, wrapped tight in my duvet fighting my way through crowds thicker than those to be found in Coney Street in York on a hot summers day.  I'm pushing against the tide of a million folk.  There's open plazas, big imposing buildings and trams everywhere.  Like how Blackpool might've been if it had been designed by someone who gave a damn. 

I find myself on a crowded bus heading in the wrong direction.  It suddenly stops at a bus stop and I fight my way to get off it.  In doing so I barge into a woman pedestrian knocking her over who immediately started to shout at me.  How rude I was.  Such a brute.  Not a care for anyone else.  Boy did she lay into me.

I broke into a flood of tears and collapsed into her feathery pillow like buxom.  I wail how desperate I am.  I am just trying to get to my sister Barbara's funeral, I plead.  How sorry I was but I'm running out of time.  Don't you see??

The woman breaks down into huge sobs as she gathers me in her arms and gives me the biggest of hugs.  I'm so sorry she says.  I just did not know how desperate you were.  You poor thing!  As she holds me tighter and I feel myself melt into her warm soft mattressy grasp....

But NO!  STOP!  The sudden realisation that she was part of the problem.  Just another moment in my exasperating journey across the bed to get to the funeral that was slowing me down again.  I fought to get clear of her embrace.  Please let me go.  I have to go.  There's only 30 minutes left!  I push, screwing up the bed linen as I run away from her warm embrace.  

Where's my car?  John has it!  Where's John.  Oh God nothing, absolutely nothing is going my way.  Then I spy him.  John!  John!  Where is my car?!  Hi Wayne.  It's in the car park over there whereupon he stands on his tip toes and points over a crowd of bed heads.  I grab the keys from beside the bed, thank him profusely and race off in the direction he had just pointed.  Might have been the toilet thinking about it.  Wayne, look at the time!  There is only 15 minutes to go!  

I race across the street weaving between the traffic to a small car park between two large wardrobe shaped buildings.  But where’s the car?!  It's not here!!  I run around the car park searching wildly but no.  Oh my God there’s only 5 minutes to go!  John!  John!  Where's John?!  Oh no no no no no!!....

I suddenly wake up.  I'm still in my bedroom.  The funeral has been and gone and no, I did not miss it.  Everything for me ran like clockwork.  I baked some cakes for the wake.  Delivered them to the Tang Hall Working Mens club. Made it to my sisters house to meet the hearse.  Followed the funeral cortège to the crematorium.  Met my 3 remaining sisters along with members of our family and a selection of Barbara's friends.  Politely avoided going to the wake as I still prefer to be socially distanced.  And somewhere later that afternoon found myself back home with my suit and shirt and tie and shiny shoes put back away into the cupboard just before I wandered about the house again with my raggy clothes back on.

For different reasons the exasperated feelings in my dreams have also surfaced in real life several times this year.  The impossibility of getting stuff scheduled and ordered on time and without failure.  Yes, all of the issues, too many of which for me to bore you with this morning related to the build of the extension.  How many times did I get that helpless feeling; that my best laid plans were like the latest nightmare dissolving in front of me?  

Today for example.  After waiting for several months and now running the final schedule to finish the house extension in these COVID times.  Which meant that the engineered wood floor was to be laid today, followed by the glass balustrade, followed by the floor tiling, followed by the kitchen installation, followed by additional electrical work, followed by the decorating and finally followed by the final bit of carpeting.  Only for the whole plan and the sequence of tradesmen (or trades persons if you wanna be woke about it but I know its blokes doing all the work here..) who are impossible to find and schedule in, is all now at risk because the flooring company on day one have got the order wrong and delivered almost 3 grands worth of oiled oak panels instead of the fumed oiled oak panels I asked for.  The whole bloody plan shattered in front of my eyes.  I'm stuck again on that bus going in the wrong direction.  I'm told it will take perhaps another 6 weeks to get the correct order from Germany.  No no no no no no!!

I'm shellshocked.  I need that woman at the bus stop right now to catch me as I fall and hold me tight cos I feel shaky.  The trembles and the symptoms associated with my sickness and premature departure from work into early retirement flooded back.  But no.  I slump in the chair.  More bad news.  I try to cancel an order from Germany for 3 pieces of floor trim which are no longer needed and I am told that because it is a ‘special order’ and has been dispatched that it cannot be cancelled and a refund cannot be given.  150 quid down the drain.  Bloody square headed fecking Germans!  :-(

Finally a speck of good news.  Bikemonger rang and offered for me to check out a new bike just made up for another customer with an extra large frame to check if it possibly might be the right size for me.  So I drove over and nope it is not.  XL is too hot.  Medium is too cold so I've agreed with Theo that I need the large frame which will be just about right.  And so we can now start to 'build a bike' for the New Zealand tour in 18 months time when I am 60 - COVID willing...  And whilst I was there I tell them just how impossible it is to get hold of Brooks B17 saddles and magically Theo says, Wayne we have some here.  So I buy two.  With discount!  One black one and one tan for the new bike when it is built.   In times of stress it is great to get some good news!

Life and dreams.  Dreams and life.  For me both are intertwined.  It's like having two lives.  One whilst asleep.  The other whilst awake.  Both can feel scary.  Even with a lifetime of experienced behind me, but without someone warm and gentle to hang on to when the going gets really tough, well for sure both lives are sometimes a bloody nightmare...

But it could be worse.  I'm just real happy that I don't dream I'm eating huge marshmallows anymore!  Cos the last time, well when I woke up the pillows were gone!...

Ciao for now.