The Vole

Sometimes dreams are so memorable you think, This must be significant.

I woke around four this morning, decided to go to the loo (as one does) and came back and eventually went to sleep again (as one hopes to do). I dreamt that our cat got stuck out in the laundry with a vole. How I knew it was a vole I have no idea, because when I thought about it after waking, I had no picture in my memory banks of what a vole actually looks like. It certainly doesn't look like the creature that appeared in my dream. [The picture at the left is of a vole, which is something like a mouse.]

Anyway, in the dream, I went into the laundry discovered the vole in there and...went for help. The vole in the dream was about the size of a mole, but not the colour. It was furry, and possibly grey or brownish. And it seemed to be in no hurry to go anywhere.

On going for help I went back to the front of the house, which, as houses in dreams do, had expanded sufficiently for there to be a large party going on with heaps of young people, some of whom I apparently knew. I found my wife and told her about the vole, and we headed back through the house, through the kitchen, (which, like the rest of the house had become rather large, and where there was some woman in charge who was not impressed to have anyone else in her domain) and out to the laundry. There we discovered that the vole had bitten the cat's tail off. In spite of having a kind of hole where the tail should have been, the cat wasn't particularly perturbed, which even in the dream I found a little surprising.

My wife, without hesitation, picked up the vole and dumped it outside on the back steps, discovering in the process that it had a collar around its neck, as though it was someone's pet. The vole sat on the steps, no more perturbed than the cat, and obviously not inclined to head for cover.

One could go on about there being some significance in everything being larger than life (or at least larger than normal) in the dream, from the vole to the kitchen to the front room. But the largeness of things wasn't the aspect that most struck me; the vole was what seemed most interesting.

Certainly I knew the word, 'vole,' from somewhere in the past, but it's not exactly a word I'd use in everyday speech. We don't have voles in New Zealand, as far as I'm aware, and I don't think I've ever seen one anywhere. What would cause the brain to conjure up this word - and attempt to picture it in my mind (even to the extent of providing a wrong image)? Why was there such a lack of angst about the cat losing its tail? And how come the laundry was the only room in the house that didn't grow larger than usual?

Dreams are intriguing, but I don't usually get left with such an interest in them....

Dreaming of Cars? Not.

I think there must be something seriously wrong with me. Other people talk about their dream cars, and programs on the telly like Top Gear seem to be very popular, but barely interest me at all. I can’t see any point in racing around a track at a speed you can’t handle. Cars, for me, are something that get you from A to B.
That said, the best car in terms of performance and economy that we’ve ever had, I think, was the Peugeot we bought while we were travelling around England. We got it at a bargain price of £900 and sold it for £500 before we left. We’d certainly got more than £400 worth of running out it. And we did a pile of running in it, which in our car at home (a Mitsubishi Chariot) would have cost us a fortune. In England, where petrol isn’t particularly cheap, it cost us next to nothing. I’d continually look at the petrol gauge and say, It’s barely moved!
So if we’re talking about dream cars, then a car that hardly uses any petrol, but still gets me where I want to go without any major disasters, is definitely mine!

The Cast

I’ve now found the programme for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and this is the cast.
Aaron Kelly – Egeus and Peter Quince.
Marcus Cooper – Demetrius and Starveling.
Katherine Bower – Helena and Snug and Cobweb.
Miranda Heath – Hippolyta and Titania
Dan Styles – Theseus and Oberon
Jamie Brown – Lysander and Flute and Mustardseed
Alice Brockway – Hermia and Snout and Peaseblossom
Daniel Creasey – Bottom
Zack Polanski – Philostrate and Puck.

Just thought I'd record them here, since their names don't appear on the website for Chapterhouse.

Spending all my money

If I’m going to look for a dream home, then let’s forget the el cheapo $1,000,000 places. Piffle to them! I liked the place (it was a mere $52 million) situated in Pasadena. Looked as though it might require a large staff to maintain it, but when you’re spending that much money why balk at paying for staff too? An English butler, a housekeeper (a la Helen Mirren in Gosford Park), several maids and valets, a chauffeur or two, and a half a dozen gardeners.
And I loved the place in San Diego (La Jolla to be precise) which is built at all sorts of angles, with tiled roof, and balustrades, and stairs in various directions, and balconies, and verandahs. Ah. And it’s only going to cost me between $15 and $18 million. Did I mention the swimming pool?
Real estate in San Diego has to be seen to be believed. I was looking at the Mega Dream Homes site, but if you don’t happen to have as much money as I imagine I might have, then you check out DreamHomesMagazine.com. It’s bound to have something in your price range!