Intricate Pasta – Boris Johnson’s Puzzle – Butterflies Dream 20-02-2025

Here is this morning’s dream

The dream opens with Boris Johnson sitting at a large rustic wooden kitchen table in an ample farmhouse style kitchen with Aga and range. On the table is a pasta making machine. On two wire racks, one elevated and the other just above table level are two circular pieces of pasta. They are around 30cm in diameter and dried. The pasta is whole meal. The pasta is shaped into a kind of intricate relief design in which there are very fine, filagree designs. There is more air than pasta. I know that the designs are very brittle. Carrie is there but not to the fore.

I am sat at the table with Boris. The pasta machine starts up and a third pasta circle comes out in normal flour pasta. It slides onto the metal tray of the pasta machine. Both Boris and I know that the pasta is Boris’ puzzle to solve and that now it is three dimensional. He wants to get started and solve the puzzle. I remind him that the pasta is delicate and that the third piece has not yet set. Under no circumstances should he rush.

I look at his watch, it says 5:35. I know that he has an upcoming meeting. He looks at the watch and says that he must dash. Carrie pipes in and says yes, otherwise they will be late. Implicit is that Boris’ timekeeping is not great. They depart.

Sometime later I am walking in the / my garden. Boris and Carrie are eating a packed lunch with a thermos of tea in a sunny clearing. Boris is unburdened and light, somehow younger. The atmosphere is relaxed. They are the other side of a partial fence to me. On my side there are a multitude of butterflies, all different colours, yellows and purples, reds and blues. All the butterflies are large the size of my hand or bigger. They are partially shaded. Boris asks if the direct sunlight is good for the butterflies. I say that they are happy. At dusk they yield to the moths who come out in force.

I walk to a covered bridge made out of metal. The ceiling of the bridge is around ten feet high, and it is spacious. It starts near where Boris is having the picnic. A very large purple, indigo and red butterfly flies towards me and gives my face, which it envelops a hug with its wings. It is the size of my head. I can see its eyes and antennae. We start to talk in a very high-pitched butterfly language, with the butterfly now flying very close to my face. We are looking at each other as we speak.

Boris is astounded. I explain to him that I can talk to butterflies and moths. If he wants, we can help him with his puzzle.

The dream ends.

Gandalf Likes Chicken Jalfrezi…

As part of the morning routine, I take any waste and the coffee grounds out to the composters. I usually leave the pot and the cafetiere there and go to check the marker / witness sticks around the pond. We need to get the coypu situation sorted before the lotuses start.

Yesterday I had some leftover chicken jalfrezi in a saucepan. The recipe contains turmeric, paprika and tomatoes. I left the saucepan on top of the composter and did my rounds. Now Gandalf is the young female stray cat. She is both grey and white and hence her name. Gandalf the grey battled the Balrog underground and as consequence was reborn as Gandalf the white. Her white fur is very white.

When I got back from my rounds, she was there on top of the composter with her head in the saucepan licking the jalfrezi sauce. She picked up some smears of yellow-orange sauce on her face. There is still some residual colour this morning. Turmeric can be difficult to shift. She seemed to like the jalfrezi. What about vindaloo? That remains to be seen.

As a result, I have had to change my routine and not leave pots on the composter.

This morning’s round reveals that the dastardly coypu twins have found / made a new hole in the fence. The witness sticks near that hole have been moved. The ones near the electric fence remain relatively untouched.

I have 25m of fencing with 2mm thick wire arriving later this week. This afternoon there is no rain and we are predicted the dizzy heights of 7 °C. So, I shall rewire the electric fence to be a four strand fence with 4-5 cm gaps between strands. I’ll popover into the swamp and the DMZ in the neighbouring wild and strim their side of the fence.

That means when the new fencing arrives, I am good to go…