Tag: South

Academic Chemists – Derelict Site – Attack – Honour Dream 11-08-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream had between 5 and 7:30 AM.

The entire dream is in England and not the north or the midlands but south to that from geography and accent. There is some kind of gathering of chemistry academics in the upstairs of a large pub or hotel. There is a vague feeling of conference but it is not quite that. It is more of a social gathering with a problem solving outlook. I am there but largely unacknowledged nor welcome. There is hubbub and people drinking. A man, John, comes in who knows me and says that he has just got promoted. He is a bit younger than me. I congratulate him genuinely. I say that it  is good news for him but that my job is very definitely at risk if not already lost. He concurs. I am spare. I am not entirely sure why I am even at this gathering. I do not belong.

The scene changes and I am walking with a woman roughly my age who works at the place of the gathering. She is a lynchpin for the departments there. She has grey-blonde hair. We are in South London and approaching a very rough neighbourhood. I am not sure where we are going. She says that she has a secret place, there. We come upon a boarded up set of flats that are fenced off and ready for demolition. The site access gateway if closed off with a large chipboard wooden gate together with health and safety signage about helmets and hazards. She unlocks the chain and opens the gate. I ask her if she is sure that she wants to go in. Yes.

I follow her in and we can see several blocks of low rise four storey flats. They are in a bad state of repair but not quite Gaza like. She leads me through the rubble to one building where we are joined by another woman. Together they make their way to the back of one of the ground floor flats, to the kitchen. She has set herself up a snug with teapot, table and bone-china. She boils the kettle to make tea and gets out a plate of cupcakes. She ushers me into her snug but I cannot fit fully. It is as if she and her friend have shrunk as has the flat. I can get my head into the room but nothing else.

Behind me I hear noises. I turn out of the flat and look across the rubble strewn ground between the buildings, the demolition site. I can see half a dozen young black men approaching. They are carrying weapons and acting threateningly. I can feel my wallet in my trouser pocket. They approach and I say to them that I will give them some money. I take out six £20 notes and offer these. The lead man does not want them. He says that they are going to “fuck me up”. I say that they are welcome to try.

He lunges at me and I grab his wrist in a Kotegaeshi aikido wrist lock and swirl him around. I cannot however get full control of his wrist. Others come up and start to beat my back with iron bars which I can feel through my heavy overcoat. I let him go and then shrug the attackers off. They start to give chase and I head to the chipboard gate site entrance. They are following me at pace. I am completely unconcerned because their blows cannot hurt me or injure severely. As they follow me though the gate I head onto a grass verge in front of another block of flats. There is a massive police operation going on with many police in protective vests, armed and with dogs. They see my pursuers and recognise them as people they want to arrest. Half the police break off the search and give chase to my attackers.

I go back into the derelict site and find a white tiled bathroom which is intact. In the flat above there is a large woman who is a giant. She is five times my size and wearing striped tights with massive Dr Martens boots. She is curled up under the ceiling and above my bathroom. She has platted pony tails and is wearing a denim pinafore dress with straps. She is my friend and we go way back.

I turn on the shower and note the complete surround of white tiles which bulge slightly under the weight of the giant upstairs. I take a long hot shower. I need to cleanse, to get clean.  As I finish a young man with blonde hair in white overalls appears. He is the electrician-plumber and is trying to fix the bathroom and the derelict site. I explain to him that it is near impossible because there is no room left in the gaps between ceiling and roof. I have tried but gotten nowhere. He says that he has been given the job of fixing things. I wish him luck. It will be a thankless task.

The scene changes and I am in some kind of meeting with around half a dozen male chemistry academics. They are the “generation” below me and rather full of themselves. They are talking management bullshit about targets and how they are going to fix the problem of which I am a part. Although I am there I am largely ignored. They are arrogant. I know beyond all doubt that they are heading towards a massive mistake, a fuck up. I try to warn them. They ignore me convinced that they know best. They think they have a vision and a solution. They are very badly mistaken and it will go very, very wrong.

They ask me what I have in my wallet. I take my wallet out and pull out first four and then another two £20 pound notes. That makes a total of twelve £20 notes. In the dream I know that money re-presents crystallized power or knowledge. I have in my wallet the jewels of awareness forbearance 12 and honour 20. My honour remains intact no matter what they do.

The dream ends.

London Welsh – Rugby Dream 06-07-2025 – Russia – France

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Here is last night’s dream. We watched a recording of the Wales V Japan rugby match on the TV in which there was little inventiveness on the part of Wales.

The dream starts in a daylit room. I am sorting out some washing and come upon a red old-style rugby jersey made of thick linen and with a white button up collar. It has long sleeves and has been worn before. It is mine.  I pick it up, take off my t-shirt and try it on. It fits if a little tight. There is a strong feeling of Southern hemisphere.

I am next walking with John Williams to a clubhouse facility in the middle of several grass sports pitches some of which have rugby goal posts. I am dressed in normal clothes. We enter the clubhouse and it is the London Welsh rugby club dressing rooms / clubhouse. I am welcomed back by several of the team who recognise me. There are some new faces and everyone is getting changed into the red rugby jerseys with white old-style shorts. There are several teams from elite to social. The club physios and doctors are there. Siân and her team of young female physios are there. She is dressed in t-shirt and shorts with her blonde hair tied back in a pony tail. She has a strong Welsh accent. She is checking that people are fit to play. She comes over and has a cursory examination of my back and hips and clears me.

I am then ushered over to a table by the club “secretariat”. They want me to sign a membership form and pay my club dues. They say that a portion of the fee goes to the WRFU to help the national team. I say that I do not know which address to put in as I am between places. “Do I put in my French address for now?” “Yes”.

We do not yet know if we will be playing because there has been some snow overnight and the pitch might be too hard. We make our way out to the pitch. As I will be playing hooker from the bench I will need to know the lineout calls. One of the props says that he will whisper the actual as opposed to coded call for me so that I know where to throw in. I ask him to “scrum down” with me so that I can test how my hips hold up under pressure. We do this and I am able to hold his push and twist his body and lift him. He says that I will be fine, I cannot keep my Ventolin in my pocket. So I walk to the halfway touch flag and deposit it there, next to the pole.

The referee has declared the pitch match ready and we prepare for kick off. Even though I am old I know that in terms of cardiovascular and strength I will be able to keep up.

The dream ends.

I am reminded of my Dancing with Ganesh dream on waking.

——————–

Around 40 years ago I played in a social rugby team at London Welsh which was filled with young professionals. The pack has several Ph.D. and lawyers.

————————-

I wake up. It is around 5 AM. I feel no pain. Slowly the pain in my spine builds in. I drift off back to sleep.

It is ago, a few hundred years, and I am in Saint Petersburg at some kind of posh social event. I am among a delegation that is working between France and Russia, to try to find common ground. It is delicate work and the French are being difficult and uncooperative. The Russians are waiting for the French to decide and commit to something. A senior Russian court figure says to me that I need to make it clear that to the French it is they the French who are holding things up. I speak both languages. This segment pertains to “pony-tail” man. I am he again.

The dream ends

Siege – “Confederate” -Tarot – Dream 02-07-2025

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Here is last night’s dream. I managed to sleep until 5 AM without interruption which is unusual these days. We watched the film “Old Guard” last night.

The dream starts in the South-Eastern corner of America. It is in the recent past. It is sweltering hot, humid and sweaty. We are under siege. We can hear gunfire from the nearby town which is surrounded. There is smoke in the air and cordite on the wind. From time to time the night sky lights up with an orange light from afar due to a large munition. They are being pounded. We too are besieged but by a much smaller force. It is quiet where we are but we know that they are out there on our property in numbers.

In the dream I am very surprised to be in America. Though it does make sense.

I am sat at a large table in the kitchen or scullery. There are candles burning and several finished bottles of wine. I have a glass on the go. We are speaking Cajun or creole French. There are a few of us white and a few servants or slaves black. We have all hastily eaten something quick. Others are keeping watch. We are in some wooded “mansion” type house on a plantation of sorts. The windows are boarded up from the inside.

On the table is a tarot deck de Marseilles. On the wall there are pictures of soldiers in a kind of uniform of dull grey colour. My minds thinks Confederate but it could have been earlier. It could be militia but is definitely not redcoat.  There is an air of civil war or revolution and of tearing apart. On the table I can see the cards 0,1 and 10. The cards are le mat, le bateleur and la roue de fortune. I focus on the latter. It seems apt. Also on the table someone has been sketching a contemporary “confederate” set of cards and having them cut out. The table is like that of le bateleur in front of us. The tarot arcana have been given a modern twist. La roue de fortune is comprised two pistols intertwined head to tail to make a kind of pistol ying-yang circle. Other figures are made contemporary with white wigs sat on judicial “thrones”. One of the company is whiling away the time drawing. We all know what is coming in the morning. One of the black women in a dark blue dress clears the plates from the table. One man in the corner is drinking brandy to forget. There is a sense of impending.

The scene changes to morning. We are outside in daylight. I am wearing black riding boots, black pants and a dirty white blouson shirt with a lace up closure in the front. It is partially undone. I have blood spatters on it. It needs a wash as do I. My long dark brown hair is held at the back in a pony tail. I am partially dishevelled and have been roughed up. My hands are tied behind my back and I am being held by them. I am being brought before. I can sense a pistol very close to my right temple. I can sense an arm and a hand holding it. They are going to execute me. I see a flash of smoke as the pistol mechanism fires. I hear a loud bang.

In the dream I know that it does not kill me because I can see myself back in Europe as an older man with a white-grey ponytail and clean shirt sat at my desk. This shooting is early in my previous life.

The dream ends.

South Africa – Richard W – Imperial College Colleagues Dream 29-06-2025

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Here is last night’s dream.

The dream starts in the South African bundu or bush. I am driving along a rough dusty unmade road. The road goes up and own and has a yellow-orange bull dust. I am in an open sided Jeep like vehicle of a classical pedigree age. It is four wheel drive and contrasts with an antiseptic modern SUV. I am dressed in faded olive green park ranger type clothes with shorts. I have a pistol in a holster on my right hip, suitable for my left handedness. It is tremendous fun driving along the road / path. We are near a fairly fast flowing deep river like at the Augrabies falls which I visited two decades ago. I can hear a waterfall.

–

–

The sound of the water is loud. The wind is in my hair and I can smell and taste the dry bush all around me.

The scene changes and I am now in the UK. I am in a busy Tesco supermarket. People are queuing. Outside the air is dank and wet. There is a constant hum of urban traffic. In one of the checkout queues I see Richard W whom I know from school and UCL chemistry. He is miles away up in his head. I tap him on the shoulder. At first, he does not recognise me. Then when he does, he is totally surprised to see me. I motion to behind the checkouts and will wait for him there.

When he has checked out, he comes over to see me. Although he looks a lot younger than he would be now, I can see that life is getting him down and he lacks energy. I turn him around and stand behind him. I open up a battery compartment in his back by sliding off a plastic over. I take out the two AA style batteries which are there and replace them with two fresh ones from my pocket. These batteries are similar in colour and design to Duracell. I replace the plastic cover and Richard reboots.

There is a short break for a loo visit.

I return to the dream back into a dank drab UK urban environment. You can hear the noise the cars make on the wet road. I enter a large building which I do not know with some kind of large atrium. It is Imperial College and Chemistry related. The hallway / atrium is being renovated. I bump into various ex-colleagues {sequentially} who were at Imperial two decades ago, all of them now professors. There are more than half a dozen of them both men and women. They are slightly sheepish about meeting me, there is an air of awkwardness or embarrassment. They are unsure as to how to greet me and if to greet or acknowledge me at all. Two males with whom I worked are very noticeable by their absence. The absence speaks volumes. There is a weird feeling that the former colleagues are surprised to see me even though there is a sense for them that I never left.

I walk into some kind of a hallway. There are poster boards up with academic conference style poster presentations on a blue “felt” background. These are all chemistry related. I can see molecules and graphs. Walking past I think some things do not change despite modern technology. A poster is a poster. In the dream I do not know why I am there in that building with them. It seems anomalous to me if not to them.

The dream ends.

Dream of the Four Pronged nagal – 30-04-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream.

I am with Charlie whom I know to be an extrovert highly talkative nagal’s courier. We are in a courtyard with white stone walls some draped in rude pink bougainvillea. We are sat at a two seater small white bistro style table in the sun. He is talking animatedly and says that there are some people he would like me to meet. We are in a leafy rich suburb of Pretoria South Africa. He says again that are some people he would like me to meet, now.

The first is just around the corner. He leads me off to a small shopping / administrative area. There is a 1960s style polygon shaped building with a large, covered porch and outdoor seating. It is a community library and an outreach of the university. We enter and there are all sorts of posters in the vestibule advertising events. Behind the librarian’s desk is a medium height medium build white woman. She has an immaculate grey straight haired bob and is dressed in a well pressed blouse and trousers. There are small black butterflies as a motif on her white blouse. Around her neck on a lanyard are spectacles. Charlie introduces me and she speaks in a Germanic Dutch English accent. It is different from Afrikaans and highly educated. She says that she likes the East. I already know this, she is an Easterly Stalker who works at the university library most of the time. In her spare time, she is highly athletic and a free climber. She is lithe.

Charlie then leads me off South into a township near Cape Town. We go to a government run drop in centre / nursery. It is next to a pop-up health centre for adults with HIV. We go into the centre and I can immediately hear the booming tones of a large woman, who is telling someone off in a well humoured manner. She is laughing. As we approach, I can see a large buxom and overweight black woman with corn-row dreadlocks. She has a gold ring piercing in her left nostril and left ear. She is about six feet tall and, in all respects, larger than life. Around her are numerous toddlers and small children. It is chaotic yet somehow together. She hugs Charlie fiercely and squashes him to her bosom. When she sees me, she suddenly becomes coy and suspicious. She inspects me and breaks into a radiant ear to ear grin. There is no need for a hug because we can feel each other’s hearts. She is a Southerly Stalker.

Charlie then takes me to Western Cape to an isolated penitentiary inland from the coast. It is surrounded by razor wire and heavily guarded. We pull up to the guard house in our car. He stays in the car as only I am allowed in. The guards have been expecting me. They open the gate and let me in. I walk in unaccompanied. There are no more guards. I open the first gate and then a door. Inside in a dark room of considerable size there is an electric fence surrounding an enclosure. On it are danger high-voltage signs. I can see a man inside the enclosure. He is wearing a wide brimmed hat and a long dark brown bushwhacker’s coat. I can pass through the electric fence without any problems, with ease. I know that it does not constrain him either. We are at home in the darkness of the room. We stand brooding together in the darkness. He is a Man Behind the Scenes and I know him to be seventh ray. I can see his eyes but not his face in the darkness. We know each other very well, across lifetimes.

The dream ends.

Wolfgang – Switzerland – Being Slagged Off – Martial Arts Grading – UKE Dream 07-04-2025

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Here is last night’s dream. I was on much reduced medication to see how I coped. Sleep was not deep.

The dream starts in a communal office setting. Wolfgang {flat mate – and subsequent employee} is sat opposite me. He has a thin pencil moustache and something of a mullet, neither of which he was accustomed to have. He is upset with me because he thinks that I have been mean to him and reneged on our friendship. I have done no such thing to my eyes. I know in the dream that because I do not do transactional “friendships” I do not have “friends” in the traditional social sense. I am very poor at “normal” friendships. I do not do mutual praise and ego stroking. People cannot relate to me because they do not get the normal feedback they are expecting. I say to Wolfgang that he may have misjudged.

The scene now coalesces to the shared common room area of our floor in the University of Bern. Sat around the table are many of the people from the research group. Wolfgang says in front of them all, that they have all been slagging me off and bad mouthing me, partially because I did not fit in and suck up. He says that I was always the outsider. I say to him that it is in no way new to me to have people gossip and slag me off behind my back whilst pretending to be nice and friendly to my face. I say that people can be very mercenary when they think that I have something(s) they want. I say to him that he needs to get over it, his misplaced upset. I say that his moustache looks ridiculous.

The scene changes to a large martial arts dojo. I am dressed in a judogi wearing a dark green belt around my middle. I am with the sensei, and he is showing me a list of people who are up for their blue belt grading. In this schema, blue is below green. There are a lot of people due for grading and we, the higher grades, are to be uke to their tori. We know that gradings are about form and not real combat. We will be willingly thrown about by numerous people doing their gradings in order for them to learn.

I am up first with four people one from each direction. East, North, West and South.  The people are of ill-defined gender and wearing judogi already with a light blue belt, the colour of which they seek to upgrade. One by one they come to me and holding a fighting stance assume their left hand in an upper block, jodan-uke. I place my arm similarly wrist to wrist. We then start to apply force and ki. They are trying to hold their position. I let them match me for a while and continue to ramp up until I start to sense them falter. Knowing that this is not about me winning rather them having an experience, I ease back just before breaking point. I do this with the first three directions. The woman from the South has defined gender and when she comes up for stance there is no need, because we already understand each other.

I know that there are hundreds more to come in the grading session. On the mat practice continues and we know, the sensei and I, that they have never yet experienced full contact combat which is a game changer.

The dream ends.

Eight Tibetan Houses (seats) Dream 19-02-2025

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This came after we watched a documentary on how China is changing Tibet, making it more Han Chinese.

The dream starts in South or Southeastern Tibet. There is a sense of Shigatze. I can see on a map eight Tibetan houses or seats. They have terracotta roofs and although they appear as houses, I know that they are seats, monasteries, in the sense of high lama thrones. They are linked to lineages and are the bricks and mortar, the physicality. I collect them in a sense. I coral them in my non-physical arms. I am wearing magenta and saffron Buddhist robes.

The scene changes and I can see the same eight locations but now I am seeing the spirit, the ethos, the essence of these “houses”. It is the near indelible mark of the spirit of these places, how they have energized the world.

I wake briefly.

I am back looking at the map of Tibet. Again, I can see these eight centres, only now I can see history, lineage stretching back over centuries. This is the past, the lineage which has been cultivated in time and through time.

I wake briefly.

I am back again looking at the map with these eight houses highlighted. Now I can see mind, mind-stream and even the awareness or consciousness associated with these centres. I sense in the dream that this represents future in that the centres live not necessarily physically but in the mind-stream, the Buddha field.

As I awake, I joke to myself that is must be weird Wednesday as opposed to freaky Friday.

School – Mess – Misunderstanding – Barefoot – NZ Farm Dream 29-01-2025

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This dream was from around 5 AM this morning.

The dream opens in a conference / sports facility which is shared by a female and a male fee-paying private schools. The schools are top end, and the facility is top notch but shared. There is both history and luxury. My team and I are clearing up after a successful course for teenagers from disturbed backgrounds. The course has gone well but our efforts to tidy are hindered by the incredible mess left by the previous users. Trays from the canteen are left partially washed, clogging up the sinks, the bins are full. Most of it is not our mess, but we need to clean it up to hand over to the next users. We struggle to get things sorted. The wife’s open heeled brown shoes have been left in different places. I get them together. It is late afternoon, and the new delegates are arriving. At last, the place is ship shaped, and Bristol fashioned.

The incoming users are a high-level international conference with many big cheeses from academia, government and business. We are just making our way to the school sleeping accommodation. Prof. T and several of his colleagues are entering the atrium as we leave. He comes over to me and congratulates me for being invited to this high-level conference. I explain to him that I have not been invited and nor am I participating. Those are not circles I walk in and I probably never will. He is surprised. I say that I have just done a course for a couple of dozen semi-delinquent teenagers. He does not get it. It does not fit his picture.

We head off to the accommodation blocks and fall tired onto the bed to sleep. It is a long drive back.  During the night I need a piss. There is for us, no ensuite. I will have to use the toilet block down the corridor. I wrap a towel around my waist and go to piss in a big metal urinal.

The scene changes and I am walking around a very muddy farm. I am wearing my combats and a white sports vest. I explore the farm enjoying the mud on my bare feet and through my toes. I know that the farm is a part of the school and conference complex. It provides fresh produce. I know that the whole thing is set in New Zealand.

As I turn the corner I am met by a Kiwi farmer. He asks what I am doing. I explain that I have just done a course at the school. He says that it is a bit strange to see me walking bare foot in all the mud and that it must hurt. I say that because I partially grew up in Oz and Southern Africa that it is normal for me. He turns to a mate and says that all bloody Aussies are nuts.

The dream ends.

The Problem with Introverts…

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I’ll kick this off with a joke I used to use on my MBTI courses which I gave.

–

An Introvert Joke

It’s a rainy day. The reception teacher is getting the kids ready to go home. She struggles for 5 minutes with one child’s boots, tugging them on and getting them laced up.

Just as she’s finished, the I child says, “those aren’t my boots”. The teacher sighs and spends another few minutes undoing them and taking them off.

Just as she’s finished, the child adds, “They’re my brother’s. My mum said I had to wear them today.”

–

In the MBTI context I have an INFJ preference. I score very high for introversion and judging but my intuition {N} score is close to the maximum available. That intuition is introverted so largely unseen. That means I have a highly organised orientation which is strictly timed with big picture thinking. If people are late and chaotic I can get unsettled / peeved. People see my warm caring feeling F side but I can easily flip to the more logical T side.

For years I acted out ENTJ because I thought that was what blokes were meant to be.

Over the years many people have expressed an opinion about what I am like, who I am, what I am capable off, what my predilections are. They may have expected some kind of response. Rarely did they get one. I am not keen on arguing the toss. It is a stupid waste of time. Some people learn by testing their ideas out in conversation and may expect a push back. Why should I do their work for them? As an introvert I very rarely offer up information or opinion. If I do it will be in a tiny stepwise manner. If things are joined up in my inner world, I have no need to express it. Viewed from one angle few if any get to see what might be called “me”. One could be mysterious and say that I am like an iceberg with hidden depths and not a lettuce like Liz.

I have noted that if you don’t agree or disagree with what someone says they imagine it to be correct, perhaps more correct than it actually is. I could be wrong in this but my intuition can be very reliable. It is not my problem if they have the wrong end of the stick.

People who are fond of bullshitting whether mutual or otherwise, can feel uncomfortable because I don’t play the BS / hype / exaggerate / big up game. Women are less prone to this discomfort than men. Who seem to need ritual sniffing and metaphorical at urinal wall pissing contests. In any case I now have an enlarged prostate. I can be very deadpan and uninterested. There is no uncomfortable silence for me.

It is funny in doctor’s waiting rooms. I do not arse about on my ‘phone, I do not read the magazines and never break the silence in an attempt to have a chat. Someone often breaks. They try to engage. Here I can apologize and explain that I do not speak French well. This nearly always restores the silence. Many are uncomfortable without noise.

In one particular framework my predilection is for dreaming and not (s)talking and I am “in” the place of power and dreaming, the South. I have met a number of people who give courses on dreaming and lucid dreaming in particular. Each of these has been by predilection a (s)talker. Which roughly maps with extroversion. They like techniques like waking in the middle of the night, working with apps and finding their hands to prove that they are in a lucid dream. They interrupt the dream to direct it. In one sense they have talked at an experienced dreamer. They were used to being seen as the expert.

It is possible that they could have learned vast amounts about dreaming from me. But the biggest hindrance to dreaming is talking. They will never know what might have been because I felt no need to big myself up or compare dreaming cock size. I did not need to name drop and show how “in” I was with the dreaming community.

The problem with introverts is that if you talk at them. They will stay schtum and say little or nothing. If you ask, they might just respond, depending on wind direction and the phase of the moon.

It is even worse in my case because I have no need to play the itchy back game because I am no longer in that world. There is currently no need for me to join in…

House Renovation – Dead People – Dream Within a Dream 23-01-2025

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This dream was highly unusual firstly because it finished ~ 8 AM, which is late and secondly because of the utter vividness of the last segment. The wife said that I was thrashing about in bed before waking.

As usual I am aware that I am dreaming. We are having a terraced house renovated. It is one of the many Victorian houses in London. The wife and I are going to visit to see how things are going. The front door is wide open, so we knock, shout hello and go in. There are a few young decorators including a black man in overalls in the ground floor back and a young white woman in dungarees up a ladder. From her hair cut and demeanour I know that she is a butch lesbian. She has a roll up cigarette in her mouth and her hair is tied with a red kerchief. We ask how it is going and she says that the are pretty much on schedule.

The wife needs to get the tube to Wimbledon for work and I know we are in South London. As we go to leave the woman says to me, “as-salāmu ʿalaykum.” I say the same thing back and she says no I must say, “wa ʿalaykumu s-salām”. Which I do and we have a laugh. I say, “see you soon”. I know that she is not Muslim.

As we leave the property the wife is partially down the street. I call for her to stop. I am wearing black knee length riding boots. I take these off and put them in the pile of debris in the front “garden”. I catch up with the wife barefoot. We head off to the underground.

Later in the dream I return to the house around dusk. I can’t at first see it. Then I see a bright pastel blue two seater sofa in the bay window and bright royal blue walls. I know this to be the place. So again, I knock and shout hello before entering. The doors are unlocked. In the back room I find the black man he has finished for the day and his overalls are on the back of a chair. He is sat looking at something on the dresser. He has round wire rimmed spectacles on and I know that although he is decorating he is scholarly. We inspect an antique radio made out of finest wood veneer. It is playing a radio station. The wires are old school entwined pair. Slowly with a jeweller’s screw driver he lifts the top off so that we can look at the mechanism. Where I was expecting some valve amplification of signal someone has patched in a FET amplifier circuit. We both comment that this devalues the piece but both agree it is a thing of beauty. He asks me what the story of the house is.

I say that the previous owner lived here for around ninety years and before that his dad. The house has been in the family since construction. He has recently died.

At this moment an older man appears he is dressed in tweeds. He asks, “what did you say about my son?” I say that I did not know him personally but the rumour is that he was a very genteel and nice man. I know that I am talking to the ghost father of the previous owner. He shows me to a cupboard where there is a magnificent brass telescope and tripod for bird watching. I ask what the arrangement for picking up the keys is when the decorating is finished. He says that someone from the office will be in touch. I note a very feint hint of Afrikaans accent. I leave and go home.

Next, I awake with a start in a double bed with crisp linen sheets and a polished wooden frame in a dark antique wood. There is an antique dresser made to the same high standard and of the same dark wood (mahogany?). I am in the down stairs bedroom of the house. There is a window looking out onto the back “garden”. I know in the dream that I am dreaming the room and the bed. I must wake up so that I can get back to my normal bed. On the dresser are two highly unusual pill bottles. They are bright lurid purple with small white metallic bottle tops. I try to read the handwritten labels. I cannot discern clearly. The glass of the bottles is opaque. I wonder if I am supposed to take them in the dream. I decide not to.

In the room next which is now of large proportions I see the father and son dressed in a manner of the early part of the twentieth century looking at a large table with maps and charts on. There is an architectural drawing on an easel. The father is smoking an old style pipe and has a watch on a chain. They do not see me.

I go back to the bedroom to try to figure out what to do.

I lie down on the bed and something inside draws me to look at the window. I see a female face pressed against the window. I am utterly startled in the dream, shocked. I clasp my hands to my chest and say “fuck”.  The woman sees that she has startled me and apologises profusely. She gestures for me to open the back door. I do this and let her in. She says that she has not been in the house for a long time. She is dressed in a modest sized vintage bustle dress of a maroon colour. She says that she has come to observe what is going on. I note a South African accent. She says that back in the day her father had a roving eye and that they suspected he had a mistress in London. He used to travel regularly between home, the plantation, and London. She thinks it possible that her “brother” got the house instead of her. Implied is that the house owner is her half-brother by another woman.

The dream ends and I wake with a start. Where did that come from?

The first thought was of a reversionary property the wife has and what if someone has just died.