Gloves, and Other Tales

A peanut butter slathered banana. Mmmm.

Klinger's Glove series popped into my head today (I think it was stumbling upon Otto Dix in The Guardian that did it). I've always been bewitched by it. I suppose it's the logical progression of a childhood obsession with Outside Over There: from one mesmerically dark set of imagery to the next.

There's something so romantic about gloves, so vital: lost gloves, found gloves. For so flimsy a garment, it certainly supports a great deal of intrigue -- for me at least. I suppose it's all to do with touch: brushing fingers when you shouldn't, electrifying first caresses, longing to hold a hand that isn't yours to reach out for. A glove -- moulded to your hand -- takes on the taint of all this intrigue.

(On second thoughts though, your glove might just be some entirely unromantic half-mothed stopgap you picked up in Boots on an unseasonably cold day... and I could be talking utter nonsense.)

Attack of the Skull-Turnip Creatrures

Cantuccci biscuits (!) -- orange & hazelnut, and an apple

In further adventures on the peculiar dreams front, last night's was a new high (or perhaps low?). It began, in heart-thumping fashion, with two people (it's unclear if I was one of the people, or merely an observer) hiding in a broken-down car from a hoard of consciousness-invading creatures that had the form of a cross between skulls and turnips, with little arms and legs.

These creatures were simultaneously preposterous and menacing: preposterous in that they could be kicked about like footballs, and menacing in that wherever they arrived -- in their hoards -- people disappeared, their consciousnesses fading first, until, devoid of free will, they sort of vanished into the ether.

Our cowering two were happened upon first by a band of hoodie wearers hellbent of stealing the clapped out car. In the scuffle that ensued, the pair found themselves tied up in a garage, observing as their captors worked on the car: all the while fearful of the inevitable arrival of the skull-turnip creatures.

When (of course) they teemed in, the captured pair managed somehow to free themselves, jumping into the car which at first wheezed away from danger in an unimpressive, and lurching first gear, as the skull-turnip creatures thronged after them. Eventually, creature-defying speeds were reached with the successful implementation of forth gear...

The strangest thing of all was that it became evident to one of our hapless pair (who was constantly responsible for rescuing the other of the duo) that only they and un-empathetic psychopaths seemed to remain resistant to the thrall of the skull-turnip creatures -- prompting our protagonist to worry that perhaps they too were a psychopath...

Et Tu, Hedgehog?

A lonely banane

I adore hedgehogs. Adore them. Last night, I dreamt about hedgehogs. And do you know what happened…? I got bitten. The cute little hedgehog that I found under a sofa and was utterly enchanted by bit me.

Mostly I am averse emotional incontinence on the internets, but when even your sub-conscious is telling you that the things that you're enchanted by will literally hurt you, well, you are allowed to throw yourself a pity party. I mean if that isn't a metaphor for life's dashed hopes and dreams I don't know what is.

Below, the best approximation of how I feel right now (but then I always was a lousy drawer).

Lousy drawer…

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirty-Seventh

Sugary jammy dodger tpye thingy.

Second breakfast: Fruit and Fibre and orange juice.

Just watched a shark film. I don't know why. I am already awash in fears: heights, snakes, high speeds, what might be underneath my bed. Just last night, I had a nightmare about a snake. And now I have added more fear fodder to my consciousness. You would think I would learn...

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Seventy-Ninth

Fruit and Fibre.

Today,  I have mostly been eating delicious things. I'd list them all, but it's nearly bedtime and I don't want to make myself hungry. I've noticed that going to bed peckish makes for even more peculiar than normal dreams.

Other than that, I can only report that I smell a little bit like a gift shop today. I used lavender shower gel this morning. And all day long I've been catching whiffs of a smell one tends only to encounter in shops filled with broderie anglaise. (Not to be confused with creme anglaise, which is delicious -- though I suppose broderie anglaise is delicious in its way too.)

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Sixty-Ninth

Doppelganger shreddies & strawberries. 

Most likely you're all tired of hearing about my peculiar dreams, in which case, look away. If not...

Last night in my dream there was a snake that was somewhat furry, and a red panda. They were in a menagerie in a strange abandoned loft, along with various other creatures. Mostly birds. And I was watching, with some friends. We hadn't seen the snake at first. Then it suddenly went for the red panda and I tried to stop it by banging on the sides and giving it a fright; but it didn't work. The odd thing about the snake (in addition to its being furry) was that it took bites out of the panda, rather than swallowing it whole.

I really wish I would stop dreaming about snakes.

Also, there was someone else there who said it wasn't a red panda (I'm not sure who). But it was. What can it all mean?

Breakfast the Fifty-Ninth

Honey Nut Cornflakes and banana.

I had infuriatingly dull dreams last night –– about computer hacking, and banking fraud. In Wales I dreamt about hot air balloons and foxes and bears and picnics. Oh, and searching for a loo with a friend I haven't seen in yonks.

I think I probably would have thought the loo searching part had actually happened in real life if it weren't for the fact that immediately after we found a loo, we watched a bear chase a woman up a tree. The bear was moving so fast it actually climbed over the top of the woman -- who only made it half way up the trunk -- and scampered up to the top, causing the tree to bend right over. The tree then snapped back upright, sending the hapless creature arcing across the sky. Incredibly, the woman managed to hold on.

You can see why, after this, I'm miffed to have dreamt about online identity fraud. Though I suppose this is preferable to being menaced by my lampshade again.

Breakfast the Thirty-Second

Honey Nut Cornflakes and banana.

I have just returned from food heaven, namely Cafe Marlayne on Thistle Street. I feasted on scallops and black-pudding, and then Monkish with mussels in a scrummy lightly curried sauce. Yum, yum, yummy, yum, yum. No breakfast will ever match this. I think I'm going to have to become a more accomplished cook. I do a good line in comforting nosh, but can't really make anything that a Frenchman wouldn't turn his nose up at.

Must take myself off to bed pronto. I slept terribly last night. I kept having nightmares and waking up with my heart-thumping as an awful white spectre loomed overhead. Turns out the spectre was my lampshade, in the same place it's always been. Ho hum.