Dreams

Some people claim they never dream, or at least, they can't remember them if they do. They should be so lucky. I seem to be cursed with a very good memory for dreams. Take last night's (please, take it!).

A Russian cookery program. The chef says "Tonight I show you how to make toffee apples, Russian style!" He flipped the lid on a deep fat fryer and poured in sixteen two-pound bags of sugar, giving it a good stir to mix with all that smoking fat.

"Now, we take from the freezer a crow. The bird doesn't have to be frozen, but it peels better." He then picked up a potato peeler and skinned it.

"Voila! Now we stick a stick up it's clocoa and drop it into our sugar-fat and wait for ten minutes. Here are some I made earlier!" And he held up a tray of crow-shaped toffee apples.

It was a silly dream. Martin Luther King had better ones, it has to be said. But it's a typical kind of dream. The night before I was trying to convince Abraham Lincoln that I was from his future and trying to sell him a poppy for Remembrance Sunday. The night before that I was riding a motorbike through a field of strawberries, and as I bumped them, giant strawberries would float up like balloons.

The thing is, I think Heather has inherited all this oddness. Even now Jill is in her bedroom trying to calm her down. The poor little mite is soaked with sweat, crying and babbling about monsters in her bedroom. It's probably the Russian chef she's seen. He was ugly.