A Basket Of Fruit For Ma

When I was a kid I used to get real bad nightmares. Tell you the truth it was only one real bad nightmare because it was always the same one and it came round every year. Never missed.

In the dream I'd be running through a long dark rail tunnel. Running right over the sleepers in the middle of the track. I was always carrying a basket full of soft fruit for Ma and getting close to the blue sky at the home end of that darn tunnel.

Every time I had the dream I'd think I was going to make it, then I'd hear the sound of the steam train thundering along the rails behind me. It was always one of those Casey Jones jobs with a cow catcher on the front and a big round lamp in the centre of the boiler. It was always travelling fast.

I'd start to run and the faster I ran, the faster it came up behind. The ground would got boggy underfoot so that my feet sank in and eventually stuck fast. I always woke up bathed in sweat just before the train hit.

The night before the last exam paper I ever took, the damn train hit me. I remember expecting to wake up just before the big bang but I didn't. It just kept on coming. Ran me down, mashed me and the basket of soft fruit I was taking to Ma so you couldn't tell where plum and strawberry ended and little Milt began. I remember hovering up there somewhere, looking down on the scene and thinking that we were a real mess, me and that basket of fruit.

I never had the nightmare again, and Ma never got the fruit.

I've been hovering around up here ever since, just watching you all struggling along in all the boggy bits down there.

Gran's Bidet

There's a highly informative piece on bidets over on Gran's site today. The only bit that worries me is the perching with your back to the mixer bit. I always get hot and cold, left and right, on and off mixed up if I can't see the twiddler thing. Up and down for some reason doesn't cause a problem.

Also..

I'm not certain about this but I suspect that Cheryl at Mad Baggage has been tweaking her template. Looks to me like she's given it a purple rinse.

I was brave enough to ask the lady at Widow's Walk for her telephone number but she has, so far, ignored the request. I can only take so much rejection!

Gabbi's got a really nice little dog with "magnitude".

Finally, Seize The Night is a girl. She likes shiny things, words...and ninjas and I like what she writes very much. STN - you need a publisher.