last night I dreamt ... that Frank Spencer took me to arts court

I haven’t written a post since the end of July, and now I sit in front of my WordPress account half asleep to blog about a bizarre dream I had last night, whilst the window fitters replace some of our windows and I feel worryingly like a grown up. Perhaps that explains the dream. But I haven’t had enough coffee yet (two sips) so I have no idea.

Now, initially in this dream I had a baby girl in addition to my three boys. I was trying to feed her baby food from jars – something with vanilla in it, and something to do with carrots. Beyond that I couldn’t tell you. But she wanted to go to sleep so I let her, and got on with some other things.

The next thing I know, I’m in front of this court, well, more like a tribunal, to have myself deemed worthy by the Men for Mothers in the Arts and Sciences. New wave star Adam Ant and rad astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson were members of the decision panel. Frank Spencer, aka Michael Crawford’s role in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, was up against my very own grumpy boyfriend, making wild claims against me.

Frank Spencer said I don’t do enough for my children because the only books I have to read for university are “the very thin ones”, meaning Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and Peter Sansom’s Writing Poems. Grumpy boyfriend said “Have you seen the bookcase in our living room, overflowing with thick textbooks and literature? She has to read those too!”. Frank Spencer was not convinced. He said my poetry was second-rate and I ought to give up now and get back in the kitchen.

Curse you, Frank Spencer. You always seemed like such a nice boy.

During a break in the proceedings Adam Ant led everyone in a flash mob of Prince Charming, and Neil deGrasse Tyson took me to one side and said he expected lots of hugs after the verdict. He was nice and smiley and very encouraging. He probably wasn’t really allowed to be so biased from the outset, but hey, dream logic.

Then it was revealed that I’d done a single of a pop medley which was, for reasons unknown, comprised of “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and “There are Worse Things I Could Do” from Grease, and some mixed in clips from “Men in Black” by Will Smith and “Body Movin” by Beastie Boys. My friend Katie brought the song as evidence on my behalf. My renditions of the Grease songs moved everyone to tears. I was the new Adele. This is when I really realised it was a dream. Katie took the song into a stranger’s house where the carpet was brown and immaculately clean but dotted with shocking pink 1970s rag rugs, and a big golden retriever dog was sleeping on the couch. The occupants of the house were a bunch of extremely nerdy hipsters who all loved my track.

In the end, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Adam Ant, and all of their cronies in the Men for Mothers in the Arts and Sciences decided I was absolutely expected to pursue a career in the arts, that my children would benefit from this, and that Frank Spencer was, in fact, kind of stuck in the 1970s where you could still try it on with keeping women in the house having babies and making sandwiches. There was, as predicted by NdGT, lots of joyful hugging. I even patted Frank Spencer on the shoulder and said “sorry about your being wrong mate”.

And that was my dream.

This morning, as I sat down to write this post, one of the window fitters passed me and said “Oh, the new life, no one talks to each other, you’d rather be on a gadget!”.

I simply said: “I’m not ‘on a gadget’, I’m writing.”

And now I’m about to not be writing. I’m done.

And grumpy boyfriend is the one making cups of tea for the builders.

Until next time, lovely people!

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