dreamed by Carmilla

I have this recurring dream, there’s this big old victorian house, the kind you only get milling about in the English countryside. It’s near the sea, but I don’t know where. Long gravel drive, little wooden porch covered in rambling roses, you know the kind, impossibly pretty and expensive ! I know it’s mine, or rather mine and my husbands. It’s the mid 1970’s or thereabouts, ‘74 seems about right, definately not modern day. I don’t know how I know all this stuff, but I do :o) I swear, I could draw you a layout of that whole house right now, down to the garden, the wallpaper and flooring ! I could even tell you what everyone was wearing and the drinks they had in their hands ! It’s truly bizarre how real it is !

We’re in the back garden, my husband and I, it’s a really gorgeous, sunny, warm day and I’m hanging washing out on the line, big white bed sheets so most of the garden is hidden from me by this wall of sheets. I’m standing in the shade of a huge horse chestnut tree so everything is in dappled sunlight with these huge sheets billowing around me in the breeze and birds singing in the trees. It’s really calming, very idyllic.

Somewhere behind the sheets, my husband is attacking the bbq making some burnt offerings and he’s chatting to people over the sound of aimless guitar strumming. I hear more people join in the conversation and there is much welcoming and laughter, it makes me curious, so I sweep back the sheets and step out from behind them to see. There’s a swimming pool next to the bbq, all glittery, shiny water, the place is littered with guitars and tambourines (not unusual for my house !) and lounging about on these big squishy sun loungers around the pool are John Lennon and Paul McCartney, waving and calling a welcome to Jimmy Page and Robert as they wander out from inside the house ! They’ve obviously just arrived and they know us well enough to just wander through the house to find us, I somehow know that I count all these people as close friends, and that I’d been expecting them to arrive.

To save the time, I’ll just give you a run down on what Robert was wearing and skip everyone else ;o) He’s in this wafer thin, light shirt with flowers and paisley patterns on it, it hasn’t got any buttons and its open so I’ve got a glorious view of tanned skin ! He’s in the usual second-skin-jeans, with some scrap of material tied around them as a belt and a few bits of silver jewellery on including a big torque bracelet with a lump of quartz set into it. His hair is a wonderful mess and he looks like he’s just woken up ! Very adorable ! I’m standing there, with a Zepp era Robert Plant in front of me and all I’m thinking is that he looks tired and needs some home cooking ! lol ;o)

Anyway, he catches me giving him an assessing look and says something about being in trouble because I’d noticed he hadn’t been looking after himself, my husband laughs and agrees, then turns to chat to Jimmy and the two Beatles. Robert wanders over to me with this huge smile, gives me a big hug and a kiss (friendly, not anything else !), and tells me that he’s come for a rest at the house, asking me if it’s ok ! I mean, as if it wouldn’t be ! LOL I tell him that he’s always welcome and so is Jimmy, and that he should know that by now since both them and the half set of Beatles I have on my sun loungers have been known to eat the fridge bare on more than one occasion !

He laughs and tells me he’s brought me a present, rummages about in a tatty old bag he’d dragged out from the house and produces Led Zep 3 (on vinyl with the pretty spinning bit in the cover), tells me I’ll like it, that it’s the album he’d told me about before (?? who knows !)and he brought me it because he wants me to listen to it and tell him what I think. I fetch one of those portable record players that you can wind up, the 60’s jobbies that everyone had, and we crank up the album and dance about on the lawn to it while he teaches me the words and Jimmy tries to show my husband and the two Beatles the guitar chords ! I usually wake up just at the end of “That’s the way” on side two though so I don’t know what on earth happens after that !