The incredible rocking horse stable cupboard thing

I am sitting around biting my nails waiting for my sister to call. I am pretty sure she is delivering her second child right about now. To kill some time I thought I would write down the dream I had last night.Yes I do realise that it is very boring to recount one’s dreams but this one is just so full of maternal anxiety that I have decided it is highly relevant to my blog. Anyway I think mothers will enjoy it, if just to make them feel good about themselves.

James and I were at a house with a lot of expatriate women who I have never met before. I had an overwhelming urge to sleep so I lay down on the lawn (with proper grass so it can’t have been Cambodia). As I did I heard a strange voice saying:

“Why are you sleeping lazy lady? Oh have you got small children? Is that why you are sleeping?”

Then a very young, very pregnant girl with a strangely mobile bump sat down next to me and bounced up and down (in dreams you can sit and bounce at the same time). I was alarmed and told her to stop and asked her when she was due. She replied that she did not know – at least I think that’s what she said as she couldn’t get her words out in the right order. Another equally verbally challenged woman, who I assumed was the one chiding me for wanting to sleep, explained happily that they were cousins and her father was the one who bit her when they all lived together. No, I am not sure whose father bit who, either, and I don’t suppose it matters. Although in my dream I was extremely upset to hear this.

So upset that I wandered up the road to join in another party at a nearby bar. I was chatting to someone for a long time before I realised I had left my toddler and baby at the party unaccompanied. I rushed back to find them and was told, on arrival, that they were last seen with an older girl getting into a black London taxi with my address book, with the intention of visiting all my friends.

Ugh. I can feel the panic rising in my throat just writing about that. As I opened my mouth to scream (or throw up, didn’t get to find out which) the taxi drew up with my babies inside. Sellotaped to the outside was a clear, plastic folder full of pages and pages of printed emails from all my friends saying ‘how sweet the messengers were.’

I felt this was probably time to leave. The hostess evidently agreed, for - while riding her daughter’s rocking horse through mid-air into a cupboard-cum-stable with a cunning automatic roof-lifting device - she hinted to me that she really did need to get the house ready for Christmas. I packed my things.

It was not until I got to the top of the road, where I was searching for a tuk-tuk (you are unlikely to find one in London. I see that now), that I noticed Jemima standing looking up at me with a did you forget something? expression on her face. I had left my children behind again.

What I am wondering is, will I be able reproduce the design of that incredible rocking horse stable-cupboard, patent it and make my fortune?

Oh! NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH my sister just called to say she’s had a boy! Henry Alexander! Hurrah! Congratulations! At home in the birth pool! Wow! I’d better sign off before I feel tempted to write another post entitled something like “what the hell am I doing a million miles from my sister and her brand new baby?”