There are few things more tedious than people relating their dreams: so bad luck everyone, because here’s a rather unsettling dream I had a few days ago. I still haven’t shaken it off.
In my dream I am walking down one side of a vast, uneven crater, like an enormous open cast mine. Many miles across. A dry, desolate, empty landscape, no buildings. Mounds of spoil. Stones and gravel underfoot.
It is dark: grey, twilight, gloomy. When I look up, I can’t see the sky. When I look down, the bottom of the crater disappears in deep pools of darkness.
I’m part of a group of maybe a dozen or so; it’s hard to be sure in this murk. We are the only people. We’ve been walking for ages, following a path zig-zagging down the side of the depression, and don’t seem to be making any progress. Maybe this is because of the sheer distances involved, or maybe it’s just dream logic.
I believe that we are underground, and that for some reason we all have to live underground. I believe that somewhere high above me, hidden in darkness, is a ceiling of solid rock, like we’re in an enormous cave deep below the surface.
At some point I turn to the person walking beside me and say, “Why do we have to live underground now?”
And he says, “This isn’t underground. We are all dead.”
And I wake up.
Along the riverside path
Weird, huh? And, it has to be said, just the tiniest bit creepy. “Where do you go to, my lovely,” Peter Sarstedt asked back in 1969, “when you’re alone in your bed?” It’s a good question, Peter, thanks for asking: turns out I go to the land of the dead, which, somewhat surprisingly, appears not to be Caithness after all.
Cliffs near Sarclet
It’s not often that I compare myself to Hamlet—except we’ve both been called fat and scant of breath—but when he says, “O God I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have bad dreams”, I reckon I know exactly what he means…
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TECHNICAL STUFF
Here’s the pattern chart. As I said the other week, the only change I’ve made is to have the cables and ladders every seventh row, instead of every eighth as in the original. It’s a great combination, and the narrow bands and the number of cables really make for a highly distinctive effect without being too “busy”. (Though all those cables every seventh row does sometimes feel like getting detention.) Anyway, we’re getting there, and maybe later this week I may even be in a position to start the underarm gussets.
Really stunning pattern and very much liking the colour. On another note altogether–congratulations on the accreditation in your non-knitting role.
Thanks Sharon! Twice!
Wow, complex pattern!
All the zigzags, and getting longer … hmm. Maybe you were dreaming walking down the gansey pattern.
I like forest green, but I must confess I like grass green even better.
Hi Tamar, I think the bit of the dream that might have bled in from reality was the sensation of trudging along for hours and yet making not apparently making any progress! ?
The green is Frangipani olive green – it looks like the sort of colour the us army might have worn if it had got a bit nippy in the jungles of Vietnam…
Thank you for quoting Peter Sarstedt! I was a child living in the UK when that song was popular and my brother even learned to play it on the guitar, albeit badly. That was some dream. Lately I’ve been dreaming that I am back at work. Since I recently retired, that is a nightmare of epic proportions.
Hi Wendy, I do carry a bit of a torch for the pop songs of my childhood (late 60s/early 70s). As I only heard most of them on tinny transistor radios I had no idea how complex or rock’n’roll many of the arrangements were! Songs I felt were a bit “meh”, when I hear them now I’m blown away by how good they are. (Not Clive Dunn’s “Grandad”, though, or Ray Stevens “The Streak”… *shudder*)
Let’s both wish ourselves sweet dreams!
Good to see your progress with this pattern. Having made ganseys with Forres/Findhorn I know what all these cables feel like doing. This pattern is not unlike the Filey pattern. As to your nocturnal perambulations, please don’t meet with Dante, Virgil and Beatrice. Too many ganseys still to make.
Cheers Kevin, thanks for the words of consolation. And yes, it feels like an authentic Filey pattern to me too.
I haven’t met Dante or Beatrice yet, but I did meet Virgil. I asked after his brothers Scot, John, Alan and Gordon and all the other Thunderbirds on Tracey Island. He didn’t get it.