SammyTheSnake

I'm with my parents and a smattering of other family members in Shrewsbury, visiting grandparents. We're going on a day trip in the car to Ypres. I say to Dad, isn't Ypres in Belgium of something, and he says no, it's just down the road. Who knew? Apparently it's a giant war museum these days because it was all but destroyed in the second world war.

In the way we stop at some traffic lights and Dad hops out to pee in a bush (world's smallest bladder) and the lights go through several changes but it's not our turn for a while, but when it gets to our turn I'm shooting out the window for dad to stop faffing about (by this time he's standing in the middle of the road looking at clouds or something. There are several cars behind us waiting for us to get on with it!

Eventually, we pull up at the end of an inauspicious country land onto a grassy parking area. There's a massive, grandiose but partially ruined Gothic edifice that appears to be the official entrance, it's somewhat reminiscent of the hollow shell of Coventry's old cathedral but made of a very blackened limestone.

We go inside and look at the entrance fee and rules. It's only a couple of quid, but we're only allowed to spend two hours there which we all agree is a stupid rule. We go in and are on a coach driving through abandoned houses and other buildings, most have bricked up windows presumably to preserve them. I think that the rule about only spending 2 hours here sends even sillier given the obvious size of the place.

The coach stops and we all pile out into a slightly fake looking street full of period shops with mannequins depicting typical historical activities. There's a tour guide who starts telling stories about the various buildings and other features. Somehow we've ended up with a Dutch speaking group so u don't understand much of the tour guide's stories, only catching that apparently the rule for washing was that you must use exactly 37 wipes of your flannel.

I investigate a couple of the shops, the signage is all in English and I furrow my Bros trying to decide whether that is surprising or not. One of the shops seems to be a working but historically themes gift shop with the people behind the counter in character as people of a bygone era. Another is apparently undergoing some kind of fitting out and is essentially empty but for a woman moving boxes and such around.

To one side of the street is a broad stream which on closer inspection turns out to have large alligators in it. There's a boy standing right by the edge of the water and I'm concerned that he might get attacked by an alligator. As I'm trying to decide if I should do sobering about that, I realise he's now walking along the back of one of the alligators and reaches down to rub the back of its head! The alligator seems to be happy enough with that and even rolls over for a belly rub! As I look closer, I realise that all the alligators have badly deformed snouts, most of them look like they've suffered some kind of fairly severe and partially healed crush injury. I figure with some confusion that these crocs have been selected (or maybe even deliberately inured) in order to be "safe" in this place.

Harriet is here and reaches up to hold my hand, which I accept with a smile and we walk off into a gentle waking up...

Dream 1 - Soapy Jack takes down the evil accountants.
I'm in the offices of a small accountancy firm where everything seems to be done by hand. At first I think I've got a temporary job there and just get on with the work, categorising expenses and revenue under nominal codes and all the rest of the boring crap accountants are famous for being boring for. After a while I realise there are some key gaps in my understanding that I would have known if I'd been through the basic introductory training and I rationalise this by saying I must have missed that because I'm an undercover agent!

[I think I woke up here and rejoined the dream in a later dream but I remember it as one dream.]

I'm back at the offices outside of office hours possibly to steal some secret paperwork or some other spy like activity and I realise there are several people already here and they've rumbled me. There are 4-5 of them and they all know kung fu, but so do I, so BRING IT ON! We start doing kicks and flips and blocks and the like, I realise that being outnumbered means I have to be creative, so I start throwing staplers and iPhones and anything else that might slow them down enough to make their attacks manageable, I manage a couple of knock down blows and then dive through the window, grabbing the paperwork on my way and run off into the night.

When I wake up, I'm left with the impression that for some reason my character's name is Soapy Jack. No idea what that's about...

Dream 2 - Shopping is complicated:
I'm at the checkout at Tesco with a trolley full of shopping. I start putting items on the conveyor and reach to get a "next customer please" divider, the little track they're normally on has been used for various little items that people decided they didn't want to buy after all, but there is a divider among the creme eggs and other random bits and bobs.

As the customer before me finishes up and leaves and it's my turn, I realise I left my reusable bags in my car. I ponder just using the disposable bags but my car is parked in the near side of the carpark, so I say to the chap manning the till "do you mind if I nip to my car and get my bags, I'll be literally less than two minutes" and I dash out while he blips my items.

The next thing I know, I'm pulling up in my car at home and realise I just drove home on autopilot rather than getting my bags and the checkout guy has been left waiting!

I rush back to apologise and retrieve my shopping. I get a bit distracted and pick up a couple if other things to buy. At the checkout I ask what happened to my shopping and somebody explains that they finished blipping it and put it in the trolley over by the customer service desk where I can pay for it.

This seems like a good idea and I say thank you but it turns out they want to charge me a fee for their trouble and don't want to tell me how much it is. I wake up confused!


Dream 3 - Sneaking through back gardens:
[I had made notes on this with my voice recorder but managed to l lose the recording, so this is somewhat vague and brief.]

I'm at the bottom of a largeish suburban garden, sneaking through, I climb over fences and through bushes and brambles. After going through half a dozen gardens, I start to climb a flagpole or mobile phone mast or something. At the top I perch on a spar that sticks out the side and watch some kids playing in the garden below. There's some conversation with the kids but I can't recall any of it...