Dreams?

I've been having the most vivid dreams recently.

Strange and vivid dreams actually.

First there was the dream where my best friend very dramatically grabbed me by the arm and quite passionately told me that under no circumstances was I allowed to get pregnant, 

because she's trying for a baby and if I got pregnant first she would be devastatingly upset 

and never talk to me again.

Then there was the dream that I went to university one day with all of my clothes of backwards.

Then there was the really horrible two-parter dream 

(does anybody else have those?) 

where my friend Tariq was killed right in front of me. 

I held him whilst he died and it was tragic.

I was so happy to wake up and realise that it was only a dream and wasn't real. 

What were real though were the feelings that I had all.morning.long.

I was desperately melancholy and just generally sad.

I had to give myself a bit of a mental shake and tell myself to get a grip! 

I don't even know anybody called Tariq for crying out loud.

So I thought to myself, I know that my dream wasn't real, so why am I having such real feelings?

Weird. 

And then I thought about it a little bit more and mind boddled. 

Seriously.boddled.

Does this happen to anybody else?

Further boddelings of my mind

We were in the car, driving through the beautiful hills of Scotland - just past Gretna Green - when we saw a little hand painted sign, blue it was, that said 'the last house in Scotland', and had a small arrow pointing to a house.

Then we drive past said house and a hundred yards down the road and see another sign.

'Welcome to England.'

Boom.

Just like that. 

Scotland one second, England the next.

And just as quickly as we've crossed the border back into the Motherland, two boddles enter my mind.

The first one is this; do the people that live in that humble abode that is signposted as the last house in Scotland, feel as patriotically Scottish as some average Scot that lives in Edinburgh or Dundee?

Because they're practically in England.

They could walk for a minute straight out of their front door and be in Cumbria. 

Their nearest town might be in England - they might do their weekly shop in England.

Their most trusted mechanic might live over the border.

The church that they go to every Sunday might be in England.

But all that being said, are they still Scottish and proud?

My musings on this subject are not limited to this 'last house in Scotland' situation, but for any person that lives on the border or two countries.

My second boddeling was along similar lines.

What accent does a person that lives on the border have?

As suddenly as I jumped (I didn't jump, I drove..) from Scotland to England, does the accent change from Scottish to English?

Or is it just a jumbled up mix of the two?

And if it is how far would you have to travel in each direction until you came across a traditional accent?

Ohh, my head is full of so many questions right now.

I think I need to go and drink a big glass of water whilst I hold my breath to calm my mind, before it EXPLODES.

Colours and a mind explosion

Source

I know that I've said before how I wonder about colour.

Specifically, I wonder if we all see the same colours or if we see different colours, but have been taught to recognise it as a certain colour.

I feel like that makes no sense.

Let me try to explain.

I'll use an example.

We all know that the grass is green.

We look at the grass and we think yes, green.

But what I wonder is do I look at the grass and think green and see green, when somebody else could look at the same grass and think green, but actually see a shade of purple that they've learnt to call green.

Doesn't thinking about that just absolutely boggle your mind.

Mine feels like it's about to explode.

The levels of mind boggling went to a new level for me today.

You know I doing a placement in a children's centre right?

Well all of the kiddies winks that I work with are pre-school age.

So basically that means they're under four.

One of the things that they're asked pretty obsessively by all adults that come into contact with is 

"what colour is this felt tip/flower/ball/pencil/blah blah blah?"

I was doing that today whilst I sat and drew cars with a group of kids and asked them what colour was the pen that I was holding.

They all said blue.

Which it was.

Then I picked up another felt tip that was a lighter shade of blue and asked what colour it was.

They all said blue again.

And then I thought...these kids are so young and they've been taught that this pen is blue.

They also know that the other pen is a darker shade of blue and if I would have held up any other shade of blue I'm sure they would have recognised that too.

But how do they know that all of these different shades are still the same colour?

Let the mind boggling commence.

I think that children must be much smarter than I ever imagined.

Aged beyond comprehension.

I'm not that old. Statistically I'm probably less than a quarter of the way through my life. Which is somewhat of a comfort I suppose. Because really, who likes the thought of dying. In the immortal wisdom of Mr. Robbie Williams, "I'm not scared of dying, I just don't want to." But dying is not what I want to write about. Not today anyway.


A few days ago I was speaking with Chlo. I said how when I was younger and I imagined being the age that I am now, that I would feel so adult and grown up. But I don't. Most of the time I still feel like a sixteen year old girl. (Question to all: Will I always feel this way? Or will my mental age eventually catch up with my body?) I said that I imagined that that I would have everything figured out. I suppose in some ways I do. I mean, I have a husband. And my degree leads me into into a definite career in education. So that's two things ticked off on the big check list of life. But still, I feel far too younger to be living what resembles a grown up life. 


Chlo agreed. It was her birthday a few days ago. She turned 21 and she had a bit of a freak out, because when she was younger she never really thought of herself as ever being anything older than 21. Not to say that she imagined that she wouldn't live past 21, but that she never imagined what her life would be like. 21 is were it stopped. 


And speaking of the future, it's something that is always so far away. In the future. I never think that the present, what I'm living in right now, is a version of the future that my previous self had thought up. In fact it boddles my mind. That's right, boddles. 

Bits of Truth

Feelings Shmeelings

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with this post.
But it is for my dearest Annie's honour/viewing pleasure. In large.

When I woke up this morning I still felt sleepy. I'm not sure if I still felt tired or if it was just a sleepy feeling. Because they are two very different things ya know? Either way Mr.K drove himself to work and I went back to sleep. 


When I woke up again I felt just a tinsy winsy bit bad that while Mr.K got up and got ready for work I blatantly rubbed my lie in right in his face. His stubbly face. (Shave off your goatee dearest, you know I don't care for it!)


Then I marvelled at how soft the new bed sheet feels. It must be a like a zillion thread count. (At least!) Actually, I'm quite sure that that doesn't even exist, but seriously, this sheet is softer than any other sheet I've had the privilege, nay honour, of owning. 


After I'd done a few other menial, housewifery duties, I went into the living room and it was cold. So cold that I could feel it in my bones. So cold that it made my fingers slow when I was sending a text. So I turned on the heater, put on a cardigan and wrapped myself in a blanket on the sofa and I got to think. Thinking about feelings. And my mind boddled*. 


(As a side note, I know the phrase isn't the mind boddles. It's the mind boggles. I'm not stupid. But I like to say the mind boddles to see if anyone notices my mistake. I also sometimes say congrads or congradulations for the same reason!)


But my mind boddled because feelings are such peculiar things. Peculiar and precious. Feelings help us to remember that we're truly alive. We have physical feelings. Like feeling cold or hot. Or feeling ill, tired/sleepy or full of energy. I think that these feelings are straight forward enough. It's easy to recognise that you physically feel cold or ill. The tricky ones are these emotional types. Feeling angry or excited is pretty straight forward too I think. But what about when we feel hurt, or lonely or anxious? Strange feelings. I wonder if they are the same for everyone?


I'm all for sharing feelings. It's how we get to know ourselves and other people better. And there's little that is more meaningful than making profound connections and friendships with people. 


I'm not too sure what to think about this post. It's more thoughtful than my usual style. I feel a bit self conscious about putting it out there for the whole world to read. Not that I'm deluding myself into thinking that the whole world even reads this...






* Something else that boddles my mind is thinking about colour. Well, how we perceive colour. I've always wondered if we all see the same colours. Like when I look at the grass, do I see the same colour or shade of green as Mr.K does? Or do we both see different colours which we know to be green, because we've be told that the colour of grass is green. My mind is spinning in circles right now. Is your mind boddled too? Maybe I will write more about mind boddling some other time.