Rebellion

Last night’s dream revolved around an outbreak of insecurity in Nampula, a city in northern Mozambique. I had pitched a tent in the camping area of a guesthouse, left my possessions inside and gone to visit Dan and Joey, whose house was in the suburbs of Nampula, not the outskirts of Cambridge as it actually is. At one point I distinctly remember hoovering broken glass off their carpet. As I returned to the guesthouse a street shootout broke out and I was forced to take shelter and cower until dawn, at which point I slipped back into the campsite. It had been looted by insurgents, and possessions taken, although the tent itself had been dismantled and bagged back up at the security guard’s office.

The relationship between these dream events and real life is stark. Dan and Joey were the last friends I socialised with pre-lockdown, there is indeed a growing insurgency in the north of Mozambique, I have been meaning to hoover for days, and I am indeed separated from most of my possessions. My dreams are very vivid of late, but I don’t think they create much baffling work for a dream analyst.

When a foodie is confined in a house with a non-foodie it creates many bemusing and comical moments. Gugs at least finds my simplistic responses entertaining.

Late morning Gugs talked about making a salad for lunch, which she did soon after midday.

‘I got lazy with the almonds in the salad. I chopped a few but then just put them in whole.’
- ‘I’ll manage to choke it down nevertheless.’

‘Do you want raisins in the salad?’
- ‘Whether there are raisins or not, it won’t affect my enjoyment of the salad either way, so don’t worry about it.’

‘Do you like Eggs Benedict? We can have a nice breakfast at the weekend and we can put some leaves in a vase.’
- ‘Sounds nice. As does a bowl of cereal.’

My sanity walk this evening was accompanied by an enjoyable long call with my friend Jackie (seen here immediately to my right), and some cows.