Mab of Dream

I think it's safe to say that I'm getting there. The bites have cooled to the point where I can actually see individual ones, as the redness and swelling recedes. In most patches, it's enough for the cream to deal well enough; though there are a couple of patches where the selt-belt in Rebecca has opened them up completely. I've shoved the cream on them and didn't show my Mum while she was eating.

There have been TEN NEW MEMBERS OF KINDLY ONES! Five of those have been in the past six hours and some of those are the very earliest Kindly Ones come back. *happy dances* I've also been in and sent reactivation notices to the half a million dudes who were bouncing. Meli will have the shock of her life when she comes back from wherever she's gone.

Work was a lot calmer. Caroline has returned from her holiday in Spain (where she's bought some land and is having a house built on it!); and both Viv and Sarah were in a meeting all day, so I was able to get on top of things a lot more. Plus, because I was in the office, I was able to apply the cream more regularly, which I think has done a lot to help me heal. For the first time in about a month, I've left work not feeling exhausted mentally.

Before I left work, I nipped into Viv's office to say goodnight and jokingly asked her to watch out for flying arrows. I had a dream last night which went like this:

I was in the trenches and the war was the Kindly Ones versus Something Nameless. I went over the top and hit an invisible line (roughly where everyone gets killed if this was WW1), where I just broke out in open sores, bumps, lumps and cuts. I fell to the ground with no skin left underneath this outbreak, and in utter agony. From the ground, I looked across the battlefield and saw Viv being hit in the eye by an arrow. She fell to the ground and I was too injured to get to her and save her.

I woke from that dream in the early hours of this morning. It doesn't take an e-mail to Witchgrove to analyse most of that, does it? I went to bed having to lie on top of my covers, naked, after having had a cold shower, to cool the bites enough to try and sleep - there's the state of my skin in the dream covered; I also went to bed with a mind full of Kindly Ones, hence that. WW1 trench? Bit dramatic, but if my mind was scutting for a war, it's as good as any.

However, Viv got that (with a brief explanation about the Kindly Ones) and asked me what television I'd been watching. Only the Harry Potter film at the cinema, as I don't really watch telly. She asked me if I'd seen anything of D-Day at the weekend. Thinking on it, yes, I had. Only briefly, but it was on at Eric's house, though I wasn't really paying attention.

That was WW2, not WW1, however, it took place in France near to Bayeaux. What's famous about Bayeaux in my mind? The Bayeaux Tapesty, where it shows Harold being hit in the eye by an arrow. Who was Harold? The leader, the monarch. Who's Viv? The boss - the leader/monarch etc of West Midlands Aimhigher. She said that she was only a symbol and that it was I who was hit in the eye by that arrow, in my dream.

Why Harold of all historical deaths? For a start, he held the crown for only nine months, which was a very tumultuous time in English history, beseiged with battles. Obviously historians will argue until the cows come home, but I think that the prevailing view was that he was a shit hot king. Just before the battle which killed him, he had marched his troops up to Stamford Bridge, where he pulled off a victory against the odds. However, the Normans were invading down south, first at Sandwich, then at Hastings. Harold and his warriors were on the wrong side of the country, knackered and needing some time out, but they heard the news and pulled off an amazing march three quarters of the length of England. On the battlefield, he had the upper hand, because he had the high ground, and the Anglo-Saxons (Harold's lot) were winning. However, they got cocky, rode down from the ridge to finish the Normans off, and somehow Harold got isolated and received the arrow in the eye. It didn't kill him - his wounds, shock and loss of blood did that - but it meant that his standard fell, his men panicked and the Normans got to win. Had the standard not fallen to where his people couldn't see it, then the English might still have won the day and the Normans never got a foothold on the country.

Put it all together - this incident with the Kindly Ones has made me feel exposed and vunerable, because of the state of my health at the moment. I feel as though I, as a leader, am going out there to be slaughtered (hence WW1 instead of WW2) and if I don't allow my health to hold me back, I risk losing the support that I currently have and I will be isolated in a very dangerous position.

'kin Hell, my subconscious is melodramatic! Dream analysis isn't my forte, but I'll assume that there are Grovers reading this who have views on Viv's analysis.

yours
Mab
xxxxx