Two fruit related dreams

These two dreams occurred on sequential nights when I was staying at my dad's house.

Ice hockey match

In this dream there are huge fruit jellies playing an ice hockey match. They look like comical mascots but are distinctly recognisable as to which fruits they are. They have humanoid arms and legs and wear jerseys like normal ice hockey players.

I am the referee and feel rather amused by the sight of a giant lemon chasing the puck... I blow the whistle and at that moment feel a wave of dread wash over me. I look at the clock and it says 0.03 - three seconds left on the clock. The fruits also look up and see that they were robbed of 3 seconds. They start to argue with each other and soon they are in a giant brawl.

There is a live replay like those point contests in tennis matches. The camera zooms into a solitary brown figure at the edge of the rink, away from where the lemon was chasing the puck. He surreptitiously takes out a whistle and blows it... so I didn't blow the whistle at all?

I realise that it is a chestnut that has blown the whistle.. but chestnuts are not fruit?
Then I wake up.

An awful slice of watermelon

In this dream I am at a house I do not recognise and there are a bunch of teenagers inside having a party. The normal party vibe is there - loud awful music, lots of drinks and high pitched laughter drifting across the lawn. I see my mother there as a 15 year old and wonder how the roles could have changed.

Something goes wrong, but I'm not sure what it is. The police are called and they arrive in several police cars. I think to myself that they would never understand I was a parent - how could I be old enough to be a parent to a teenager? But obviously I am, and they don't bat an eyelid. The officers run inside to the house to interrogate the kids, and I retreat into a garage on the side.

I open the door and step into the cool abyss. It is totally dark until I switch on the light, and it looks exactly like my office in Hurtsville Private. There is an air conditioning unit on my left, a large desk taking up the far wall with a laptop, a document tray and a telephone - very nondescript, an armchair on the right and utterly nothing on the walls. It is as sanitary as a jail cell.

But there is one difference. On the table is a big white bowl, in which there is one single slice of watermelon. Upon closer inspection it looks deeply red, as if it has been injected with something. I take the piece of watermelon out and it feels heavy in my hand. I bite into it and it floods my mouth with the taste of something wrong.

Then I wake up

Two recent dreams

Breakdown on Pennant Hills Road
(This is a very vivid dream I had in Budapest)



In this dream I am driving along Pennant Hills Rd with my dad in the little Polo. Shortly after we pass the Bunnings in Thornleigh, the car starts to slow down and I feel the weight under my foot is strange.



I see ------Batch------ flash up on the dashboard and wonder what it means.


The car sputters momentarily and comes to a silent stop. We are in the middle lane and the cars are zooming around us. I restart the car and it is silent but somehow it inches into the left lane and we manage to stop.



I get out of the car and call NRMA while my dad looks over the car. The lady asks me for the nearest cross street so I run down to the next street. I can't read the sign in the fading light so have to strain - Erknautz lane? The lady says she's never heard of the Batch problem but will send someone.



When I get back to the car my dad says he has looked all over and can see nothing wrong. Out of nowhere comes a man with a metal detector thing and he passed it over the car. We start to protest but he shows us a thumb tacks he got from the rear tyre.





Where did that come from? I wonder and wake up






Cello exercise and stretchy program




(This is the first vivid dream I had after returning to Australia)




In this dream I am at a concert with Em and we are at a venue I do not recognise. It is on the smaller side and circular in shape, around the stage in the centre. Dvorak's New World symphony is playing, and we are about halfway through the first movement. It sounds somewhat strange though, as if the orchestra is languid and needs a coffee to really wake up.




Suddenly one of the cellists stands up and shouts, Everybody out! She is so emphatic that everyone stands up and starts to shuffle out. We leave the hall and there is a large area outside where many people are milling around murmuring about the abrupt end of the concert.




From the hall, I hear a solo cello playing C.. E... F.. C.. C... on the C string. It sounds like an exercise for the C string, which of course is the most deep and resonant of all the cello strings. It winds its way up the string and back again, repeating the same major 3rd and 4th intervals. It is etched into my head.




I am still holding the program from the concert and in fiddling with it, realise it is actually pliable and soft as though it was a fruit rollup. I fold it in half and try to tear it, but it is yieldy and hard to control the edges. I stretch out one corner of the program until it is almost transparent. The words are no longer on the page and it seems like some sort of painting.




Em says we should busk in the foyer and I realise I am holding my dad's old violin case from the 1960s. When I open it, the violin is actually neither mine nor his, but some other violin I don't recognise. The hair has completely come off the bow and flops in every direction like a released bunch of flowers. I pluck the strings and they are completely out of tune. I turn the pegs and manage to break both the G and A strings whilst tuning. I am completely puzzled as these are not usually the strings that break.




Whilst contemplating what to do with this half broken violin, M comes over and I stop fiddling with the violin to introduce him to Em. He looks much younger and much thinner, with a whole head of curls. It is like an alternative version of him in his early 20s, a version that never existed. He is wearing a cream cable knit jumper and a dark gray blazer, so stylish that could never possibly exist in real life.




Then I wake up.

In my kitchen: June 2018

In the month of May, I spent a week in Budapest playing music and a week road tripping in Romania. I took Barney to Europe so we could have lots of fun baking! He slept for two days after arriving in Budapest but woke up nicely.

Hungarians really love their flour. I was most amused that flour in Hungarian is called Liszt so we were buying random bags of Liszt! There were many types of flour including some "Super fine" flour which Barney loved. There was also flour especially for strudel. The Hungarian rye flour (left) was delicious and so cheap compared to how much it costs in Australia. We also got some buckwheat flour (middle) which had a strong earthy flavour.

Barney made some handsome loaves in Europe, and this was probably the best one that I made for our Saturday afternoon string quartet with the Hungarian boys. Again eyeballing rather than using scales worked out pretty well.

We ate him fresh out of the oven with a selection of cheeses and some excellent Hungarian wine. Sour cherry jam was also delicious, as well as this red onion cheesy dip that a random lady recommended at the market. Music is always better with food!

We ate some incredibly fresh produce in Hungary and Romania. Everywhere we looked there were vibrant colours beckoning to us and we couldn't believe how cheap it all was. The strawberries were amazingly juicy and sweet, like they must have been in the years before they turned into insipid watery strawberry-shaped objects. The tomatoes would just burst with juice as soon as you sank your teeth into them, also an incredibly strong flavour. The radishes were impossibly crisp and spicy. Everything tasted just how it should taste.

Pengy with a selection of market goodies 

 Strange Romanian tomatoes

More strange Romanian tomatoes

 Romanians love their cheese

Beautiful bowls and cups from Romania

Finally, a picture of the Romanian white bean dip that I reproduced at home when I got back to Sydney. We ate this delicious garlicky bean dip topped with smoky paprikay caramelised onions in Romania and absolutely loved it. The home version to go with Barney was great too.

I'm sending this to Sherry's Pickings who runs the In My Kitchen series.