Waterworks and bacon

Last night I was moaning about my poor visual imagination and the brain decided that it had better do something about it, with the result that I had three very vivid visual images while dreaming this morning.

The first two were in a dream about a train journey, a very straight train journey from the top to the bottom of France, Through a large town which turned out not to be Paris, rather some large town to the north of Paris, name unknown. Then, without much regard to geography, a strong association to Sedan, the place where the French got bashed by the Prussians in 1870 or so. Then, a sense that we were headed straight down to Marseilles. As I say, little regard for geography, rather a strong association to Thyde Monnier, the author mentioned at reference 1 who came from there. Although I did not recover the actual name until some time later when I asked google about 'Nans Le Berger'.

I am then in the dining car, at a table with three other people. Very vague. A rather plain, middle aged waitress asks what sort of sandwich I would like. A very vivid image of some very thin and rather small corned beef sandwiches behind her. Made with thinly sliced white factory bread, with one slice from a standard block of corned beef to the half sandwich. She offers others but I opt for the vivid image.

We then move onto water and the waitress fills up my glass. A slightly odd glass, clear and shaped a bit like a small jug without a handle. With the top rim sloping down to the open spout. Even odder, one can fill the glass up to well above the level of the rim, the meniscus holding it all together surprisingly well. But if one then just touches the face of the water just above the spout, the whole lot whooshes away leaving the glass three quarters full. A regular avalanche of the stuff. Another very vivid image of the glass, full right up and over, waiting for the off.

My table companions think that this is all very amusing and they have a go too.

Meanwhile, France rushes past outside the window of the dining car.

Sort of wake up.

The third was part of a fragment rather than of a dream proper, maybe an hour later. I was boiling up a small piece of very pink gammon in a rather large sauce pan. There was a problem with the amount of water, of which there seemed to be far too much. I scooped some out with a jug and then there seemed to be far too little. Furthermore, the gammon was floating, three quarters out of the water, in which position it was not going to cook very well.

Problems compounded by my having forgotten to tie the gammon up, and being only a piece rather than an entire gammon, it was starting to break up into lumps, rather in the way that some tree stumps can do when they have been out in the weather for a while. I suppose the gross structure of a tree trunk does bear some relation to that of a pig leg. Grain and all that. One thin sliver had already broken away altogether. But I did get a very vivid image of the pink gammon as it started to break up.

Cooked, but not overcooked, and if I could have held it together it would have done very well.

Wake up again, this time properly.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/a-tale-of-country-folk.html.