My erratic sleep pattern was today responsible for a first slumber past 11 am since I was a 16 year old.
That was a time of lazing in the late 1970’s, after I’d completing my GCE exams. This while waiting to start my first full-time job and for my moustache to grow thick enough to survive a slight breeze.
This morning, following spending large swathes of the night in a state of consciousness, I drifted off to sleep around 6am. What followed were five hours of vivid dreams, during which I landed a job changing the wheels on Daleks and decided to start playing cricket again.
Unfortunately, I was unable to carry out the wish to re-start indulging in the pastime of cricket, the consequence of the Daleks putting me on a work shift pattern that included weekend work.
Historically, Daleks had only worked Monday-Friday, spending their weekends resisting the need to exterminate, instead indulging in their ‘go to’ pastime of orange juggling. Bearing in mind they only have sticks instead of arms, the sight of a Dalek defying gravity by spinning citrus fruit was one to behold.
Lately however, after a recent problem with poor orange crops, they were struggling to get the fruit in the numbers required to sustain this hobby. Juggling one orange with two sticks would be achievement enough for many, but wasn’t a fulfilling enough challenge for Doctor Who’s nemesis’.
Bereft of this unwinding weekend pastime, the Daleks (making a rare use of brisk language) concurred with their leader Frank, who exclaimed “B@ll@cks to this! We might as well exterminate on a weekend now!……. Does anyone know where Piers Morgan lives?”
With their new schedule of 24 x 7 extermination, I was required weekends to respond to any wheel related problems.
It was a busy role keeping the old castor wheels, that have propelled the Daleks for decades, fit for purpose. Particularly as they weren’t really robust enough to mitigate against the wear and tear caused by widespread introduction of speed bumps.
So my desire in my dream to restart playing cricket was dead in the water before it even started. I pondered getting around this by teaching Daleks the fundamental of the game. With a view to maybe get a side together, if they could get to grips with it.
After all, if they could juggle oranges with two sticks, surely they can master holding a cricket bat and bowl a googly or a leg cutter…… Couldn’t they?!
After further pondering, though, I concluded training them until they were ready to join the Thacklethwaite ‘No Stairs’ Cricket League Division E would take longer than I had left asleep, so dropped the idea.
I don’t normal recall my delusions of slumber (or indeed my delusions of consciousness), unless they involve the beautiful Aussie actress Margot Robbie or marmite.
If the dream incorporates both Margot Robbie and marmite, it becomes a utopian slumber I never want to wake from….. Although, as I’ve drifted into middle age there’s far more recovery time and eating of marmite on toast in these visions than when I was younger.
