Horror Dream Diary: The Cabin

I had this nightmare about 3 weeks after our cat, Arny, vanished in winter 2004. I dreamt that I was walking on a bleak, desolate wasteland where I happened upon a deserted wooden cabin.

Approaching the cabin, I could see that it was quite dilapidated, however it was clearly inhabited but the owner wasn’t around. The wind picked up slightly as I got closer, and the decaying building groaned in response.

I pressed my face against a window to try to see inside. It was dark, but I could make out some shabby furniture and a stone fireplace. The room was unkempt, and the atmosphere seemed stale - a film of dust covering everything, including the windows. Looking down, I saw that the back of a chair rested against the wall just below the window I was looking through, and a tartan blanket was neatly folded and draped over it.

My eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom and I noticed a pair of gleaming eyes staring up at me. It was Arny. He sprang onto the back of the chair and pressed a paw up against the window. His mouth opened as he cried in distress, but through the glass I heard nothing.

An inner voice begged me to get away from the cabin. There was an overwhelming negativity about the place and I knew I should not attempt to rescue him. Most importantly, I needed to get away before whoever lived there returned.

So I turned and walked away from Arny in the dream, and when I woke up the next morning I knew he was gone forever.

Photo of the day: The Sugar Palm, Thailand.

It's amazing how quickly time goes. I can't believe it's 6 months since we were here:

This is the Sugar Palm Resort & Spa in Phuket, Thailand. It was a damn good hotel. Very reasonably priced and excellent service. We stayed there for the first couple of weeks of our trip to Thailand. I took this just before we left. I like the modern, stylish design.

Horror dream diary: Dark World

In this dream I had the ability to look through reality into a dimension beyond – an bleak and desert-like parallel dimension. This alternative world was gradually breaking through into our reality and taking it over!

Occasionally I could see through walls where shapes moved in the dimension beyond. I once pressed my face into a wall and it became soft, moulding itself around me. As I pushed myself deeper into the wall, it stretched like rubber. I used my hands to stretch it thinly enough to become transparent, and looked through. Beyond stood grey, menacing figures, waiting.

Images would occassionally appear on walls as if projected from the other side. I found myself in a house standing in the doorway of an upstairs bedroom. The room was packed with people and they were all seated in rows of chairs facing a blank wall as if in a cinema. A sequence of images began to appear on the wall as I fumbled with my camera that refused to take a picture.

I glanced up and saw cryptic, pixelated images flashing on the wall in rapid succession. Jagged lettering that looked like a corruption of the Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet pulsed on the wall. Colourful abstract arrays of patterns, some resembling a kind of bird (they looked a bit like chicken) also appeared. Lines of identical ones – repeated continuously. A random collection of computer-genearated images.

The pictures stopped and the room was dark and silent. Faces stared blankly at the wall. My scalp tingled and the air felt charged. I knew that something terrible was going to happen and I instantly dragged two people whom I knew from the room. On the landing I shook them from a trance-like state.

The bedroom wall began to glow brightly and the room was lit up intensely. Tendrils of brilliant white light snaked through the air from the wall and onto the heads of each person inside the room, as if burning into their minds. The room continued to blaze with energy for a few more seconds. I looked away as the light hurt my eyes. When the light faded the room was empty.

I went outside with the two people I’d rescued – a man and a woman. Together we broke into a vehicle and hot-wired it. We knew we had to get as far from the house as possible. As we pulled away I looked back at the house and in the upstairs window the faces of those had vanished stared grimly back at us.

Well, that was the only remarkable part of the dream - the rest of it was a good old fashioned industry-standard nightmare – a runaround romp where we were chased all over the place by these “converted” people. There were car chases, more car stealing, a sinister village, and an incident when I was hid from one of these guys in the roof space of a swimming pool changing room! What’s all that about? More and more people got “taken over”, and it got to the point when I was the only person in the world left who was normal.

Virtual haircut

This is a good laugh to listen to... but use headphones and close your eyes or it won't have the right effect! I must admit it felt pretty wierd when they bring the scissors and razor close to your ear.

Gaz’s Creamy Garlic Chicken and Mushrooms

Well this is my very own recipe and it came out very well when I did it last night. I was quite pleased with it considering I invented it myself!

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• 4 chicken breasts diced
• 3 cloves of garlic (minced)
• A load of mushrooms, chopped
• 1 onion finely chopped
• Sour cream (a small tub)
• Lemon juice (a squeeze or two)
• Paprika (2tsp)
• Fresh parsley (a handfull, chopped with stalks removed)
• Salt (1tsp)
• Black pepper (to taste)
• Mild chili powder (1/2 tsp)

Method

1. Heat the pan then add a slug of olive oil.
2. Fry the onion until translucent. (but don’t brown them off, though).
3. Add the diced chicken and fry until cooked.
4. Add the mushroom and cook until soft and juicy.
5. Add the paprika, black pepper, chili powder, salt
6. Add parsley, and cook everything together for 5 mins.
7. Add garlic, stir in, then cook for another 2 mins.
8. Stir in sour cream.
9. Add a twist of lemon (to taste). Add more salt if needed.

All measures are approximate. My advice is to do it all to taste, and just taste it as you go. If it tastes bland at the end, it’s probably because you haven’t put in enough salt. The garlic should be added fairly near the end – if it’s put in near the beginning then it won’t have as much garliciness.

*Note: A splash of white wine might go nicely with this one, but I haven’t tried it.

Sketch of the day: Dining table

This is actually from 3 years ago (July 2004) when I spent a couple of months in Central Asia. It's a quick 5 minute scribble but I like it because it helps me to remember things in a way a photo cannot.

Photo of the day: Get the beers in!

This weekend a mate is visiting... so we've been getting the beers in of course. Whahhey!

Photo of the day: Rainbow

A double rainbow as seen through the skylight. I don't think I've seen that before.

House Price Crash Vids.

As interest rates are probably heading north again imminently, and with us seemingly on the precipice of a house price crash in the UK, here's a couple of vids that I found on YouTube that are quite amusing. The first is from the last crash of the late '80s/early '90s. It's from Spitting Image. All you need to do is swap Maggie for Blair, and "prices dropped by 50 grand" to "100 grand" and there you go!

The second video is my favorite. It mocks the whole media and other vested interest groups' endless ramping and spin on the market, and the government's "no more boom and bust" promise. It's from a couple of years ago, but is still relevant.

Photo of the day: Tomatoes in the kitchen

Yes, folks it's another DrGaz photo of the day. Actually I took it last Sunday when I was cooking my nice Italian-style tomato & basil sauce with pasta again! The lighting in the kitchen was quite dramatic at that time of day. The evening sunlight was really golden and there was lots of shadows and contrast. I hoped that the photo would come out better, but I guess you need a really good camera to capture a certain mood in the way that you intended.

Photo of the day: A nice lane

Portugal Place, Cambridge. I took this whilst walking back from the Labour Exchange on Monday (I am currently on the rock 'n' roll). Don't forget to click to make it nice and big.