Moving house is a bitch!

Well ... we have recently moved houses... to our very own new house - which is currently filled with boxes. They say moving is the second most stressful life changing event (after divorce) and I would totally agree. Added to this stress was the fact that we were staying in Gert's parent's place due to a disagreement with ex-landlord and clearly not friend about a new addition to our family - Tony the Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

Gert and Tony - Day 1

After some frenzied packing and two trips with a VW truck filled with bits and bobs and boxes of stuff, we managed to move everything into the house... WHAT A RELIEF!

It is safe to say that I dislike moving intensely. 

We found some things... different ... from how we expected them to be. The fact that the previous owners took the washing line, that we can't have non-fluffy pets (spiders and snakes), the plastic seat on the toilet and that we have to lock Tony in the house for an entire day because the garden service is there. 

On the plus side - it is OUR OWN HOME - which means, apart from the complex rules, we can do what we want! HELL YEAH! 

.... Now just all the unpacking!

Wolf Dream

I never seem to remember the happy dreams strange as that is.

Sourced from Dreammoods.com:

To see a wolf in your dream symbolizes survival, beauty, solitude, mystery, self-confidence and pride. You are able to keep your composure in a variety of social circumstances and blend into any situation with ease and grace. You are also a loner by choice. Negatively, the wolf represents hostility, aggression, or sneakiness. It may reflect an uncontrollable situation or an all-consuming force in your life. This could point to an obsession, an addiction or something that is beyond your control.

To see a white wolf in your dream signifies valor and victory. You have the ability to see the light even in your darkest hours. 

To dream that you kill a wolf indicates betrayal. Certain secrets will be revealed to you.

To hear a wolf howling in your dream represents a cry for help from somebody in your waking life. 

I suppose dreaming about red-eyed black wolves would be seen in a negative light. So here is how it went. 

Gert and I were going on holiday. The car was packed and we were doing the last checks on the house. We walked to the car and got in, with the sky still dark before the dawn. As Gert switched on the car lights a black shape moved from the shadows into the path behind the car. The movement caught my attention and I turned my head to look behind us. A huge black wolf stood behind the car, its eyes glowing red, a snarl curling its lips back from its teeth. 

"We can go around the other car." Gert said. 

Amazingly our car managed to fit into the small space between the car next to us and the wall in front of it so that we could exit out the third garage door. We drove off and I thought nothing more of the incident. 

Sourced from http://bit.ly/JForHe

We arrived at our destination in a light snow storm. The log cabin, with trees surrounding it, was shrouded in darkness with only a solitary porch light to guide our steps. Gert left the car lights on so that we could see our way to the door with bags in tow. The door opened and the sounds of laughter and conversation seeped out into the cold night air.  

I lugged my back into the warm entrance hall give Gert space to fit in so that our host could close the door. We smiled, hugged and greeted a man with dark hair, about a head shorter than Gert. He was one of Gert's friends so I left them to talk and went up the staircase to the room he had said was ours - the one at the end of the hall. 

The rest of the dream was a montage of us having dinner, drinking, playing board games and laughing with the three other couples in the cabin.  

"I am getting tired. I think I will go to bed. Good night everyone." I said as I stood and kissed Gert on the forehead. 

I walked out of the lounge into the hallway next to the staircase. The front door was open and the storm had picked up, blowing swirls of snow into the entrance hall. I walked towards it to close the door. A low growl floated in on the wind as my hand grasped the door. I scanned the treeline. The wind played with my hair and snowflakes settled on my clothing and face. A shiver ran through me as I looked harder into the shadows of the trees to the right of the house. Red glowing eyes blinked at me. I gasped and slammed the door shut. 

"You ok?" Gert asked as he came through from the lounge. 

"I don't know. I think I saw something in the woods." I said stepping away from the door and into his arms. 

"Don't worry. There is nothing out there." He said hugging me. 

I nodded against his chest. "You coming to bed?" I said, pulling away from him. 

"In a little while."

I kisses him quickly before going up the stairs. They creaked with each step I took, grating my already fragile nerves. 

Our bedroom door was open at the end of the hall. Seemingly far away, it took forever for me to get to the doorway. I put my hand on the door jab as I peered into the darkness. Movement in front of me caught my eyes and the shape turned, revealing red eyes. I moved slowly backwards, not moving my own eyes from those red eyes and for each step I took it kept pace with me until it was almost out in the corridor. The light from the wall fixtures just touched its muzzle and softly highlighted the black fur around its face. 

I turned then and ran for all I was worth. My heartbeat drummed in my ears and as I slipped on the wooden floor at the bottom of the stairs I saw its foot touch the floor. 

"Gert!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, as I got to my feet again and ran full tilt towards the lounge. He caught me around the middle and spun me behind him. The wolf came to a stop a few short feet away from us. A growl rumbled from it, increasing in volume as it bared its teeth. Its fur bristled, shimmering with the vibrations of its growl. I looked up at Gert as he looked down at me. 

"Run!" 

As we ran towards the kitchen I woke up.  

The Devil, a Banishment Spell and a Pile of Sea Shells

So yeah... another weird and wonderful dream entered my REM cycle the other night. This time it was about the devil, as I seem to have a fair few dreams about demons and possession I decided to check out what it means. After trolling through a few websites one gave me a few answer (though they may not be really apply). Dreamhawk.com:


Demon: Expression of things in life and yourself that you feel threatened by. You may feel an urge is sinful, so you repress it.

Devil: (as in THE Devil) All those desires, ideas, habits, that have come into your life, that go against the promptings of your deepest nature. All the aspects of life of which you are not master and which can therefore influence you against your will. For instance, you may not be master of anger, emotions, hungers, ambitions, and these may lead you to do things that deep down you do not wish to do.

And this from Dreammoods.com: To see seashells in your dream represent security and protection. You are not showing your true self or real feelings. In protecting yourself from getting hurt, you are also becoming reclusive and emotionally closed off.

So seemingly this indicates that I have some sort of conflict within myself or with someone else and I am trying to protect myself.


This is how it happened...







The dream began in a house that didn't look like one I had lived in before but that I knew I lived in. It was day time and a breeze was blowing as I walked to the front door with bags of sea shells on each arm. My current housemate, Adrene, was at home with her parents and a bunch of other people. I showed her mom the shells and then went to my room, which had an en-suite bathroom with a hole in the shower wall that leads to another room with cabinets in it.

The dream shifts and it is night time, I am standing with Adrene and something happens... seemingly she is possessed by something. An malevolent voice emanated from her as here eyes changed to an eerie florescent green-yellow colour, "I am The Devil, Satan, Beelzebub. Bow down before me."

I looked at her, mildly annoyed, mildly perplexed and mildly scared. "I don't think so." And ran for my room.

Some of it is a bit vague in my memory now, but I do recall Adrene's father telling us (her mother - El-marie - and myself) that we should do as we are told and El-marie and I praying in quiet rooms away from everyone else.

El-marie and I knelt beside the bed, as you did when you were a child, with our heads bent and our hands clasped, praying only loud enough so that the other could hear the words. It felt like hours before we stopped. After a moment we emptied the bags of sea shells onto the bed and looked through them as we discussed the fact that The Devil didn't like sea shells for some odd reason. We heard foot steps and quickly stuffed the shells under the bed. At that moment, The Devil entered the room, now a man and no longer my housemate. Dark hair with skin so pale that the veins were clearly visible. His eyes were yellow and glowed as they scanned the room. (Possibly reminiscent of 'the yellow-eyed demon' in Supernatural.)



"What are you hiding?" He growled.

I stepped towards the bed, hiding the shells from his view. He took a step forward and I leaned on the bed so that the mattress sagged in such a way as to block his view of what lay beneath the bed. "Sorry nothing under there. Maybe you should look somewhere else for whatever it is you are looking for." I could feel my heart pounding but didn't feel like this was the end only mildly fearful but not sure of what exactly ... apart from it being The Devil and all.

He straightened up slowly, inclining his head at me like a predator would then turned and exited the room. I rushed into the bathroom and through the hole in the shower wall to another room where El-marie stood shaking. It was dark and had a bank of short cabinets along one wall. The door was at the other end opposite the hole. A rather odd room, seemingly with no purpose.

"He nearly caught us," she said, on the verge of tears.

"We are going to get rid of him I promise."

I became a viewer and not a part of the dream. Adrene's dad was talking to a large group of people, they cheered and hollered and gestured as people do in large excited crowds. "The Devil is here and we must prepare the world for him." he said. His voice faded and then I was climbing up a steep staircase going up into a dark attic. 

There was soft chanting coming from the other side of the room where a large board with "Spell of Banishment" written on a huge piece of cardboard, there was a shadowy figure kneeling before the board, with an eerie red-orange glow coming from behind the board. The room was filled with mist with swamp-like trees dotted around within the confines of the low-roofed room.

"You can't do this! This isn't the right way!" I shouted into the murky darkness and a moment later I woke up.

Images from wallpaperspuff.blogspot.com and multipleverses.com

The Village that Time Forgot

Still Bay - off www.stilbaaitourism.co.za

Holidays are always fun, especially if it includes flying, seaside views, playing with little hermit crabs and feeling the cold hand of death brush my shoulder on a zigzagging dirt road. This holiday took me to my teenage-hood holiday destination - Still Bay (or more commonly known as Stilbaai) in the Western Cape about an hour and a half (due to roadwords) from George.


Travelling with my mother and boyfriend, the holiday started with waking up at the crack of sparrow farts - also known as 3 - 4 am), travelling to the long-term airport parking, lugging our bags and my mother's cat onto a bus, off a bus and, finally, into the terminal.

A blissful 2 hour trip, with a bumpy landing, later, we arrived in George. The trip in the hired Nissan Tiida 5-door hatchback was surprisingly good, with a 3 stops at road blocks due to road maintenance. The smell of heather is the first thing you notice when getting to Stilbaai, it is pungent and aromatic and may remind you of times gone by, when life was simple.

Still Bay is a sleepy little village nestled in a hilly area with a lovely view of the sea. It is a village as by definition a village is a settlement where the tallest building is the steeple of a church (This is the case in Still Bay). Mainly populated by retirees from Gauteng and some parts of the Western Cape, with a few foreign nationals just for something different, it is a rather slow settlement. There are no malls or clubs or any such thing save for a few pubs and one dingy 'disco' called Drie Ankers. The dance style of said disco is Sokkie... turbo-sokkie as it is most often done to the computerised tunes of techno and trance. The language of choice is predominantly Afrikaans - something I have trouble with as my Afrikaans is rather "kak".

The cloudy day.

As this trip was in between the "in" seasons, the population was at its usual 4 to 5,000 permanent residents, which swells to a whopping 35,000 during the December holidays. Anyway, I digress.

We arrived on a cloudy day, with a strong wind - fun times, I thought.

In the passing days the weather went through every season - sunny and hot, cold and raining, windy and cloudy and on one windy Wednesday morning, Gert (Boyfriend) and I went to the river mouth, him to fish and I to read and chill. Some of my time was spent reading whilst the remainder was spent chasing hermit crabs, finding shells and taking pictures of Gert's fish - Garrick is the species - 6 pictures but 10 fish in total.

le Garrick!

Believe it or not but these are
ALL hermit crabs

Molluscs on
driftwood

Ok so that little black thing you see in the
water is actually a seal!

A wee Blue Crayfish!
(Can't really see the colouring)

I nearly managed to change a tyre - who knew 3 little thorns could do so much damage - Gert arrived to help before I could prove my prowess with a jack and spanner - though I managed to get a sunburn in the 30 min it took him to walk back from the fishing spot.

One-legged seagull

With slow walks on the beach and staring out the windows in the mornings we managed to see more animals than you would see anywhere on the coast - a little bokkie, a stork, a ferret, snails, crabs, a seal, a Cape Robin and other such creatures - including the most graceful seagull I have ever seen (which happened to have one leg). The days were slow, filled with chatting, laughing, eating, going fishing with Gert and pottering around (also a bit of studying - both Gert and I - though more him).

As there was no television we spent the nights playing board games - like Balderdash, reading, talking or getting an early night. Was all in all it was one of the most enjoyable holidays I have had. Good company, good food and good fun!

Morose Musings

It seems like it is another day ... another day where things don't go right and the world feels like it is closing in or crashing down.

And what starts it all? Something at work? A small comment someone makes that is taken out of context or something you say that is taken out of context and leads to you thinking ... is that what they really think of me? Something not going right? Machinery that doesn't work? Money troubles? 

Could it be all of the above or one that aggravates the others? 

Being honest about how crap you feel doesn't seem to help - in fact, you just seem to spread the depression like a dark cloud that leaves no trace of light.  Not being enthusiastic when you feel none, not being "raaraa" when you don't feel the "sisboomba". You try be happy, try cheer yourself up... and it doesn't work. So now what? You continue the sadness and get told that you are making the other person depressed or you tell the other person you don't feel like talking anymore and get accused of being rude... catch 22. 

Oh well... life goes on... whether crap or good.  

Ninja Dogs Dream

Well here is another installment of the weird and wackiness that is my REM cycle.

The latest odd dream revolves around ninja dogs and a Japanese warrior demon. It all begins with my friend, Christine Porter, and I taking a drive through countryside that looks vaguely like that found in the UK. All narrow cobbled streets and leaning buildings. We stopped my car (the one I drive in SA - a blue Ford Fiesta) outside what looked like an old farm yard with white picket fence, old barn and a deserted-looking farm house.  Strangely enough it was right on a main street in a small country town which also happened to be on the edge of a dam that looks remarkably like where my mother stays in Hartbeespoort.

We exited the car and made our way towards the old barn, the sound of hay and gravel crunching beneath our flip flop-clad feet.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" I hollered as we reached the open doorway to the dimly lit barn. No sound came from within - a rather foreboding silence. We walked around the building only and back to my car, seeing neither animal nor person.

As we approached the car, a pack of dogs appeared on the road before us, beyond the front of the car. They were medium-sized and pure black with white faces, all identical (almost like the picture but actual dogs - similar to to the Husky breed). Christine looked at me as I turned my head to look at her. Seemingly the same thought in our heads. RUN!

I ran to the passenger door, and Christine headed for the driver's side. I fumbled with my keys as I pulled them from my bag  and threw them to her. We jumped in almost simultaneously and Christine started the car. It roared to life and she slammed it into first gear just as the first dog jumped at my window.  The car skidded away to the sound of yelping dogs and I looked in the rear view mirror to see them running after us through the plume of dust my tires kicked up. My sigh of relief was short-lived as I looked back to the road, only to see a dog somehow climbing from the grill and onto the bonnet (no idea how that is physically possible). It growled and on a closer looked its fur was in fact a ninja suit. I leaned out the window, seeing a sharp corner coming, and grabbed it by the scruff of its neck.

"Throw it into the dam!" Christine shouted as she took the corner at a speed and the car drifted on the sandy street.

I let it go and it went flying through the air, landing hard and rolling the last few feet to the dam's edge. With a sploosh it sank beneath the water as we high trailed it out of there.

It swapped into another dream at this point.

Zombie Dream

Yet another weird dream. This time I felt the urge to share it with the world. Though very few people seem to actually see this. Anyway, I am getting off track. 

So zombie dreams. According to www.dreammoods.com, dreaming about being attacked by zombies means the following:
To dream that you are attacked by zombies indicate that you are feeling overwhelmed by forces beyond your control. You are under tremendous stress in your waking life. Alternatively, the dream represents your fears of being helpless and overpowered.


I am not totally convinced but you can tell me if you think it fits in with the dream. 


Starts out with me and a few other people, including my short and slight cuddly mother, walking into a large building with a predominantly steel and glass exterior with concrete pillars and floors on the inside. As with most zombie movies, the building was dark, creepy and falling into a state of ruin. 


On entry we were set upon by several armed people, some carried guns and knives, others random gardening equipment or bats. 


"Get out, you are not welcome here," a burly grey-haired army-looking man growled (He looked like the guy from Avatar and Terra Nova). 


"You don't own the building, I didn't see 'Property of Asshole' written on the front." I said, my hands tightening on the shotgun I held. (Last time I used a shotgun I had a bruise the size of a tennis ball on my shoulder... as you can see that is a funny thought... me brandishing a firearm.)


He begrudgingly nodded his head, "Fine, you can stay but keep clear of us."


As the man and his group began to turn away, the distant but unmistakable sound of zombie-esque growling came from the hallway behind us. 


"Hide, Mom!" I shouted as I turned towards the horde of the undead running lopsidedly towards us. 


She found a door that lead outside and hid (didn't make much sense to me even in the dream) behind a concrete slab with a window that one could easily see her through. Apparently zombies are stupid and can't tell if a person is alive or not if they freeze. 


Anyway, myself and the group we had just met fired, bashed and slammed into the first wave of zombies before they gave up and made a speedy retreat (or as speedy as a zombie can be). 


My mom returned to my side and the army guy gave me a nod of approval before leaving with his posse. We searched the building for a transport device, which turned out to be a teleporter. 


"We will get to the airport. It isn't too late. He will be there." I told her reassuringly. 


We waited the night for some reason (possibly waiting for someone to repair the teleport pad). 


In the morning, we hopped onto the teleport pad and WOOSH SPLAT! we arrived at the airport. The funny part was that the teleport pad on the other side had been damaged and stood at a decidedly bad angle, meaning that as we came through, we were flung across the tiled floor. The airport was light and strangely clean, apart from the mangled metal structure that held the teleport pad. The rows of airport chairs were filled with people, chatting and laughing. A man with an afro sat in the centre of the front row, strumming a tune that sounded vaguely familiar. He looked up as I skidded to a halt a few feet away and got to my feet. He was a light-skinned African-American (who looked like the blue-eyed doctor from Grey's Anatomy - you know the one). He smiled, got to his feet and shrugged a backpack over his shoulder, holding the guitar by the neck. 


And that is where it ended. Really odd dream but funny! 


Image from http://www.666gamer.com/images/

The New Year: The Year of the Dragon

Well, it is a new year and a relatively new job. Starting my own business was far more difficult than I anticipated and as a result that dream has been put on the back-burner until I have enough money to get a business off the ground.

I have recently entered into the employ of a company by the name of RedInk Multimedia. After four months of organising, sorting and administration, I have settled into the role of Administrator... not one I enjoy but for the moment I will 'suck it up' and get on with my work.

Being the year of the dragon, I hope this year is one of adventure, new experiences and success. Whilst at the New Year Cultural Festival at the Nanhua Buddhist Temple, I made a wish for just those things. It was really quite an experience. Apart from the hustle and bustle of hundreds of people (something I dislike intensely), it was a great experience. The food was fantastic despite the lack of meat, the entertainment was beyond my expectations and the company was new and totally enthusiastic.

With the offering light ceremony at the beginning, filled with chanting and the ceremonial lighting of candles and then placing them on the tables before the statues, the day started on a sombre note.

We went to get food and possibly the biggest milk tea drink I could have possibly imagined ... the straw was as think as my middle finger.  It is HUGE!!!! And I thought my giant tea cup was big.













We watched the Opening Ceremony which consisted of a dragon dance and 3 tigers doing jumps and tricks.  The dragon was carried by about 20-25 men doing jumps and running around the open area... the tail end being the ones that had to run the most - having to catch up with the rest of the body.













The tigers were in different colours: a purple (in the back of the picture to the left), a golden one (in both pictures) and a red one. The tigers have 2 men in them who jumped onto wobbly benches, unsteady stands and high tables - seemingly with ease!




 The day ended with some quick shopping - didn't buy anything though except a parasol for the sun when watching the opening ceremony, making a wish and throwing it onto the wish tree, visiting the museum to see ink art and driving our way home!



So this year should be an interesting one, apart from doing my honours in Psychology (a daunting task in itself), I have a relatively new relationship under way (a full 8 months) and the prospect of moving to a new place together and a new job.