Chocolate Full Moon Dreamboard

Careful What You Wish For... Even When You Don't Realise That You Are...

Today Jim unearthed a whole cache of wonderful things... like the A3 paper for my printer that I've looked EVERYWHERE for, well except I hadn't, obviously... and some art materials that I've been missing... and this cutting from a magazine.

Jim had cut it out because it has a tortoise on it.

When he was a child he wanted a pet but his parents weren't keen. Then a stray tortoise turned up and, even though they found its owners, Jim got to keep him.

Scroll forward to Valentine's Day 2004.

At that time the Guardian newspaper's Saturday magazine had a column called "That's My Pet!" - it featured three people, sometimes celebrities and others too, and their pets. The idea was to match up the person with their pet(s). Jim was good at guessing whose pet was whose.

In this cutting, not especially carefully saved, but saved nonetheless, were a tortoise, a cat and two dogs. But not any old dogs, though in those days neither of us would have recognised them without the useful caption:


It took a few years but I think the seed was sown without our realising it then... Here is Teasel, the Miniature Schnauzer, that's my pet now:

And the cat? Well it was called Luna.

At the time of that column, early 2004, we were just about to move out to a rented house in Minchinhampton. Whilst we were there we got this house done up and on the market but it didn't sell... there were lots of strange things going on... for instance:

• The only people we managed to attract through private advertising turned up on a day when there was a thick bank of fog... which almost never happens... and it most definitely detracted from the views we enjoy:
  
  
  
  
  
• The first set of estate agents proved strangely incompetent - given that they are still in business, even now during the huge downturn in the housing market, I suspect they are normally much more efficient. Things that happened included: the brochure having mislabelled photos, inaccurate descriptions, no photos of the views (our major selling point), price reductions failing to be advertised in their own window, etc.
  
  After three months we tried some other agents.
  
  
• The second set of agents were better but also unlucky. Their brochure was accurate though they also failed to show the views. And during our time on with them our house, which we visited frequently, slept in occasionally, but were mostly away from, was burgled twice. Very little was taken... we'd left the house looking furnished but no TV or computers or expensive Hi-Fi. One mini-hi-fi was taken but as it was broken we didn't mind - it had simply been "dressing" the house! Not enough was taken to make an insurance claim on... and both thieves were caught.
  
  
• Just before we moved back to Bristol there were some people who seemed really keen. On the last day we were on the market, they left us a message via the agents that they'd have loved to have put an offer in but their own house sale had just fallen through...
  

The burglaries were 2 moons apart... (2-3 days before new moons)...

I've been cautious about wishing again for the house in the Cotswolds that I still yearn for... but now I'm daring to once more... right now its just the seed of an idea, a dream, a reflection lapping in the mirror of my mind and my cocoa:


Join me in a full moon cocoa with a dream of a house in the Cotswolds.

For more full moon dreamings and to add your own in too visit Jamie's blog.