Midsummer Dreams (and am-dram nightmares…)

In celebration of the e-launch day for Alison May’s brand new romantic comedy, Midsummer Dreams, I’m posting today on the theme of all things dream-related. Alison’s given me three prompts and I’m set to go.

I had a dream…

The first house I owned with my husband (then boyfriend) was a one up, one down. (Cambridge is full of terraced houses – this one was a modern back-to-back.) I used to dream I’d open the door to the cupboard under the stairs and find there was a whole extra bit of house I’d previously overlooked. It all made perfect sense. In reality, the general tininess had some advantages. As my friend Kathryn pointed out, you could warm the whole place up just by heating a can of beans. Meanwhile, DH did some creative stuff to get round the lack of space. I fondly remember the flying desk over the stairs, and the ladder to reach unconventionally placed book shelves…

I had a nightmare…

(This is cheating slightly, but it seemed like a nightmare at the time.)

At the tender age of thirteen, I was persuaded to dress up in a floaty yellow nightdress belonging to my grandmother, put on a crown of flowers, and take on the role of Titania. No acting was involved, I was just on an amateur dramatic society’s float at a carnival. All the same, the situation was what my own teenage daughters would refer to as #awkward. Playing the part of Oberon was a local retired GP, who was seventy if he was a day. He wore a cardboard crown, cape and tights. “But don’t worry,” my grandmother said, “he’s an awfully nice man.” I’m sure he was. My brother had to be Puck, and got the tights treatment too, along with a straw hat and fisherman’s smock. We also had a very sweet Peaseblossom, and a large soft-toy donkey dressed up in a shirt and shorts. The pièce de résistance, was the GP’s wife, who wanted to be on the float too, and had dressed up as Yum Yum from The Mikado. Apparently it was their next production, but I don’t think that was an adequate excuse. It’s a measure of how very much I loved my grandmother that I didn’t run for the hills.

I have a dream for the future…

You’ve guessed it, to live in a palace and never parade through town in a borrowed nightdress again… Only kidding (though it’s a thought…) Like lots of people, I worry about all the threats to the world and its inhabitants from things like poverty, intolerance, disease and climate change. International action to solve any of these problems seems agonisingly slow, but individual people are often quick to be kind. My dream is that we’ll finally pull together and find a better, more equal, and happier way to exist. (Oh, and more sustainable too. Simples.)

There are lots of other bloggers posting on the dream theme, so keep an eye out for #MidsummerDreams on Twitter.

You can download the kindle edition of Midsummer Dreams here: http://bookgoodies.com/a/B00XJOEJTM

About Midsummer Dreams

Four people. Four messy lives. One party that changes everything …

Emily is obsessed with ending her father’s new relationship – but is blind to the fact that her own is far from perfect.
Dominic has spent so long making other people happy that he’s hardly noticed he’s not happy himself.
Helen has loved the same man, unrequitedly, for ten years. Now she may have to face up to the fact that he will never be hers.
Alex has always played the field. But when he finally meets a girl he wants to commit to, she is just out of his reach.
At a midsummer wedding party, the bonds that tie the four friends together begin to unravel and show them that, sometimes, the sensible choice is not always the right one.