Sherlock and Watson

I was having a zoo dream about animals in squalid conditions when my daughter woke me up at 2am climbing by into my bed. Aside from a few nebulous impressions of baboons and other animals in crowded cages, I cannot recall enough details to write it down. So much for that! The next dream was a lot more memorable, with each detail fully formed and etched upon my memory. Here it is.

I was visiting a manor house with Li, in a place somewhere between Wivenhoe Park and the town of Lewes. The manor had a tea room where the public might visit and refresh themselves, and it was here that I learned the house would shortly be up for sale. Li and I tried to guess how much it would go for, I hazarded around a million, with the result being £800,000. Criminally low for such a large mansion, but this was dream logic at work. After boasting that I was closer to the mark than Li, we finished our tea and headed back into Lewes.

There we saw a convoy of school children and their teachers on bicycles, all the way from London. The child would sit on a small seat at the front, with their own set of pedals, whilst the teacher did the heavy pedalling on a seat from behind, in the manner of a daisy bike, or tandem. Li commented on how cute the children all looked, and that this would be Lulu one day. She then left to go somewhere else, and I turned into Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, from the ITV Granada series. I encountered my friend Darren, who had turned into Doctor Watson.

"Well met!" I called, linking my arm with his in a cordial fashion. We walked down the street thus linked, until we came to a gentleman's clothing shop. In the window were several fashionable outdoorsy garments, including hunting jackets, britches, and tweeds of every cut. We were both drawn to a pair of bay jodhpurs with forest green leather pads in an old world style. The price was £100, and we checked our wallets to see if we could afford them. Deciding that they were a bit pricey but good for a future purchase, we moved on from our window shopping.

Watson said, "I have an appointment to keep at the mansion tea room, with my old client Shelby and his wife. You may recall them from one of our past cases? Please do join us for tea, we would be delighted." In typical Jeremy Brett fashion, I rang out, "Hah! Shelby, that fool, I well remember. A particularly delicate affair. I will meet you at the manor." We parted ways, but not before Watson offered me the use of his bicycle. Why we couldn't walk there together was a mystery, but I got on his bike and began cycling. All of a sudden it was one of the daisy bikes from earlier, and I felt excessively foolish trundling over the countryside in it.

When I arrived at the manor, I did not present myself at the tea room immediately, but rather observed from afar. Somehow Watson had beaten me there on foot, and was enjoying his tea with Shelby and wife. I felt a pang of jealousy seeing them together, but something of professional pride kept me aloof. I did not want me former clients to recognise me, not least because of a scandal involving his wife. There then followed a rather surreal episode of me walking around the manor with my hand before my face, trying to hide in the various rooms, and Shelby's wife singing in a dreamy voice, "I know you from somewhere!"