Was it all a dream?

Essex? Kenya? frogs and squirrels? Lions and leopards?
Or am I dreaming that I've just spent 4 hours installing and downloading a new version of Norton anti virus? How could I have lost my product key? Silly me. Must have been dreaming or tidying up or something.
My general dreamlike state has been exacerbated by stopping off on the way home from Essex at Sava Centre. I expect there are bigger superstores in the country but it seemed much more than merely big enough, to me. Too big to see both ends at once from inside the middle anyway. Well it seemed a good idea at the time. I used to go there once a month and buy lots of stuff like cheese and loo roll which was supposed to be cheaper in bulk but by the time me and three children had succumbed to exhaustion and starvation from trudging round the store we had to revive ourselves with a meal in the cafe (restaurant as they laughingly call it) which I've no doubt we could afford after all the savings we'd made on our shopping. Eldest was particularly good at calculating savings we could make on his preferred foods (also a laughing matter).
Well it seemed a long way to trudge from one end of Sava centre to the other for a few odds and sods for dinner and a bit of milk so I made up for that by buying an iron. I believe I'm going to take up ironing. I've never doen it before because I think it's unnecessary and bad for your health. However I've recently realised that sewing and ironing are vices that could be undertaken in moderation without doing serious damage. As long as I only do it in the privacy of my own home etc etc. I'm sure it won't get out of hand if I'm careful. I bought a red woollie too. Very nice for £7. And this confirmed a suspicion I've had that during my incarceration in Essex, I've lost...well I don't know about weight cos I haven't weighed myself* but certainly I've lost a bit of bulk. something to do with eating small regular meals and sleeping at normal hours I think. Oh and not drinking very much. Yes that could be it. F-i-l's wine is mostly french and I like rich full bodied Aussie.**
Well, these are the books I read last week but one (further dreamlike stuff, travelling from Rome via Exmoor to various planets, worlds and space habitats and back to an imaginary Thibet-like place)

and these are the ones I read last week. (Geoff Ryman is a brilliant writer and Le Guin is possibly one of the best fantasy/SF novelists ever, along with Mary Gentle. All three have the rare and special ability to write not only original and compelling Fantasy/SF but also novels that stand out in any genre)

Frog and squirrel
And water put out for the birds. I always think neat, boxed-in, town gardens look better at night.
Returning to an earlier dream, after reluctantly leaving Treetops, we went via Thompsons Falls to salty Lake Nakuru (the minerals make the flamingoes pink) where we saw ...umm now I think this is a white rhino. The white rhinos have wide lips and their name is a corruption of 'wide mouthed rhino'. (tiny, in the distance is a Maribou stork and even tinier, a Thompson's Gazelle. And the band of pink on the lake is a sea of flamingoes) We also had lunch at Lake Nakuru surrounded by Jacaranda trees and bougainvillea.And there were a few thunderous rumblings and flashes. Which added considerably to the brief, first (and only) experience of being allowed OUT of the safari bus on the shores of the lake. David wanted to startle the flamingoes so we could see them in flight but I think he was simultaneously trying to avoid the attention of this buffalo. I have to say it seemed excessively exciting to be shown a leopard footprint on the way back to the bus and told it had been left there by the leopard, in person, earlier that day.

Now I have to go and do whatever I normally ought to be doing at this time of day...I wonder what that is? It's amazing how much less work one person makes than two.

*I have weighed myself and may have lost a couple of pounds. Odd. My trousers are loose?
**Father-in-Law is so much better that he's getting quite fed up with having us around all the time and in fact says, very firmly, that we needn't come back! I think he's had enough of being ill and being looked after :) Brilliant!