To say that work has been on my mind of late would be a bit of an understatement. There’s a tricky transition taking place, and things could go either very very well or very very wrong. Whichever way things go, I’ll be there, right at the middle of it, either checking something else (if everything works) or hurriedly trying to help to sort things out (that didn’t work to their required expectations). So, I think of work a lot while I’m in work. I think of it occasionally when I’m not at work (which really I shouldn’t, but I do – only occasionally, mind). But now, it (work) is seeping into my dreams. Eek!

Last night I had one of my random dreams. Vivid in parts yet completely forgotten in others. I can only write about the parts that I remember…

I remember I was in the post room in work. I wasn’t the only one there, the room was full with people doing whatever they were doing. I was waiting for someone (I think) when an extremely impatient woman burst into the room, demanding that her lost key be found. She then left the room, in equal a hurry, leaving someone, anyone, to deal with her demands.

I started to sort out a box of what I thought was files. It turned out to be a box of used visitor books. There were dozens of them; some full, others barely started. I read some of the comments in them as I was sorting them into neat piles, as opposed to the random mess that they were in to begin with. I opened one book, and a small plastic pass fell to the floor. One of my colleagues, Stephanie, noticed the pass fall, and swooped in to pick it up. She told me that it was the woman’s pass who had demanded it be found mere seconds before.

We decided to take the pass to her office, which would hopefully calm her down somewhat too. How it got inside the visitor book is a question for another dream to answer, I suppose.

Stephanie and I went to the floor where this woman’s office was, but the floor had been transformed into a huge examination room. Rows of desks were set out, and only three places remained empty. Two were next to each other – one had my name on it, and the other was for another colleague who wasn’t in work. He wasn’t even in the country so whoever planned this didn’t do such a great job. The other place was for Stephanie, and this was just in front of my place.

“Well, sit down then!” Shouted one of the managers from the front of the room, “Then we can begin the test.”

I’ve heard about this type of dream before. Usually, though, you are in school, and are anxious of the forthcoming exams. The thing is, I haven’t been to school for over twenty years, so I can’t see me being anxious about that – unless it is delayed anxiety; perhaps a side-effect of all the time travelling I’ve been doing lately. Anyway, back to the dream.

We sat down, and I looked at the paper that was in front of me on the desk. The first page had one space on it, for my surname. No other details were requested. Just my surname. There was a note that said the test must be completed in pencil, and there was a small, chewed pencil on the desk that was so worn down the wooden part scratched the paper as I wrote with it.

I turned the page.

The first question had me wondering. Not wondering about the answer, I hasten to add, but wondering why the question was on this test. I was in work, after all. The question was: What galaxy are we in?

What galaxy are we in? What planet am I on?, I remember thinking to myself, as I scratched ‘The Milky Way’.

The second question was: Where in the galaxy are we? Are we to the centre of it, at the edge of it, or just outside of it? I was baffled. I always thought that we were inside the Milky Way, but I remembered seeing an image years ago, that shows where we are:

This image (which isn’t the one I saw years ago – I found this one on the Google image thingy) shows where our Sun is, in relation to the rest of the Milky Way. I then thought ‘How could anyone be completely certain that this is where we actually are? It isn’t as though they’ve been out there and charted the galaxy, have they? Anyway, I moved on to the next question.

Name a famous man-made water feature in Britain. A famous man-made water feature? I was pondering whether the question was referring to one visible from the Milky Way for a while, but as the Earth isn’t visible a man-made structure of any kind isn’t likely to be seen. I remember an idea springing to mind as my alarm woke me up for work this morning.

Blimey. Work. What is it doing to me???

Ah well. At least I have a few days off again now to rest my achy brain cells. The ones I have left, anyway…