THE ALARM CLOCK, MY DREAMS AND ME

We had a brief loss of power the other night and that meant that the radio/alarm clock was flashing its red numbers to alert me to the fact that it had lost its memory.

Normally I wouldn't concern myself about this situation because the radio/alarm clock is my spouse's responsibility. He has to rise early each morning and therefore he is the one who relies on this electrical appliance to alert him that it is time to "rise and shine".

However, he was away overnight and, as I was to work in the morning, it seemed like a good idea for me to remedy the situation as I do like to know the time whenever I awake during the night.

So I picked up this little contraption and I started pressing each and every button until I managed to make the digital numbers move towards 9:00.

I cared not if it meant 9:00 in the am or the pm.

The task completed, I drifted off to sleep and into Dreamland which is always an interesting place to visit.

Well, I must tell you that I did not have a very peaceful night.

The radio/alarm clock activated a number of times throughout the night.

As the alarm regularly activated, I remember seeing numbers such as 12:something, 1:something, 2:something and 3:something.

There were probably more occasions but I may not recall them as I was not exactly lucid. I would have been in my REM sleeptime during those early hours.

The first time that I was awakened by the radio chattering away at me, I reached over and I pushed a few buttons.

Happily, I found that the top left hand button seemed to quell the radio chatter.

Well, that was until the next occasion and the many occasions to follow.

By 3.10 I decided to leave the radio on for a while. There must have been a change in the programming because I found that the chatter had finished and, instead, I was being serenaded by (or should that read "subjected to") country and western songs.

It wasn't long before I decided that I could not cope with any more of those sad little ditties and I had to take action.

I may well have become a little more lucid at this hour because I suddenly twigged to the reason why I was being tortured. Whilst I was indiscriminately pushing each and every button trying to set the time, I had somehow managed to programme in a number of alarms.

I had a bright idea, "Surely there is a volume button somewhere on this evil machine."

I poked about the bottom front of the machine and managed to push a button that stopped the country and western music. However it left me with a sort of hissing noise and I immediately guessed that all I had managed to do was to move away from the signal for the radio station.

I decided that I may be able to live with this noise and I rolled over in the hope of finding some more sleep.

But no, this new noise began to irritate me. It felt like I was sharing my bedroom with an angry snake.

Once more I reached across and pushed at buttons and at last I stumbled across the volume button. Peace at long last!

You may ask, "Why didn't you turn on the light and solve the situation earlier?"

Sure, in retrospect, that would seem to have been the sensible thing to do when I had the first alarm at about 12:something.

However when one is drunk with sleep, one does not function in a sensible manner.

And now to my dreams. Mostly they were very entertaining. And I was enjoying a particular dream where I was attending a party with family and friends.

I am guessing that this dream would have been about the time of the 3:something awakening which is a time when dreams can get a little weird. (Ah yes, there is a separate blog to write about my strange and silly early morning dreams!)

As I cuddled into my pillow I had hoped to rejoin the party and as I tried to reenter the dream, I found myself confronted with an image something like:



Yes, my subconscious was asking me to verify my access to my subconscious.

Me thinks I am spending too much time commenting on Blogs on the Internet.

THE DAY I COULD HAVE DROWNED

When I was in my late teens, I found myself caught in a very strong rip at a Sunshine Coast beach and I was quickly towed out to the deeper waters of the Pacific Ocean.

As I drifted further out, I realised that I was in danger of either being drowned due to exhaustion or being attacked by a shark.

It was also possible that if I continued too far out to sea and I ventured into the commercial shipping lane, I may be hit and run over by a passing cargo ship.

Admittedly, I have never been a strong swimmer, but I do believe that the main reason I found myself being washed out to sea was due to the fact that I was unfamiliar with this particular beach. I wasn't aware of its possible dangers.

During this period of my life, I had spent many weekends enjoying our Queensland beaches but I would usually visit the Gold Coast area.

And, knowing that I was not a strong swimmer, I would always swim in the area of the beach that was patrolled by our wonderful volunteer lifesavers.

This particular day I entered the water with the intention of playing about in the waves close to the edge of the beach.

When a wave approaches you, you decide upon one of three responses.

You can begin swimming toward the shore, hoping to be caught up by the wave, and thus experience the thrill of body surfing.

Or you can choose to leap up and be lifted by the wave. Or alternatively, after pinching your nostrils together and shutting your eyes, you can dive beneath the wave and then resurface after it has passed over you.

I may have tried one or all of those options however, on this day, there was a rip that I was not able to overcome.

For those who aren't quite sure just what I am talking about, I will add a definition of a rip that I found on a website from Australian Government Department of Environment and Water Resources.

"Concentrated currents flowing back to sea perpendicular to the shoreline. Rip currents are caused by wave action piling up water on the beach. Feeder currents running parallel to the shore (longshore currents) deliver water to the rip current."

After I was tugged behind the first break of waves, I found myself dealing with a second break of waves further out to sea.

Again, any action I took was futile. I simply drifted out to the deeper waters and it became quite clear to me that I was in trouble.

I remained calm whilst deciding upon my fate and the thoughts of sharks and the shipping lane passed through my head.

I was calm because I have never been afraid of deep water. Unlike my older sister who always insisted that she needed to touch the bottom of the pool, I preferred to bob about in the deep end. The deeper the body of water, the easier it is to float and gracefully tread water.

Obviously I did not drown, get savaged by a shark or run down by a cargo ship.

Fortunately for me, as I drifted out I came across a young fellow atop a surfboard. I politely told him that I was in trouble and he allowed me to hold onto his surfboard as he raised his arm to alert the lifesavers that there was some stupid female in need of rescue.

I did not experience a skerrick of humiliation over becoming a public spectacle that day. All I felt was intense gratitude.

I will always be grateful to that lovely young man and his surfboard and I continue to have great admiration for those selfless lifesavers who sprang into action and brought me back to land.

I am also grateful for the opportunity to learn to swim that I and my peers were given during our primary school years.

It is an interesting recollection that I shall pass on in the very near future.