Out to Lunch

Last night I dreamed I went (no, not to Manderley)...

...but rather Kensington.  Kensington Palace, to be exact.

Yes, perhaps it was the weekend excitement of the Trooping of the Colours (not to mention Ascot coming up this week); perhaps it was simply a too-rich, too-late dinner (I made, you see, a most successful creamy shrimp curry yesterday).  For whatever reason, although I don't often remember dreams, this one proved vivid enough for some reason to stick even after I woke up to yet another Monday morning, work-week sort of day.

In any case, I dreamed that I was striding across Hyde Park toward the red-brick pile once known within te Royal Family (due its plethora of elderly relatives) as "The Aunt Heap."

I was, you see, invited to lunch.  By Princess Margaret.

It was one of those dreams happening in no particular time, but from my clothes I'm thinking it was at least in part some time in the mid-sixties (no lovebeads or any such atrocities - just a certain cut of the trousers and the narrowness of the lapels on what seemed to be a very fine linen summer suit) - but also, as you'll see, some time far more recent.  Whatever the year, it was a lovely summer afternoon, and the Park was as like to the real London as my memory can imagine.  I walked up to the Palace as if I knew it well, although out of the dream it seems unlikely that the Princess's callers arrived by stopping in at the ticket desk on the tourists' side of the buildings.

"I'm here for luncheon with the Countess of Snowdon."

"Ah, yes, of course, sir," replied the guard, consulting a list.  "Apartment 1A.  You're not the first.  She's dead, you know?"

"Well, of course I do - I read the newspapers!"

Sadly, that's where the dream-fragment ends, so I was deprived of (or spared?) the image of our doubtless Miss Havishamische hostess.  If nothing else it would have been fascinating to discover whom else the guests might been, not to mention exactly what sort of a menu a dead princess might have thought just right for a summer lunch.

So that's how my week started.  Why do I fear it can only go down hill from there?