The Story So Far
I am Sheila, a 25 year old, unmarried, asexual, professional counsellor. I work with 3 other counsellors in a Counselling Support Group (CSG) on behalf of a national charity in a London suburb.
But I am finding life very hard at the moment. You see, I have a big moral problem which is interfering with my work and homelife. I am in love with a married man. Let's call him John. I see him socially and we get on well. If he wasn't married, I am certain we would be partners. I hate his wife, Janet. I have hated her ever since I realised I loved her husband. In other words I have hated Janet ever since June 4 2018.
I recently had a "Herbert Freudenberger Burnout Scale" rating of "High". This indicates that I am a candidate for depression, alcoholism and other associated self-harming practices. This is entirely due to my love for John and my hatred of Janet.
My Dream
The first part of my dream stripped away "the thin veneer of civilisation" and showed me my base instinct for domination. But luckily the dream took an upward,more moral, turn. The dream shows that, while I am (like everyone?) a mix of base and noble desires.
In my dream I now have a team of 5 people with a common objective - to get rid of Janet. The team consists of Maureen, her husband Peter, Tricia and her friend, Ryan and me.
A Cunning Plan?
My "dream team" has a plan. It is to get Peter (who had an affair with Janet) to continue to see and to seduce her. By the way, Peter is under strict instructions from his wife NOT to screw Janet UNLESS it is absolutely necessary. But getting Janet to leave the island is her main objective.
And, as the saying goes "nobody misses a slice off a cut loaf". So, for Maureen, one more non-marital liaison by her husband is a price worth paying to finally rid Tyrre of this female cuckolder.
It will come as no surprise that Maureen was not happy when she discovered Peter's adultery. She gained revenge and made her husband pay for his adultery with a somewhat aggressive approach. An approach which would get me struck off the "UK Register of Approved Councillors" were I to use it.
Peter will do the seduction because we need to get sufficient proof to force John (who is the Laird, or ruler, of our island) to divorce Janet. He will entice Janet into a bondage 3some with the hunky Ryan. "The Hunk" is new to the island and so is "fresh meat" for the man-chasing Janet.
We women will record Janet's "pillow talk" in full HD with clear audio. Then I as Equtry (the senior law officer) will show the recording to the Laird. Of course the plan would fail is John overlooked Janet's behaviours. But then no plan, however well thought out and prepared for, is foolproof.
Real World Plans
Of course, when I think of plans, I first think of war planning. The most famous being D Day and Stalingrad. The most infamous being Putin's assault on Ukraine.
The most personal was Putin's ill conceived and ineffectively organised plan to send 2 poisoners to try to kill a Salisbury (UK) citizen with the deadly poison Novachok. I have a friend who lived in Salisbury at the time.
My Salisbury friend said "It was amazing suddenly being besieged by the world's press. Parts of the shopping centre were cordoned off as were other parts that the Putin poisoned couple had visited. Even a part of the cemetery was cordoned off, albeit briefly, as the poisoned man's mother was buried there.
Funnily enough it soon became normal to see TV cameras and reporters around.
A Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One
We got protective of the police drafted in from across England and Wales. We gave them teas and coffees and freshly prepared food.
When one policeman placed his helmet on a snowman he faced disciplinary action. At a public meeting we demanded that the officer should be praised and not face rebuke. The Welsh officer was "one of us, protecting us" by standing guard near the poisoned Salisbury citizen's house,
The "police-snowman" was an amusing public spirited attempt to help us in Salisbury. We were glad when it was agreed that the policeman would not face disciplinary action. There was an outbreak of common sense".
They're Having A Laugh At Our Expense
Much later, when the 2 Russian poisoners were shown to arrive and to be at various places in Salisbury, my friend phoned me.
She said "This is now pure farce. The 2 Putin poisoners say they in the city simply as tourists to see the "world famous" cathedral "with its 263 metre spire" because of snow they couldn't get to Stonehenge. The 263 metre spire is just a cut and paste from Wikipedia."
My friend noted "And they were caught walking towards the poisoned house in the opposite direction to the cathedral and the City centre."
There's No Snow Like Salisbury Snow
My friend added sarcastically "Of course they don't have snow in Russia. Perhaps the 2 poisoners had heard of our "world famous" Wilton Road chip shop and forsook all the city centre eateries. If so, they were doubly disappointed, not only couldn't they get to Stonehenge but the chip shop was closed."
At the time, and still today, the UK had a very successful advertising campaign which had cute meerkats saying "simples".
My friend also told me "Some Putin apologists had doctored the photo of the 2 poisoners arriving at Salisbury railway station to show the 2 meerkats. Some Putin apologist even said it showed how easily the British government had doctored the photograph."
Of course the Putin apologist's line was blown out of the water when the poisoners appeared on television to confirm they were in Salisbury.
My Friend's Claims To Fame
My friend also phoned me to say "For some unknown reason we had a large military and police presence and drains were covered. The next day we discovered why. The UK Prime Minister came to visit us. I joined the crowd in the market square. Because of the security guards around her, I only saw some of Mrs May's hair. It may not even have been her hair that I saw.
Mrs May also went into a specialist kitchen supplier. My new claim to fame, other than possibly seeing Mrs May's hair, is that I bought some steak knives in the shop that a serving British PM visited."
Covid Planning
This predilection to think of plans meaning war planning is strange since the greatest test of planning is for the worldwide curse of Covid. But, at least in the UK, even then our military was heavily involved in developing and implementing Covid planning.
I recall our Royal Air Force flying desperately needed face masks all the way from China.
The temporary "Nightingale" Covid only hospitals were largely created by our military men and women. These temporary hospitals also gave prominence to other war-time nurses, Louisa Jordan and Mary Seacole.
Details Of Nurse Heroines
Wiki records of Louisa "During the Serbian epidemic of typhus in early 1915, she was placed in charge of the new typhus ward. Jordan had volunteered to treat Elizabeth Ross, who was dying of typhus, and Jordan herself died of the disease in March 1915" and "The people of Serbia gather each year to commemorate the courage and sacrifice of Ms Jordan and her colleagues".
Wiki records of Mary "a British-Jamaican nurse and businesswoman. Coming from a tradition of Jamaican and West African "doctresses", Seacole displayed "compassion, skills and bravery while nursing soldiers during the Crimean War", through the use of herbal remedies. In 2004, she was voted the greatest black Briton in a survey conducted in 2003 by the black heritage website Every Generation".
The Mary Seacole Trust records "Mary travelled to England and approached the British War Office, asking to be sent as an army nurse to the Crimea where she had heard there were poor medical facilities for wounded soldiers. She was refused. Undaunted, she funded her own trip to Crimea, now part of Ukraine. At the time, Mary was as well-known in Britain as Florence Nightingale.
Ms Nightingale's famous military hospital was situated hundreds of miles from the frontline in Scutari (now called ΓskΓΌdar, just outside Istanbul). But Mary's hotel near Balaclava was much closer to the fighting. Mary was able to visit the battlefield, sometimes under fire, to nurse the wounded".
Pheme, the goddess of fame and infamy, belated bought Louisa and Mary to my attention. It is a matter of shame, since I have Scottish roots, that Louisa is better remembered in Serbia than in Scotland. I trust that Pheme will have history record Putin as infamous, alongside Hitler and Pol Pot and Mao.
Historical Weaknesses Of Plans
I said previously that "no plan, however well thought out and prepared for, is foolproof". D Day relied on a weather forecaster saying there would be a brief break in the awful weather that would have made D Day impossible. Had this forecast weather-break been wrong D Day may have been a disaster. Hitler would only have a one front war against Stalin.
And, if Hitler realised that Stalin had Cossack support at Stalingrad, he might not have attacked it. And of course Hitler was totally unprepared for a long term Winter War. He thought that Russia was "a rotten door that a good kick would demolish".
Hitler's "Piano Player"
Hitler thought that the ethnic mix made America incapable of winning wars. Hitler's "Piano Player" Ernst Hanfstaengl (also called Putzi), an urbane Harvard-educated German and foreign press chief for Hitler during his political climb tried unsuccessfully to persuade Hitler that America was not as weak as the dictator supposed.
Suppose that Hitler took Putzi's advice and didn't declare war on America. No America then no D Day and precious little British war-power.
I said to a friend "If Mrs Hanfstaengl (who Hitler wanted to marry) hadn't persuaded Hitler out of committing suicide, then we wouldn't have had WW2"
My friend replied "We may have got a Hitler substitute who left military planning to the military. Then we may have got a German victory."
And of course the Covid hospitals were never used and the face masks flown in from China by the RAF were useless.
The Poetry Of Plans
My assertion that "no plan, however well thought out and prepared for, is foolproof" has a poetic form. Robert Burns, the man most well known for our New Year celebrations where we sing "Auld Lang Syne" and link arms, wrote
"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley."
But, despite all the "what ifs" and "Maybes" of planning I am fairly confident that our plan is viable. and we have the right personnel and equipment. But in the end even if all went well John may say "Well, so what?" or "It only confirms what I knew". If so, my scheme would have "gang a-gley".
My whole plan is predicated on John, once confronted with hard evidence, giving Janet the "heave ho".
My Scheme Starts
Janet took no time in approaching Maureen and Peter. Her cover story was that she wanted to welcome Ryan to Tyrre on behalf of her husband, the Laird. Maureen didn't want to waste the opportunity to rub salt in Janet's wounds.
Maureen said to Janet "I trust you are well after your recent visit to the Equtry."