Make sure," said a voice on the kitchen radio as I emerged from former boot cupboard, now office, to make self a cup of tea and some toast.

"That if you have smoke alarms fitted, the batteries have not run out ... "

Which reminded me that I had not replaced the batteries in the smoke alarm in the kitchen which goes off every time anyone uses the grill, makes toast or sets fire to their sleeve while trying to cook breakfast. The latter was Thomas.

Made the tea, put toast under grill and replaced batteries, while listening to other tips on radio about things you could do to minimise risk of fire during firefighters' strike, before returning to office to get on with writing piece for women's magazine about dream interpretation.

So far, piece was not very inspired; flying dreams mean you are frustrated at work and harbour greater ambitions.

Losing teeth dreams mean you are frustrated at home and harbour greater ambitions ... and fireman dreams ... I hadn't actually been going to include them, before the tea-making episode, but now of course it seemed the obvious thing.

There is a TV ad on at the moment which shows a woman lying in the bath with her toe stuck in the tap.

The fire brigade arrives and the chief fire officer says he is going to have to take his clothes off and get in with woman to sort it out.

Then all the other officers decide to take their clothes off too, in case they get splashed.

And then the woman snaps out of her bubble bath induced reverie and a voice-over tells you to buy whatever bubble bath it is, as then you too will be so relaxed you will have fireman dreams in your bath.

Of course at the moment, getting your toes stuck in the tap is the sort of non-emergency call which wouldn't be answered by real firefighters and you would be left having to call Phil the plumber, with the bad case of builder's bottom, and it wouldn't be the same at all.

But anyway, that dream is my dream - and a few others besides, involving dramatic rescues and mouth to mouth and a particular favourite of mine, which is when you think you've woken up in the middle of the night, the cupboard door in your bedroom opens and two firemen walk out and say hello before heading off downstairs and driving away.

I have that dream a lot. The first time was when I was still living with parents.

For some reason, when they asked me if I had slept well that night I decided to tell them I had and had also had a great dream, in which two firemen came out of the cupboard etc.

To this they replied that they had - two firemen, I mean, come out of the cupboard.

Apparently there had been a chimney fire in the night and, after putting it out, the fire crew had wanted to check the heat in the chimney breast wouldn't start a fire elsewhere.

Since the chimney breast ran up the back of my cupboard, they had gone into it to make sure it wasn't too hot.

My parents hadn't wanted to wake me. So they left the firemen to do that instead.

Anyway, the trouble with writing about dreams is it tends to make you very sleepy, so, while still sitting at desk, I closed my eyes for a moment and drifted off into a scenario where the air was thick with smoke and somewhere a fire alarm sounded.

It wouldn't be long before the brigade arrived ...

Except I woke up and realised the air was thick with smoke and a fire alarm was sounding in the kitchen, where the charred remains of the bread I had stuck under the grill several minutes beforehand were smouldering furiously ...