KEY POINTS:
I have a rare talent for seeing things in dreams. I once discovered a girlfriend was pregnant before she knew herself. I rang with the gripping details during breakfast and by dinner she was up the duff. The other six girlfriends who subsequently received similar early morning re-tellings of my night's tossing and turning did not thank me for the hours of sheer panic I inflicted on them as they raced to the chemist, only to discover my clairvoyancy was clearly mistaken.
But they believed me because of that one girlfriend and that one pregnancy. There have been other dreams of a predictive nature.
My upcoming and extremely passionate affair with Clive Owen was a particularly enjoyable night's telepathy, and I'm simply waiting for Peter Jackson to cast him. Others have been less blockbuster in nature, with such details as the cat having something stuck in its foot (true), a huge storm washing away the bit of the camping ground where my caravan lives (true) and slipping comfortably into the size 10 jeans I've saved since I was 21 (false, but might be true one day).
Call it a psychic ability if you like, but it's a skill which has my friends and family rolling their eyes when I say: "I had a dream".
Which is why I'm unsure about unveiling my dream in which the Green Party wins by a landslide in the upcoming election.
I told my husband and instead of shaking his head and saying "you need to stop taking these things seriously, you loon", he looked at me long and hard and said "there might be something in that".
As the election process has unfolded its grimy wings of futile finger pointing and character assassination, the elephant in the room has been the Greens. In the United States it has been race, here it is the planet.
The Greens have failed to capture the attention of the old-school political commentators who peer out from behind blue and red tinted glasses and mutter about the economy.
Yet since the last election this party has carefully and cleverly remodelled its image from sandal wearing, tree-hugging dope smokers of the past to a group of intelligent and well-dressed people who use soap. A lot like some of the people in National and Labour.
My Green candidate lives on Waiheke, and you can't get much less "alternative" than that, these days.
And, unlike the last election, they are fighting for more than saving the cabbage tree or the green winged ant from the Kaipara.
They have clear, achievable goals for climate change, renewable energy, safe food and water and public transport. Issues the other parties agree are of real concern.
The Green Party's reason for being has subtly changed from someone you treat as a mad aunt on a break from the Rajasthan ashram, to someone you seek out for their knowledge and find that everything they say seems to make sense. They are the geek who you wrote off until your computer crashed or the karate kid you ignored until he saved you from the bullies.
Three years ago, commentators could safely predict Green Party voters either reeked of musk oil or were middle-class liberals who thought buying a bottle of detergent with dolphins on the label would save the planet. This is still true, but no longer the whole story.
In 2008, being aware of the environment, being willing to make simple lifestyle changes like walking or taking the bus, growing organic veges, rejecting pollutants and additives or drying washing on the line is within the reach of all people on all incomes.
Big business and farmers say the Greens will cost the country money but I'm not sure where the people live who think it's a good idea to fill lakes and rivers with cow faeces and industrial effluent. If they find any, then maybe they'll feel sorry for them.
The Greens are no longer a lifestyle choice, they are grass roots, down home, accessible and, according to my dream, will appeal to the masses.
I ventured my prediction to a respected political commentator, who drew a long, patient breath before muttering: "You're bloody dreaming".
