Perhaps you can help me, folks? I am reasonably happy, reasonably healthy, reasonably prosperous. So all is well. And yet, I am having a series of dreams, not recurring dreams, but dreams with a recurring theme of extreme frustration.

Last night, for example, I was going to Australia. I had lost my tickets. We searched everywhere, including a cupboard which opened into a space with bare bricks. The tickets,(it was a two-step journey, first to Derby and then to Australia) and the Australian money, were at first in a suitcase which had become lost, a red leather suitcase. Then, the tickets and the money were found, but when they were presented to the checkin guy, he said the agency which had made the booking had gone out of business, and he would have to go and check. So my companions (whom I know, but don't know well, and have had some responsibility for in the past) went on ahead. Finally he came back, with a ticket that would cover both steps of the trip. So, because I was so late, I had to go direct to the runway, and a man came with me to show me the way.

The way was in the middle of a village, and we were really rushing, and had difficulty finding the right place. Eventually, we had to climb a stairs, a medieval stairs, with lovely carvings (I remember thinking I'd have to come back and have a look at them), with an Easter Island statue blocking the top. Just before the statue, there was a ledge on which I had to climb to get off the stairs. The guide had gone to the bathroom down below. So I got my feet on to the ledge, and my hips. I could see there were children and some women in the field. I asked a little boy for help to haul the rest of my body up, and he said "No". So with a mighty heave, I got myself on to the ledge, and woke up.

There was no sense of threat. There was an underlying feeling that everything was going to be all right. There was some concern that the people who had gone ahead would be in trouble if I didn't make it, because of the nature of the trip.

It occurs to me just as I write that I have a vague plan to work in Australia some time soon, in the same area as the people I was travelling with.

Weird, huh?