I dreamed I was on a journey. On foot, going through the countryside. I seemed to be strong and walked at a brisk pace confidently. I didn't recognise the scenery. There was, at length, an ascent, and I found myself on what can only be described as a very broad, plain wooden drawbridge. The climb to its top was steep and then sharply fell on the other side. I navigated this well enough and next found myself on some kind of ferry that at length arrived at the edge of the lake we had been traveling on. I say 'we' because there was a little boy with me that looked a lot like myself. No words were exchanged between us.

To get to the shore meant wading through the water as there was no jetty or place where the boat could be moored. I was afraid I would get completely drenched but it wasn't as deep as I had at first supposed. Taking off shoes and socks, and rolling up my trouser legs, was enough. The shoreline was rocky but smooth, the rocks like giant pebbles well eroded by water and time. We were clearly still up in the mountains and the chalet we were to stay in had ice on its roof that seemed to be melting, as if it were spring. The little boy stayed close by me, again no words were exchanged, but there was some kind of an understanding between us.

It was then I awoke, feeling much more ill than I had hoped as in the middle of the night, around 3 a.m., when I had felt a tad better and was hopeful that I was on the mend. But no, the ringing in my head was still there, the acute sensitivity to low frequency sounds that echoed whenever I spoke, like being confined inside a kettle drum, the semi-muffled sounds making it clear my hearing had not properly returned. My legs were once more swollen, feet tingling, legs aching something terrible, and the rest of my musculature severely inflamed and screaming for relief, the effects of the drug having worn off by the time I had awakened in the middle of the night. It's effects never lasted for more than 3 hours and I wasn't allowed to take one more often than once every 8 hours. Even then there were only two times in the day my body could handle them so as not to collide with the activity of the essential heart medicine. A Catch 22 situation.

Hope began to trickle away again. Though the sun was shining brightly at 6.15 a.m., it was only 10°C, having fallen to 6°C at its lowest point during the night. Autumn was most certainly - and regrettably - here, unwelcomed and unwanted but mercifully...today at any rate...dry. What to do? Go to hospital? Weather it out in the hope things would improve? Could the doctors, already stretched by a collapsing health care system because of a rapidly swelling population, in reality do anything more? More often than not they seemed more interested in treating the symptoms than effecting a cure. Prayer afforded no answers though many were praying for me and for that I was grateful. Enduring the last part of the journey seemed my only option, "He who endures to the end will be saved," the solitary scriptural counsel that filtered into my consciousness. Reassuring theologically and appropriate for the distant scene but not in the here-and-now.

I thought back on the two prophecies made telling me I would get well again and be even stronger than I was before. One by a minister in Burundi, Africa and another by a Messianic Jew in Rome of all places, neither known to each other and each one prophesying at different times. The track record of modern 'prophets' was not good, most speaking falsely and presumptuously and I knew it unwise to invest much faith in them. Yet one or two were genuine agents of Yahweh. But not many.

It is sabbath today but I am too weak to prepare anything, even viva voce. Not only one day at a time but one hour at a time. Time contained so many uncertainties that faith had to ride. Besides I was past my 'fourscore-and-ten' years and everything afterwards was essentially borrowed time. I hadn't thought I would make it past 60, but here I was at 70 still going, admittedly at a crawl but alive nonetheless. My mother had made it to 98, a real survivor, dogged to the end though little more than a vegetable in her last year and I had no wish to be like that. My father had said he would rather go with a bang younger than die a burden to others and a misery to himself at an older age.

He got his wish. One day he suddenly felt terribly unwell, struggled paid all the household bills before the ambulance collected him as as not to burden mother, and died a few days later in the local village hospital, but 5 minutes' drive away from home in Cranleigh, Surrey. I was too far away across the North Sea to be with him, a matter of considerable regret on my part, though I had tried to get there in time, leaving behind a very pregnant wife due to deliver at any moment. He died the day before I arrived, and my second son, Joshua, was born the day afterwards. Had I been a Buddhist, as I nearly had become as a student at Oxford, I might have been temped to believe that his spirit had transmigrated. To console my mother but also out of respect for him, I added my father's name, Keith, to this new son. It had been a poignant moment - as one life departed, another came into the world.

What did that dream mean? Only the day before my memory had been jolted by the word 'elysian' on a meme, catapulting me back to school days and my classical Latin/Greek education received at a British boarding school located in our village. The Elysian Fields, paradise of the ancient Greeks, was the destination of the heroes and good folks after they had been ferried across the River Styx by the ferryman of death. Was that the ferry in my dream? Is that the last journey I am now on? It's not unreasonable to suppose so.

Certainly spring is a good picture of the continuing life on the other side of the veil, a temporary resting place though it is, while believers look forward for the Resurrection of the Dead and are returned to earth. But where on earth would I wish to return? I have lived in so many places and climes, beginning in the tropics and ending in the subarctic. I hate the cold but at least lethal beasties have been few here in Scandinavia - just the occasional huggorm or viper. And it's quiet at night, no pestering flies or 'muzzies', as I call mosquitoes.

I chose - or had chosen for me by Divine Providence - the sunniest place in Sweden, though most of that has been stolen by the climate-modifiers. I wouldn't have minded the cold so much had the economy not plummeted, making heating unaffordable and winters utterly miserable. So I think I will choose a warm climate in the Millennium. I had seen a vision of it after all, many years ago, that resembled the Mediterranean. That will do me nicely, something to look forward to. I have even seen my home, so much like the Roman houses of classical times. Yes, that will do very nicely. And it will have to be near the sea. Definitely.