The candle flickered in the darkness, the old dog sleeping fitfully on his graveyard sofa shift, as the street birds chirped in their synchronicity of light at the end of the tunnel, following an endless night of downtime in the dreamtime.

Throat parched, desperate for a brew, I stumbled into the kitchen and flicked on the kettle switch, while the walls of the dream crumbled like sandcastles at the pleasure beach when all the hard rock souvenirs have sold out to day-trippers searching for meaning and memories.

The dream, of arriving at my final destination at the end of a dark and long journey, lingered like the afters of a cigarette burned to its inevitable, bitter end. A satisfying hit of euphoria, followed by a craving for more, in the grip of routine and addiction shame, when the smoke clears and the shadow of cold reality creeps in and taps you on the shoulder.

And squeezing out the teabag for a builder’s complexion, wondering where dreams go when they eventually crumble and fade into the fifth, I sit down with the old dog slumbering for Britain to survey the new dawn creeping through the blinds.