Post-apocalyptic literature...

...is not a favourite choice for me, but I find I am drawn irresistibly towards it from time to time.

In the 1970s post-atomic-bomb writing was all the rage, and I read and loved 'Riddley Walker' - set hundreds (thousands?) of years after the 'one big one' it inhabits an England of weird but just recognisable language and myth.

I have returned to it time and again over the years and it remains among my top ten books of all time.

As the threat of nuclear disaster has been superseded in recent years by the threat of climate catastrophe, I have found myself apologising often...sorry, really sorry, should have seen it coming earlier.

And last winter I even started mentally composing a short story set in a post climate-disaster west Wales - mentally collating Riddley Walker-type phrases, as Kitty and I walked the storm-battered, eroding cliffs.

And now...and now I have just collected from the library a book which has been on my to-read list for a while. Written a few years ago, it tells the story of a world post-apocalypse. Post-pandemic in fact...

I'll let you know how I get on with it.

(Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mantel - should you be feeling brave...)

Wabi Sabi

Reflecting on the loveliness and fragility of life and on living with a gentle touch...

Delicate movement

beauty in transient

and lightest of touch...

Late-summer shadows...

Calendula on a Victorian pitcher

9/11

Remembering how

giant birds of death shattered

our innocent screens

Reflections

in my attic. I bought this lovely candle cupboard about 35 years ago for £35 or so...

My flotilla...

...has a new little barque

attic stairwell

Gathering the shards - 

the shattered, scattered remnants

of impermanence

Beauty in unexpected places

The car has broken down on the edge of the service station on the M4 outside Reading.

While the young man from the AA looks under the bonnet, tuts and makes unintelligible pronouncments, I pick glowing ruby rosehips from the hedge and reflect on the strangeness of life and How Days Turn Out.

Later, at a garage in Basingstoke, he shows me pictures of his dogs and tells me about having to drive to Machynlleth every fortnight, to care for his father who is dying of cancer and his mother who has dementia.