7. Pyrenean Journal, March 8th. Here and there.

After a forgiving February, sleet and hail are sweeping across the plateau. The pale blossom of the blackthorn/sloe is torn from tree and twig by a vicious wind. I'm trying not to let the weight of depression measure my days. I watch the TV, read books and newspapers, write my journal, fiddle with paint and listen to the weather. Outside in the wider world, [because that's what it feels like here; like I'm in a removed space, a world separated from the real, political, conflict strewn planet that does exist], platitudes are breathed, wars are conducted and managed, habitats are defiled, ecosystems lost or interrupted and profits made there. Here, because I'm not outside, because the weather is persistently atrocious, I find myself lost in a mind rant on the corruption, ineptitude and irrationality of the human species.

If we were living at the tail end of human existence, with environments either degraded or lost, what would we dream of? Our lost landscapes? The dust deserts and skies of Ulan Bator? The soft fields and water mills of Suffolk and the Cotswolds of little England? The crusted crags of the Pyrenees or Rockies? The melon slice of a beach or the enveloping forests of our childhood, when trees were no surprise? Or a palingenesis, a new space,a rebuilt paradise?