I spent this New Year in a cottage in Dorset with some friends, which was all vastly drunken, gluttonous fun. Just what one would want for New Year then. We walked across the beautifully harsh landscape around Winfrith Newburgh, saw the full magnificence of the Thomas Hardy world. Even as I walked along laughing with friends, I couldn’t help but ponder whether any of it – so beautiful and untouched by man – would actually survive. Another day we went to the coast and I found an ammonite. It was a beautiful example, formed in a rock shaped like an old fashioned law firm stamp. I could use it as my insignia if I liked. That fossil was particularly interesting to hold in my hand and take away with me, as it’s something that’s already seen one cataclysm.
On New Year’s Day I called up my parents and my sister and other good friends and wished them all the best and told them that I loved them. It should have been blissful, it should have been the perfect weekend. And yet the feeling of dread won’t let me be. When I closed my eyes I could see flashes back to my last dream of 2011 – flames not only shooting down from the sky but out of the ground. I could see the faces of those people around me screaming, uncomprehending at this dreadful thing happening to them. In the dream there is a mother – a young and petite blonde lady, in a long grey coat – shielding the baby in blue to her breast while she yells out at the top of her lungs.
There were a couple of occasions I let my New Years companions walk on ahead over some awe-inspiring cliff-top, while I tried to control the mounting panic at my core.
As I write this it’s Monday but no Louise because of the bank holiday, that’s a shame as it would have been good to speak to her.
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