I really hate this weather. I know it’s the summer holidays, but we must have rain. The dusty earth is crying dry tears.

My garden is crying, my allotment is crying.

I’m planning resilience. More organic matter. Less bare earth.

I can’t think straight. I haven’t written here for a couple of weeks, and this is an introduction to the ramblings that follow. The picture is Hyde Park. Before I was in London I was at Buddhafield Festival, which was wonderful. We arrived on the day of the England semi-final, and nobody was showing the game. I was headed towards my car to watch it on my phone when I came across a huddle under a tree and a laptop. The poem at the end tells that story.

Here are my unedited ramblings:

So many things. A cormorant emerges in front of me in the Serpentine, then dives again. A pigeon lands on the table, leaves a deposit, then flies away. A heron lumbers over and three Egyptian geese wave their white wing panels low over the water.

I think I’m trying to write about the state of the world. The world. My world. The world of other people.

In order to write I must exist both inside and outside the world, but never be part of it. And yet I long to be part of it. If I could put into words what I want to put into words then I could be known and if I was known then I could find my tribe. As it is I fail on all counts.

Last night I watched tv with Nick. It was terrestrial tv, Channel 5, and there were many adverts. The programme was terrible, the adverts were worse. I felt invaded. I also felt disempowered. Engagement was compulsory. Right now I’m sitting on the Southbank with a pint of lager. The music is loud and there are crashing skateboards to my right. Endless people flow past. Yet I’m alone, I’m an island, I can write.

The weather man and the cricket commentator keep saying how lovely the weather is. We are desperate for rain. The weather is terrible. The long predicted disaster is beginning to happen. Nobody cares.

Smoke. Or dust. Something. I’m in the auditorium waiting for Hofesh Shechter. I wonder if it was here that I first saw him, twenty years ago.

19.18. Twelve minutes. How do I count?

Like breath, so much breath, music deep and pulsing, continual, on and on. Eight dancers, a shadow of that first dance I saw. Lighting so soft, mostly, with sudden brightness. A blue Jesus dancing alone. A girl in white dancing alone. Slaves or prisoners, hands tied behind their backs. Out here the girls dance in twos, in there as well, occasionally. I’ll walk home, dance surreptitiously as I go.

And finally the poem written at Buddhafield, which is not about Buddhafield at all.

The Sun will Rise Tomorrow

The tree has never seen anything like this.

The laptop is balanced on two stools

with a powerpack under it. Two rugs

or garments of some kind are hanging

from the branches to shade the laptop

from the setting sun – the tree has seen it all.

The tree has never seen anything like this.

The game is on the screen. The crowd

huddles around. Huge gnarled roots

that were once perhaps branches

canter the auditorium so part of

the crowd can climb into them to get

a better view. The tree has seen it all.

The tree has never seen anything like this.

A goal! The crowd erupts. It was nil nil at

half time, and now a goal! One nil. Hooray!

The game goes on. The commentary is inter

mittent. Children dice with the precarious

balance of the laptop. Another goal.

Sighs. Then another. The seconds

tick away. The final whistle. We fade away.

The tree has seen it all.