St Davids, Wales. 

Our carefree 'Holiday abandon' is put to the test every evening after returning to our comfy rented cottage. Before sleep we watch television news of children being killed in Gaza and Syria, we learn of other conflicts as in Ukraine. We learn of the need for ‘economic growth’ the necessity to attack natural reserves on more and more fronts, because growth is all that matters. 

In our rented garden with views out to sea we stare out over natures’ beauty and reflect that we are maybe the last generation of homo-recreationalis , maybe the ‘time of the humans’ is coming to a close. 

We plunder, we drill, we mine, we frack we have a hunger for more and more to fulfill the insatiable hunger of the monster known as ‘economy’. 

On screen the children of Gaza are being pulled from under rubble, being carried to hastily dug graves, their bodies (already) seeds for the next conflict,  the middle east has it’s own logic, it’s hard to imagine the cycle of violence, war rhetoric and innocent death ever ending. 

YesterdayI saw a documentary of children in war zones by Lyse Ducet from the BBC. A father in Syria told the camera that although he loved his son he would gladly see him die if it is for the glory of his cause, he said “because our cause is the only thing worth living for nothing can replace it, and a son can be replaced”. I think that was the moment that I realised that we in the west can do nothing to end the madness until the madness ends it’s own logic.

In west Wales it’s a beautiful sunset, in the field next to where we are staying a farmer is mending a fence, a dog barks, swallows fly high “another good day tomorrow” the farmer says, I agree and under my breath add ‘for us’.