27 plants flowering now in our intentionally wild, autumn-come-early garden, Durham UK: musk mallow, chicory, St John's wort, bird's foot trefoil, knapweed, marjoram, forget-me-not, yarrow, watermint, gypsywort, purpleloosestrife, camomile, hop trefoil, clover, viper's bugloss, hedgebedstraw, borage

David's convoluted dream last night ended when he saved £2.50 on fish and chips by pretending to be a worker at the botanical garden. They say insects dream. Did/will this black tailed skimmer's dream contain pretended immobility to catch a tasty greenbottle snack? A human lurking in 360 deg vision?

They came with the flags in the night. One flaps on the lamp post outside. A white butterfly slashed red, caught. We ought to be filled with joy and pride. If not, we must pretend. Or be cried unpatriotic. There were patriots who kept slaves and stole others' land. The flags tug, flap, hang limp.

It was hot. Bare shoulders sizzled. Kids larked about on spoil heaps, splashed in Bollihope's bitter waters, its cadmium, lead and zinc. Everyone was laughing. Too hot to look for crinoids from a tropical sea. Above, on wires, a young cuckoo urging with trills took food from a pipit. Not bitter.

#Climate Once pit village, Esh Winning, is to act. Here i'll record. Imagine a community garden. Can we do it? Breathe trees! Pond and toad? Mining bee and digger wasp? Together learn to tend, restore, bring back swifts and skylarks, April showers. Eat fruits. We, 'Nurturing Nature.' #biodiversity

At the ruined seminary where Joe was miserable as a boy, the dark-edged bee fly will flre her eggs at the nest of a solitary bee. Though Joe longed to lose himself in the geometry of projectiles, his lot was triangular relationships. Parasitism and metamorphosis at water's edge. #shortfiction #poets

A mirror, a wardrobe, a police box... an everyday door in our house, on our street, to elsewhere... "Should we let them watch this, Bob?" Dad's answer is lost. By then, the back room is gone & we too. But the door opening, I see now. As for beyond: afterwards, we kept an eye out. #SpeculativeFiction

Collected bookclub in Durham. Literary in the best sense: genre viewed through a different prism. Books selected by Emma are mulled over by interviewer, author, translator and gathered readers. Thought provoking. Booktalk with cake. #fiction #womenwriters #literature collectedbooks.co.uk/pages/about

'The School on Seaside Lane' at pop-up screens. Conserved into stasis, dissolution, dust. Collapse, the final act: a blow from afar. Chris Robinson, poet, tells of a fractured village, coal seam below. Tide of policy blurs, buries memory. Who asks those who live it? www.facebook.com/carljoycefilms

Billy Collins judges Fish Publishing comp! www.fishpublishing.com/competition/poetry-contest/ Entering a competition affords a faint, wafting notion that one of these days your poem might be read by a practicing poet of note. When I got onto the Bridport longlist, 2024, I was over the moon for days.

We light down. We may not have long, touching fingers through the glass. A fragile connection. We are still. We are still here. Only just.