I look out of the window towards the hill to the north; it seems almost as it had been before. The other houses are gone, swept away by the waves; the squatter shacks on top of the hill appear normal, although I know that they are in ruins. It’s the sheet of ice just beyond the peak of the hill that makes the view different; that crystal wave quick frozen by the deep cold before it could crash over the hill into this small valley beyond. Read more on page one.

2. The Blue Bees

They seemed to appear from nowhere; and spread everywhere very fast for slow, fat bumblebees; and nobody had an answer for them; not in time, that is. I remember the first blue bee that I saw; before the danger was known, certainly before all the events of that hectic period. I had been standing by the cage, admiring the plants inside and out; I have always had a passion for plants, and would see to their needs every day, events allowing. Read more on page two.

3. Oil to diamonds

At the time that I first noticed these trends, there were about ten thousand million active internal combustion engines world wide. The petroleum versions on average produced three pounds of carbon dioxide per pound of petrol, and many used twenty or more gallons in a day. The commercial jets would use thousands of pounds of fuel per trip; and each pound would burn into three pounds of carbon dioxide. The extra weight came from the air through where the vehicles travelled; and they were monsters for consuming oxygen. A lot of greenhouse water vapour was produced as well. Read more on page three.

4. The Gold Beast

The Gold Beast was something else; something very fundamental in the energy state of the planet had changed, and the yellow metal, in a single action, seemingly planet – wide; and effecting all gold on the surface of the Earth. If the influence reached below ground to unmined or reburied gold, I could not say, but certainly all possessed of gold definitely displayed this new, and very disturbing attribute. For the gold began to emit lethal radiation. Read more on page four.

5. The New Moon

It came from the deep darkness, cold and bitter in the faded power of the gloom. It was huge, its momentum was awesome, its raddled and damaged face hideous to behold. The New Moon came up from the celestial South; it passed by unannounced; nobody, apparently, had seen it coming; or those who had observed it on its terrifying path, had chosen for whatever reason, not to speak of it. It came out of the void, swung into an elliptic orbit around the Earth and the old moon; and sheer madness came in its wake. Read more on page five.

6. Ice

I retreated; and knew it to be a retreat, off the plant – swaddled roof, burrowing through the brambles and damaged branches back to the floor of my hidden copse. I folded up the ladder and put it back in it’s corner before returning to the cage to see how all my little friends were doing within. The cage was damaged in a couple of places and the evil birds had found their way within to the bounty of berries that I had spent years nurturing. I did not begrudge the birds a meal; the cage was now hard to see, the way the brambles had passed beyond it’s limit. I harvested spinach, tomatoes butternut and fruit; I had lived out of tins, I felt, for quite long enough. Read more on page 6

7. Carboniferous

I had stopped seeing skulls, and bodies and skeletons; and other distressing little bits of death; I suppose that one filters these things off, especially when they never actually do anything and seldom pose any kind of threat. I also feel that the cloth of green hid most of these things from sight; and maybe there were those who ate the bones, working diligently in the dark background carefully out of sight. Most of the old civilisation simply wasn’t there anymore; so I didn’t think about it. Rather, I was faced with a new problem when leaving my tiny forest keep; getting through the vast and dense overgrowth that seemed to be responding very well to the new mixture of sun and rain. Read more on page seven.