Skellig in Macclesfield

I had a morning in Macclesfield because J. had a meeting there and I just fancied a mooch about the shops up the long high street. I was buying fancy cheeses in the nice deli and finding a 1930 Hogarth Press edition of Vita Sackville West's 'The Edwardians' in Oxfam. (I know, I know I said no more books.)

Funny thing in Nero's. I was getting to the end of David Almond's sublime 'Skellig', which I'm rereading for next week's class. It was the bit with the angel leaving and all that's left of him is a heart drawn on the floor and three feathers. And I looked up at just that moment because someone was shrieking at the next table and, just as I looked - there was a feather on the laminate flooring. I mean, it was a pigeon feather scuffed in with someone's carrierbags or shoes, but it was still pretty strange for a second.

On the way back we visited garden centres, looking at summer houses and Christmas trees. The skies over the fields were dark at two o'clock, mounded with purple clouds.