Last night, I woke to the sound of my patio slipping from its place on the earth and falling into the sea. This was not unexpected. In fact, I had been waiting for it to happen for some time. The truth is, it’s an experience that I’ve come to know very well over the years and it no longer surprises me as it once did. Sometimes, I have slept right through it, and have become accustomed to waking in the morning to discover that a little more of my garden has slid out of existence during the night. On this occasion though, I found myself shaken violently out of sleep. I came through to the back room and switched on the outside light to find that, finally, there was no longer any garden to be deprived of. Where it had once been was now just a crumbling precipice that spilled over into a dark, churning void of water below. Slabs clung loosely to the newly formed edge like broken teeth, and a single chair, balanced delicately on the cusp of oblivion, leant against the wall as if it were waiting for me to talk it down and stop it from jumping.

For a moment, I considered that I might still be dreaming. After all, it was a dream that I had had many times before and there was so much about it that was dream-like. But this time, I somehow knew that it was more than my mind could possibly have made up. It had an uncanny clarity to it that could only have ...