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Found myself seated in Seat 61, coach 7, on the Eurostar en route to Brussels on Tuesday evening. Was reading iDisrupted by John Straw, who came into see us earlier in the week. Highly readable, recommended – and very relevant to our evolving work on Breakthrough innovation.

That evening, I spoke inside one of the balls of The Atomium, as part of a networking event for baseEUcities, where I’m a member of the advisory board – helping Daniella Abreu develop the EU side of Base Cities.

Had always assumed that The Atomium was just a big sculpture – had no idea there was a museum and conference facilities inside. Originally built in 1958, it was meant to have a short life on the World’s Fair site, but has become a permanent, highly symbolic feature.

Some great conversations around the future of cities, fuelled by some wonderful Italian/Sicilian wines, all of which were organic. I was given a couple of bottles: a 2011 Nafro Sammauro, Cerasuolo di Vittoria, and a 2012 Sgarzon Teroldego. One joy of the Eurostar is that you take acquired-elsewhere wine on board.

But truly grim to see the lines of trucks, extending apparently forever, caused by the migrant problems around the Calais area. This is turning into a tragedy of epic proportions. My sense is that is just the thin end of the wedge.

As climate change gets its claws into Africa and the Middle East, the current trickle of migrants will swell, until millions of people are on the move. Something that those interested in environmental refugees (or, more recently, environmental migrants) have long warned us about.

Interesting to see the Wikipedia entry of environmental migrants starting off with a photo of migrants from Oklahoma in the 1930s. The bad exponentials of environmental disruption can – and will – happen anywhere. The upsides may include ever-better wines grown in England, but the downsides will tax many city mayors to the limit.

Just finished the latest Bernie Gunther novel by Philip Kerr, having now read all ten. The Lady From Zagreb. Literally couldn’t put it down. A tremendous conclusion to my 3-week nano-sabbatical. Delighted to read in Kerr’s end note that the next in the series, The Other Side Of Silence, will be out next year.

As I was finishing The Lady From Zagreb, sitting on the deck in front of the summerhouse in the setting sun, and reflecting on just how little I had known in 1970 (when we Landrovered through, being fired upon at one interesting point) of what is now the former Yugoslavia’s vicious WWII history, my mind turned to gentler things. I wondered whether there were any swifts around.

It occurred that I hadn’t been looking up much as I drove through the book like a truffle-hound. Goebbels is central to the book and prides himself on his love of wildlife. But a prerequisite for seeing wildlife – as in when I spotted a bedraggled heron sitting in a raft-alike structure on one of the lakes in Richmond Park this morning – is to get out into nature and to look about you.

Was struck by the number of coupling damselflies in the Park today – and by the way one big blue dragonfly became obsessed with the violet-blue pair of glasses Elaine was dangling from her hand.

So, some 40 pages from the end of the book, I paused and looked up, watching as a piece of thistledown drifted overhead, illuminated by the sun, like something out of the forest scenes in James Cameron’s film, Avatar. Then I almost cheered as four or five swifts raced by overhead, westwards.

Reading books like Ghost Fleet and The Lady From Zagreb in recent days has been an uncomfortable reminder of how just how rough our future could turn out to be. But I return to Volans feeling that there is much that we can do to accentuate and drive positive trajectories in the wider world.

Genuinely thrilled to be part of the B Corp movement, with both Volans and SustainAbility certified. This new video gives a sense of what it’s all about.

Have been ploughing through a stack of books these past three weeks, as I enjoyed my nano-sabbatical – albeit first two weeks were mainly devoted to a massive decluttering of the house we have lived in for 40 years this year. Pace has accelerated since the Augean tasks began to tail off.

This morning, for example, I finished Ghost Fleet, by P.W. Singer and August Cole, which I had first seen reviewed in The Economist. Took a while to order it in from the States via the Barnes Bookshop. Well worth the wait – it’s stunning. Can’t recommend it highly enough, even though Richard Branson goes missing in a balloon part-way through the book.

Among books I have read have been two short, great ones: The Longest Afternoon (about 400 men who it is argued decided the battle through their defence of the farmhouse at La Haye Sainte), by Brendan Simms, and Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (even better than I first read it in my early teens). Passed the last of these on to Gaia when she delivered the car back after a trip to Norfolk.

Also read Waiting for Godot, in the Faber edition of Samuel Beckett’s Complete Dramatic Works, a gift from Sam. Only book I fell out of, 144 pages in, was The Winds of Dune, by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, but I may well take another crack.

All this reading against the backdrop of wood pigeons tearing into our crab apple tree, though very few of the still-green fruit go into their crops. Most end up on the ground, waiting to be swept into the compost heap.

Have managed a few trips into the city centre, to get new suit(s) and add to the stack of books waiting to be read. Vying for my attention next are Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith, and The Narrow Road to the Deep North, by Richard Flanagan. Then there is The Lady from Prague, by Philip Kerr, and Don Winslow’s The Cartel.

None of them exactly peaceful, though am also toying with several books that are a little less violent, including The Wright Brothers, by David McCulloch,  The Fourth Revolution (on the need to reinvent the state), by John Mickelthwaite and Adrian Wooldridge, Adam Thorpe’s On Silbury Hill and Nikola Tesla’s My Inventions and Other Writings.

Had a nice note from someone this morning who had read Ashlee Vance’s biography on Elon Musk, on my recommendation. The book, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, is a great read.

We also made it across to Syon Park yesterday, despite the Volvo’s ignition playing up again, and I was fascinated to see the aerial roots of the cypress trees by the water. These, apparently, are so-called “cypress knees.”

One thing that has been making my bad knee suffer in the past week has been getting to grips with my new Rickenbacker 370 12-string guitar, something I have wanted for over 15 years. Reading that the line was being discontinued, I decided to take the jump – particularly when I found one at what seemed like a significant discount. Much room for improvement in my playing, but great fun.

Not sure I welcomed the break when it was first preferred, but it has been wonderful for heart, soul and environmental tidiness. Have no inclination to slow down any time soon, but this has been a reminder of just how regenerative downtime can be. My thanks to the Volans team for holding the fort in my absence.

My latest blog for GreenBiz recalls when, ways back in the late 1970s, I met part of Dr Strangelove.