The Buried Giant: Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro's turn to have a go at the Matter of Britain. His ancient Brits (husband and wife) live in a Hobbit hole (sort of) in an Altzheimerish mist of forgetting (or is it a blessed cloud of unknowing) which affects the whole of their society. Prompted by faint stirrings of memory they set off in a quest for the son they may once have had,  accompanied by a mad, dragon-bitten boy, an Arthurian knight who comes trailing intimations of Lewis Carroll and T.H. White and a Saxon warrior with the swordsmanship of a Kurosawa samurai. Their adventures are coldly nightmarish, the love that sustains them- but will it sustain them all the way?- is deeply touchng.

A lot of the critics hated the book. Not me. I've fallen in love with it.

The Great Ship, Snargate

The great ship (which is the proper name for this kind of large merchantman) is painted on the north wall of St Dunstan's Snargate, Romney Marsh. It dates from c.1500- give or take 20 years. According to local tradition, a picture of a ship- placed so as to be visible from the south door- was a sign to those in the know that the church that contained it was a safe place to stash smuggled goods.

(Information from R.S. Sharman's "A Guide to the Parish and Church, Snargate, Kent)