Unicycle Emptiness

I hear the words ‘Shipwreck Walk’ and my mind flows rapidly and exuberantly through tragedy, romance and death. And everyone likes romance, tragedy and death.

It is a walk starting in Fleetwood, guided by and funding the RNLI through the treacherous Morecambe Bay and my main concern is when all the earnest men in woolly jumpers are staring earnestly at the barnacled ribs of ancient galleons I might seem ignorant over whether it is from the 16^th or 17^th century as they tramp over the treasure chests peeping out which somehow only I can see and thus get the acclaim and oh the huge amounts of money somehow for finding.

What I was not expecting was no shipwrecks. And a sellout of crisps in the middle of the sea.

Fleetwood is out in force and they are determined to have a good time.  I see few furrowed brows looking at antiquated maps but there are a lot of cans and I am the only one with a rucksack. This makes me embarrassed and I hope for a sudden squall so I can be all resourceful before realising there is only cardigans and a hideous brown banana in the rucksack. Most people here look like they would chirpily die before wearing a somewhat bobbly Bay Trading cardigan.

We walk out into the bay, always an exciting experience when knowing of the ‘treacherous quicksand’ and towards a distant lighthouse. Upon arrival it is Escheresque in its bold hold onto existence, its wooden shackles snapped in so many places it seems impossible it is still standing. Underneath its shadow, a folk duo is suprisisingly playing and crisps and kit Kats are being sold but have sold out by the time we fight over whether with our solitary gold coin to have a packet of Walkers cheese and onion crisps or a Kit Kat.

I see brown skeletal ribs of long sunk ships poking enticingly out of the sucking sucking sand. I cannot wait to touch them and imagine Tragedy.

But when the walk continues, it snakes merrily back to the starting point. The route has changed to encompass no shipwrecks. I was not aware of this and am saddened but nobody else seems to care. This is an impromptu party in the sand and the hiss of opening cans of beers fills me with envy. I have only water and sensible footwear, dammit. It is an unusual situation for me to be in and I resolve to carry beer and crisps with me at all times. Just in case.

The earnest men with maps and books do not exist, the shipwrecks remain a mirage but I have walked across the bay, dodged quicksand, touched the fragments of a lighthouse and soon I will find that the North Euston Pub does a large house red for three quid something.

And it will have been a good day.

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It is Jubilee weekend and I am determined to avoid the queen. I do not like her reptilian smile and beady eyes. I do not like her slight sanctimonious smirk. I do not like her gently folded hands and I do not like anything she stands for, whether it be her and her extended family bopping wildlife on the head or hee-hawing around their Lovely Houses when I yearn to afford laminate flooring from B and Q.

And thus I end up in prison.

And it’s all the queens fault.

Lancaster Prison contained within the castle complex is open for the second time to non-offenders as part of the Jubilee celebrations since it was decommissioned a year ago. I could give you some fascinating facts about the prison being the oldest continual prison in the country and how the courts sentenced more people to be hung there than anywhere else in the country besides the Old Bailey in London but in my excitement and enthusiasm about PRISONS and DEATH and WITCHES I will no doubt spectacularly exaggerate and not bother to look up actual facts and dates  because who would when the subject matter is PRISONS and DEATH and WITCHES.  And then instead of my steady stream of Spam I might, if I’m lucky get an annoyed missive from a local person on a Hotmail account informing me that I am incorrect about something significant and I should correct my facts and I will be all embarrassed and angry at the same time.

And it will be the queen’s fault.

Everything is.

The huge old wooden entrance door to the castle, the ancient wall containing it splattered with musket shot is opened slowly to show the fascinating jumble of archaic cruelty, torture, murder, graffiti in ballpoint pen and toilets separated from the room by a mere screen.

The prisoner in cell one should he/she have pleaded Not Guilty might have had narrowed eyes aimed at him in the unlikely event the judge came to his/her cell and seen the cannabis leaves drawn carefully on the wall. I watch my toddler cheerily attempt to thwart the wire and forbidding notices and go up several flights of forbidden  stairs and feel a sudden pang of guilt that we are not at a petting farm. Then he has a huge tantrum due to not being allowed to dangerous forbidden things in a prison and I want to leave him here.

The cell where the ‘witches’ and other poor unfortunates were kept is almost Disneyesque in its over the top caricature of terribleness.  A stone time worn flight of steps curving into a small hellhole of utter darkness, dankness and depravity. I jokily threaten loudly to put the badly behaved baby in there and no-one smiles. Which is embarrassing. I guess they are too busy thinking about sad and lonely deaths centuries ago or trying to hear the guide to enjoy a weak pun about making a child suffer. Bastards, I will put them in there as well. And the queen. That’ll learn em.

Somewhere a convict is reading this because they Googled ‘escape from prison tips’ or something and my languid prose appeared and they are laughing about the stupid idiots who pay nine quid to go to prison on a sunny bank holiday weekend. For nine quid I was pretty much expecting a ride on a broomstick but the reality was better and I say this rarely. I loved the angular lines of stark modernity against the crumbling walls of the medieval, I loved the Health and Safety notices next to where people were murdered by the state for stealing a handkerchief and I love the way where for a brief minute when recoiling in the sudden sunlight outside the castle, our government, our recessions and even the queen didn’t seem quite so bad.

Then I shivered in that sudden stream of bright sunlight,  told myself to man up and went home to play The Sex Pistols and to try not to think of the living deaths I paid nine quid to gawp at, like a viewer at the Roman Coliseums, excited about misery and death as long as it is diluted by Time.

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They take parking a car in a field very seriously in Wray. About three men in luminous tabards and various facial expressions from ecstatic enthusiasm to somber steady seriousness gently guide us through to a sweet smooth spot next to another car in a field. I feel it was £1.50 well spent.

Wray seems to be a place where many things might be Taken Very Seriously and Decided by a Committee. I went to a cold car boot here last week and all the books had all been very recently featured in Sunday supplements of Good Newspapers. I suspect nipping to the Post office here with a hangover on a Saturday morning might be fraught with discussing meta-textuality within AS Byatt and Victoria Beckham’s Learning To Fly is hidden next to the empty Gordons bottles in the conservatory.

The theme for this years scarecrow exhibition encompasses anniversaries- the Titanic, the Jubilee, etc and the Olympics.

Many villagers decide to try and take on all of these grand narratives by having a sagging straw filled queen saying something about the Olympics beginning with ‘One…’

The first scarecrow I was going to caption was of Boris Johnson but my boyfriend could not bear to take a photo of the mop topped lumpen caricature. Or even his scarecrow…

I have never see such immaculate rubbish in my life. I could quite happily live in this small triangle where I suspect a protractor might have been involved. And this was the rubbish from a fun fair! It was a very neat fun fair to be honest. I wanted some awful chips in a cone and perhaps a wild-eyed carnie but there were kangaroo burgers and soft rock played in quiet measured tones instead.

A canoe, a scarecrow and the queen all united against Cameron. Now THIS is how revolutions happen.

What Jubilee? What recession? In this house we only like spies. Spies are awesome. I was not allowed to have a scarecrow in a holdall. The committee said No.

You know you are in a bad way when looking at scarecrows in swimming costumes makes you compare cellulite with them.

It is also the anniversary of the Pendle witches. And Colonel Gaddafi apparently, looking towards the back.

This looked so much like the actual queen I had to stop and stare and fire five rounds just to be on the safe side.

In Wray, people have spare Dysons just in case of the occasion of gay/queen/Queen/I Want To Break Free video scarecrow puns.

I like the photos of local children in the portholes of this one. Are they simulating drowning or just simulating watching scarecrows drown? Leonardo De Caprio scarecrow’s big rubber glove hand on Kate’s nether regions adds extra pathos and intrigue.

Usain Bolt is actually made of bolts. An astounding feat but I would not want to be neighbours with the dedicated, literally minded welder of metal.

Wray loves synchronized swimming. This was terrifyingly ambitious, splendid and detailed. Apart from the feet. But feet are hard.

There was a parade of giant scarecrows on Friday night. It was somewhat reminiscent of middle England Wickerman. Apart from the fact that nobody died. Unless the Teacup ride at the fair turned nasty later.

Unicycle Emptiness also covered Wray 2011 and 2010. Click the links for more (slightly dated) topical scarecrow related shenanigans than is probably healthy….

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There is no way I am going across that fucking bay. The walk to the toilets from the car park has nearly broken me. It is cold, at least 50 metres and at the end the toilet demands 20p per pee and I have no cash on me. This is it. This is as much as a personal challenge as I can face on a Saturday morning but a nice woman holds the loo door open for me, a delightful example of middleclass anarchism.

I look across the churning sucking bay. There is far too much water there. I seek sanctuary under the awning of ‘She Sells’ eco boutique. I decide I love Arnside so much I do not want to leave it.

Volunteering to do a cross bay walk is easy. The reality is terrifying. You forget about the elements when sitting on a sofa blankly clicking on Facebook.

But it is for the Bipolar UK and I have told a good friend and organiser of the walk that I will do it.

The assembled crowd are jolly and friendly.

The bay is the opposite of jolly and friendly. I look wildly around for escape routes but it is 9am, I do not drive and the pubs are shut. Thus I have no escape routes and am embarrassed by the assembled lively enthusiastic children.

I can see Kents Bank, our destination, twinkling in the distance; it does not look too far away.

Then we wade into the water and walk away from it for hours and hours.

The feeling of doing something you have never done before is discombobulating, terrifying and exciting.  I realize I hate adventure and try and make a break back to the Albion pub that will be open in a few blissful hours but a woman casually walking with a sturdy four year old in her arms and a serene smile makes me keep going. Albeit not in the spirit of charity, more envy and spite at her impressive upper arm structure. I am struggling to keep my bag of crisps out of the water.

The sand is cold, the sand is freezing, we head out across the bay and it is amazing.

Crabs crawl from under our feet; we are still not walking towards Kents Bank, that small village across the bay but to the far horizon.

But from this mismatch of people with rucksacks comes a festival in the middle of the sea. But without the shit music. People chat, share hipflasks, coffee and stories, strangers natter and we hold hands as we go knee high in water, water which is surprisingly warm compared to the elements outside it. The views are amazing. It looks like dinosaurs could still live in those yonder blue shadowed mountains. We walk and walk and watch our destination sitting like a mirage, never ever getting closer.

The sand is colder, colder but alive and fresh and so wonderful to feel nature between your toes, feel the texture and depth of natural materials, assess the sand before plummeting your feet in. I trust Cedric Robinson, official Queens guide to the Sands and his biblical route marked with branches but suddenly feel a sinking sinking sensation in the feet and stomach and a scrambly second of panic before twisting my toes away from the tiny hole in front of me and trying not to think about how it would feel to keep sinking like others have here before me. Horses and carriages lie under these sands.

With the first submersion into proper water comes at first the denial and then rebirth. I cannot escape this so I walk into it, head held high and people around me whoop and cheer.

The second delve through the river Kent and the current makes this impromptu al fresco town realize the true power of nature-it is only up to our thighs but we have to concentrate on walking because there is a surging churning invisible power that is desperate to take us far far away and I can see how it might be easier to give in to it, let your legs be sucked away by the invisible maelstrom beseeching you to go away, away, away, it seems almost easier than this dogged stomp against nature.

This transient population is now alone on a sudden sand desert in the middle of nowhere that could be the Caribbean if it was not for the hazy mirage of Heysham power station in the distance, power and danger again in a squat faint box on the horizon.

We walk through the sea barefooted and biblical, take photos of views we may never see again, we are doing something very special today.

Kents Bank is starting to appear closer. I want a drink and a wee. But I also don’t want this to end, because this experience will never happen again.

I walked across the bay to raise money for Bipolar UK

If you have ever enjoyed reading this blog, it would make me very happy if you could chuck a quid in their direction.

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The hippies have taken over and I can’t afford a thing. The prices in the chain charity shops * are so ludicrous I feel like pushing an old lady volunteer over smartly in the back whilst screaming ‘Are you fucking insane? It’s a kid’s plastic drum with no stick! No wonder people still have cancer! ’ But I am English and thus look at a Primark dress tag in a slightly sarcastic way on the way out. That’ll learn ‘em.

Totnes is not in the Northwest. If it were, people would come on coaches to point and hark. And maybe throw rancid butter pies. It is in Southest Devon, near rubbish Plymouth but edging away discreetly and burning some Nag Champa to hide the smell. It has history, centuries of it but more recently as being a hippy colonized town, banning carrier bags, having its own currency and the rest. The first person I see when alighting out of the car at Morrisons (I could not find a Fair Trade car park and I like their cheese selection) is a dreadlocked man on a skateboard. When walking up the happily antiquated high street, my boyfriend hears someone say extremely earnestly to a child around six years old, ‘how is your chakra feeling today?’ As a professional Wiganer, he is delighted by this and falls to his knees in delight but as we are on a hill, nobody notices.

After going in the Riverford Organics deli and coming out with a whopping big Homity pie, a mustard and cheese pastry, some posh Italian something and a massive chocolate truffle for under a fiver, I decide I want to live here. I’m quite shallow. There is a cat sitting under a war memorial and there is well-priced pastry from a fancy organic shop I have read about in The Guardian. My wonderful life forged in the North can go to hell. I decide to keep this thought quiet for a bit.

And then there is suddenly shopping like my eBay saved searches. Cutesy old fashioned exterior shops selling within dresses with unicorns on, Spanish designer coats and Scandinavian babygros. Three shops in a row sell Moomins handbags. I love Moomins handbags! I run to find the boyfriend and baby who in the general excitement over cheap organic Guardian pie I forgot ever existed and hyperventilate gently at them whilst pointing wildly.

‘Yes, I know you like them but you can’t afford them.’ Oh. I had forgotten about that. ­ The happy bohemian gentility of Totnes comes at a price even a well-priced pie can’t save. The babygros are 30 quid despite and because of their quirky retro patterns. The coats are two hundred. And we are in a small town in Devon in a recession.

The hippies have taken over and with them came counter culture, with the counter culture came the trendiness, with the trendiness came the aspiration, with the aspiration came the desire, with the desire came the money to fulfill the desire. Thus the desire to be counterculture drives out the true hippies, those with the ideas and ideals but not the brand that determines and markets it.

I hear a woman fluting the words ‘positive energy’ with the elocution, and confidence to make it a statement of fact like the Ocado delivery arriving at 12 rather than an ideal found somewhere hidden within oneself. A small terraced house here now costs a Lot.

But The Performing Arts College has closed, many say the hippy heyday is over and my boyfriend declares the chippy we end up going to, to have a slight hint of menace due to a mushy pea related mix up. Somehow, however I am still alive to tell the tale.

But if you go to Totnes,  remember it is a fairy tale version of hippyness, wonder how the fuck people afford to live there and be very very  clear about your order to the softly spoken man in the chippy who has the faint aura of menace.

* the local charity shops  for local animals were sadly all closed

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Here speaks the usually silent photographer. Set loose from my usual job of photographing stuff that Cyberfairy points out as curious, winsome or tragicomic, I had free rein to indulge myself in my chief delight. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s a short photoblog where I ignore pretty things and give you instead mould, concrete and aging roofs out of context. Don’t worry, I shall return to Penn-like (or is it Teller-esque?) silence now and your enjoyment of our heroine’s adventures in unlikely places shall continue unsullied.

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We are in the south-west drinking orange cider and eating unpleasant fudge. You will be able to read about the delights of Minehead, Dunster, Tarr steps and other places we have not been to yet within the next few days after we have arrived back in the North and mourned the lack of orange cider there. I do like orange cider. If you happen to be in the South West, may I recommend Cheddar Valley, readybrek coloured and as potent as Kryptonite.

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Wray is a neat pretty little village buried deep in the Lancashire countryside, half an hours bus ride from Lancaster. There is a school, post office, two pubs, a garden centre and cafe. There are woods, moors, hills, footpaths, a river and everything you could ever ask for in a countryside idyll. It is pure Enid Blyton but with the house prices of today. Every year it hosts a Scarecrow Festival with a central unifying theme. The entire village seems to take part and the results are spectacular. I have chosen just a few of the many pictures we took and more can be seen here.
The official theme for the festival this year was a mystifying blend of ‘TV Detectives,’ ‘Reality TV’ and ‘Topical’ and the pictures below are grouped accordingly.
Topical and Celeb!

Oh dear, not only are the unhappy couple being pursued by paparazzi and celebrity magazines but now their unhappy plight over betrayal, lies and infidelity has been faithfully renditioned in glue, old newspapers and a Matalan top. The attention to detail is superb. The signs at the bottom say ‘Cole’s been given the red card” and something along the lines of ‘Now you’re off’.’ Take that, Cole! I bet when you were bedding the attractive blonde, you never considered how the residents of Wray would render you in scarecrow form. Mark Owen, take note.

The makers of this Jordan do not approve of such a blatant Jezebel with her false breasts and money making ways. It is a curious sight to see, a plastic huge breasted Jordan dangling out of a beautiful old village house decorated with bunting. I imagine the Cotswolds must be like this.

The owners of the house are clearly on Team Peter. The straw sticking out of his chest shows his hirsuteness and his flat shrivelled face is instantly identifiable as Peter Andre. Imagine watching your marriage breakdown portrayed on a white stone wall! It would be awesome! Sadly no cagefighter scarecrows as yet.

Andrew’s cushiony pockmarked face looks somewhat flabbergasted and there is an unseemly bulge in his trousers whilst Dorothy looks suspicious, open mouthed and won’t catch his bulging eyes. Hmm. Naughty Dorothy.

You are an American with big dreams, a love of Madonna and bizarre clothing and you dream that one day you will break through and make it. You persevere, you work hard, you pray, you wear glasses made out of cigarettes and one day, you finally make it. Welcome to Lady Ga-Ga’s first appearance at the Wray Scarecrow festival. She is in a tantalising melding of genre, fact and fiction in a cage and covered in snakes and spiders as a contestant in I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. That programme is often represented at the Wray Scarecrow Festival. I think the villagers like the thought of cowering big breasted celebrities in cages being humiliated and teased.

‘Help, my arms have turned to bubblewrap!” “Never mind that now dear, get me another glass of Chateau Neuf De Pape.”
This delightfully detailed scarecrow tableau is Celebrity Come Dine With Me (I think) The celebrities appear to be Pob and Marie Stopes. And someone with no head. Charles the 1st?
Biting Political Satire!

I loved this. I first thought it was a scarecrow who had hung himself but it is ‘The Floating Voter” and he has a very good pastiche of a ballot paper in his lumpen hand. The residents of Wray are united in their politics by the fact they (well, their scarecrows) seem to hate all political parties although it is mostly Gordon Brown their creative rage is wrought on. Should Labour lose the next election by a very small minority, I shall think of the thousands of people who walked through Wray being pleasantly bombarded with anti Gordon messages and I shall wonder if scarecrows in a village in the North changed history.

This one had me hysterical. It was all context-the Gordon Brown scarecrow (below – how to make him look more sacky and scary than the real thing?) was a work of art-I thought he was canvassing for a minute but the tiny chirpy mass produced Nick Clegg in a plant pot just seemed so weirdly perfect.

Oh very good. This was a real audience pleaser. Tattooed young families, old women and seemingly everyone were all delighted by this all saying in varying sorts quintessentially English accents, ‘Well, they’re all the same aren’t they?” before nodding sagely and resignedly and going to get an ice-cream. I felt sorry for Gordon with his dark baggy face and suit next to tiny happy Nick Clegg in the primroses. It was like the telly debate all over again.

This one is quite baffling but I am sure there is a cutting rebuke against the Labour government here somewhere. I was going to say the scarecrow presence is rather sidelined and who is going to scare the crows away but fortunately there is a picture of Gordon Brown to keep the crops safe. I like the attention to the lines around his eyes.

Just excellent. It features my favourite drink, is both topical, political, makes a dig at a celebrity, all in a rhyming format and in under thirty words- I spy the new poet lauriette! It was outside one of Wray’s two pubs and we shall leave aside the fact the 10% duty idea was happily, quietly and quickly abolished-and the fact that depressed alcoholic scarecrow tramps surrounded by cider bottles was the main reason the idea of the tax was introduced in the first place.

Sleep well, children! This was part of a bigger tableau randomly set up in a dingly dell outside the village featuring Batman, and an amazing MDF Batmobile etc. It had been cunningly made political by laminated sardonic print-outs about how the various figured represented each political party. I can’t remember who the Joker represented-probably according to Wray’s no nonsense scarecrow politics-everyone! If only Newsnight were here-you don’t need any Swingometers in Wray. They could save a fortune on pie charts alone.

And in true Nostradamus/Chaos Theory, thousands will die in a terrorist attack on a new Country, many many more will die in the aftermath leading the world into political unstability and war and the hidden ring leader will be finally found in a battered bin in a village near Lancaster. I do not know what the other sign means. It is either clever political satire or something snarky about local recycling. Or something else.

The residents of this house are so topical it hurts. People at the time of writing are still stuck abroad and don’t even know they have been portrayed in scarecrow beer swilling form. There was another one but I chose this because the other scarecrow looked sad. I like the crow pecking the goggles as well.
TV Detectives!

In which leading fictional detectives are portrayed fighting in a water butt. There is nothing else which needs adding.

Miss Marple would love Wray-it is St Mary Meade and revels in it. There were many images of Miss Marple herself but I liked this one for its simplicity, absence of Miss Marple and jolly delight in the concept of someone being killed.

It’s Inspector Gadget looking like he is now in a Russian Intelligence Squad-careful now-his gloves contain high levels of cancer causing chemicals!

Crowjak-Nothing else needs to be said. The ‘Crowlumbo’ was also good. I love Wray.

This was a masterpiece. Inspector Clueso was not only himself personified in straw but the Pink Panther music played from hidden speakers, the pink abnormal beast leared over him and there were pink wooden paw prints dotted around the outside of the house.

How can one get over a hangover without watching Poiret twiddling his moustache on ITV 3 on a Sunday afternoon? There were quite a few of him in Wray but I liked this one as it was in the sort of grand central village house that you just know has had many a body flop lifelessy to the floor in the library. The bunting, the figure in the window and Poiret’s eyes gazing sightlessly over the village makes you just know that someone is gasping their last breath inside-Good luck Poiret! I hope you untangle the sticky web of intrigue before another scarecrow dies.

The house in which this is set belongs to a proud Scotsman who always has detailed and Scottish scarecrows on the theme of choice.Which must take some doing. His ‘Captain Crowscarer’ was a masterpiece…

Wray Village

Not only is this a surprising faithful rendition of a googly eyed Nessie outside a barn but check out the faint chalk graffiti on the wall. It’s what he would have wanted. Micheal and Nessy togeva foreva -both misunderstood legends prone to rumour and hype bothered by tourists and unrealistic depictions in the media.
The sadness, loneliness and hope in rural communities as depicted by a sack, an old floral dress and the waiting graveyard. There is no vicar in Wray anymore.

When buildings have faces…

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A selection of pictures from an April trip to Morecambe.

Read the Unicycle Emptiness view from Morecambe in winter and find more pictures here

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