On inertia, luxury crisps and buddhists.

 

Pics might follow.  

I happened to be at the bestest most unusual place in the North recently. As someone who writes a blog about about unusual and bestest places in the North, this was of course a Very Good Thing. I strode about making sarcastic, flowery or erudite sentences in my head. And as this place was actually unusual, I did not have to search for new and good words about for example, standing stones which are all spellbinding, grey and aloft and stuff but you really need to be there to witness a megalithic portal to a lost past and thus reflect upon life, death and mortality and other pleasant concepts  you can dwell upon on a Saturday morning rather than look at slightly reduced ties in TK Maxx.

 

But every time I tried to write about this place, this really interesting unusual place, the blank Word document danced and mocked me-with every attempt to describe this place, all adjectives and excitement disappeared.

I felt like I had lost a child.

I am generally pretty shit at everything. My maths development stopped at the big number eating the little number, in fact that might be when I became vegetarian. I am dyspraxic, thus clumsy and forgetful. But I was ‘always good at writing’.

Now suddenly I am not. I have tried to write about the best place in the North but suddenly words are just symbols to stumble and trip on, there is no flow. I killed my beloved old laptop with a harsh spill of Pepsi Maxx oil and I feel sitting bolt upright on a charity shop dining chair, my head stretching upwards to the monitor as a sunflower is to the sun does not help. No one has ever written well with good posture in mind.

Anyway, the best place in the North I have never written about shouts at me whenever I am in an upmarket supermarket. You see posh crisps. I see Buddhists…

I will try and write again.

 

It is summer. I see a leaflet for Coniston Priory in a supermarket or somewhere and I am a glutton for leaflets detailing tourist attractions I would rather die than go to. Sometimes I am so bored with my life I laugh at the errant apostrophe in ‘wellie’s for hire’ (surely the worst thing to ever be amongst a star feature at an attraction?)  I mock the cartoon pigs wearing an article of clothing and wonder if a tearoom has ever not been ‘award winning’. And then re-evaluate my life.

We go to Coniston Priory because it is an intriguing mixture of an old manor house and a Buddhist retreat and temple.

A Glaswegian monk serves us English Lakes ice cream at a pound a cornet. And I wonder about his life and how he came to be here. Here in this crumbling Gothic building where gargoyles are silhouetted against the sky, orange robes and shaved heads walk stately through tangled gardens, the grave of a dog called Satan lies in a pet cemetery snarled and poignant in woodland.

I have not previously been in a Buddhist temple. I expected to take my shoes off and look at shining gilt statues. I did not expect to see dotted around the temple in attractive positionings, offerings to these deities that consisted of premium crisp brands.

We are talking Tyrells tortillas here, in understated yet pleasing middleclass flavours I had not previously witnessed before. Bottles of Belvoir Press are also enticingly displayed, one with a Ferrero Rocher neatly placed on its lid, which delights me more than it should. There are no Wotsits or small forlorn Smart Price ready salted crisps in this religious sanctuary-Mature Cheddar and Chive in upright confident oblongs lounge smartly on shining surfaces. It is utterly fascinating. I imagine golden gods in the darkness of night gorging on Thai Red Chilli and Pepper discs as owls swoop outside and a forgotten ghost from the old manor house opposite peers quizzically through the window.

I yearn to know what would happen were this sanctified place be besmirched by inferior potato based snacks and imagine the resultant rioting featured on BBC News with images of flapping orange robes and blazing placards with angrily painted pictures of NiK Naks with a red line harshly slashed across it.

 

I decide it’s probably time for another pleasingly priced ice cream.


3 Responses to “On inertia, luxury crisps and buddhists.”

  • narf7 Says:

    I can see it now…much like the Father Ted episode where he kicked the Bishop up the arse… angry monks running amok! After “Eat, Pray, Love” (the most heinous pile of crap I have ever made it halfway through without having to eat my own shoe) EVERYONE who is anyone wants to be monkesque dahhhhlink! Upmarket thy name is Dalai lama and thou shalt sell to the highest bidder who shall be humbled beyond belief by thoust ability to tantalise one with high class morsals for one’s special gluten free, salt free, raw, paleo diet…we have our very own monkload of profit in Australia called New Norcia. It was pretty broke and destitute till the monks decided to bake their own bread and flog it to the plebians and now they ship it around the world and live heartily off the profits. Good on you monks…You have to move with the times and flog what is floggable BUT upmarket crisps do a wonderful job of sawing away the true atmosphere of a place…replacing it with a jaded sense of entitlement and the vague urge to hock your children and buy a vinyard.

  • cyberfairy Says:

    At least vineyards produce wine ;-)kids dont
    Sometimes I would prefer an artisan bread and a lie in.

  • cyberfairy Says:

    A splendid post I would reply to better if I was not overtired and on a phone.I will leave you this blog in my will;-)

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