Into the Mist

It's Black Friday weekend, which means I'm on call and go into work in order to give out sweets and treats to the pickers and packers and try and nail a smile to my face against all my introverted impulses.

It wasn't too bad though, actually receiving thanks for giving folk a couple of Malteaser Celebrations was actually quite helpful, although there were a few greedy sorts around wanting too many bananas or helping themselves to too many lollipops.

The main issue today has been cycling today in the freezing fog that has enveloped the town overnight, it really wasn't much fun at all and I refused to work past 3pm when the light begins to go. I did however go for a quick walk round town to photograph the sights, or milky opaque lack of them.

There is the film "The Mist" where the inhabitants of a small midwest town in the USA find themselves, menaced by mysterious and terrifying monsters that have come across the dimensions into a thick fog. The townsfolk hold up in a supermarket, but eventually a few of them a run for it, out into the mist...

Well walking  along the river today was just like that, the possibility of a creature rising  up from the water and sweeping me beneath with a meaty tentacle ever present.

Of course it didn't happen, but it's fun to lose yourself in imagination...

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 30.11.19

The Reluctant Skeleton

Halloween at work found me sat surrounded my team-mates who had really made an effort...

....while I hadn't bothered as usual. Problem is, I just don't have the hands to be able to make a costume, and don't have the money to buy one.

I also have a famously grumpy demeanour too, if my brain chemistry is that way inclined. Which first thing in the morning it usually is, although I've tried to change my morning routine to improve things. My team-mates are very understanding, and had actually sorted out a skeleton costume for me to wear to the various Halloween costume parades and photo-opps we were having today.

Sadly, it was a skeleton made for a rather smaller puddle of putrescent flesh than myself. About an 8 year old one, judging by the fact that as soon as I tried to clamber into the darn thing, it began to stretch and rip along the seams. I was fastened into it as if I was wearing a corset, at which point it popped open at the back like a flaying victim. It was also extremely tight and painful in rather intimate areas.

As for the mask it was so small I could only see a tiny tunnel of the world out of my right eye, and thus spent most of my time bumping into people and things as we went to our first parade.

We actually had a fun day, but I regret not making better efforts! No parties for me tonight! Or indeed, any night. I must be old.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 31.10.17

The Wicker Man Kirkcudbright Pilgrimage

Well, as my bird photos slowly sync to my Chromebook to await further editing - oh boy I have some beauties for you, I hope! - I thought I might entertain you with a piece of Kirkcudbright history well known to fans of cult film.

The town's appointment with...The Wicker Man

The Wicker Man is a religious horror thriller, featuring fundamentalist "not before marriage, dear" Christian copper Sergeant Neil Howie (played by Edward Woodward) searching for a missing child on the isle of Summerisle, who's enigmatic community leader Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee) is about to preside over the island's May Day celebrations, celebrations of an iron age Celtic nature that may or may not have a dark purpose behind them..

Released in 1973 with no great distributor support, the film had been shot actually in the autumn of 1972 - the year of my birth - around the Galloway area of South-West Scotland, with towns like Newton Stewart, Creetown and Kirkcudbright playing a major role in the filming.

Within Kirkcudbright itself, the locations featured were exteriors featured during Howie's search for the missing Rowan Morrison; the somewhat bizarre sweetie shop where Rowan's mother cured sore throats with a frog, and exteriors used for a sort of chase scene involving the policeman and a clacking "hobby horse" that played an important part in the ritual festivities.

This last sequence is of particular significance to me, because it took part smack in front of my old house where I lived with my mother. Sadly, we weren't in the town during the filming and indeed I wasn't even born, but many of the older townspeople remember the filming well; indeed I was drinking with a resident last night who had been bought a drink by Sir Christopher Lee himself during filming and who had really enjoyed the town.

Sadly Britt Eckland, who played the community, ahem, deflowerer, Willow Macgregor, was rather less of a hit with the locals for all sorts of reasons.

If you ever watch the film and know the town or see it in these pictures, you will see that it has barely changed at all since 1972, and probably not since 1872. The film is wonderful and I highly recommend it, full of traditional music and mysterious folk atmospheres suggestive of a culture long passed.

You too will share Jim Howie's horror as he reaches the end of his search, I guarantee it.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 16.10.15

The harbour cottage art gallery, easily recognisable in the film

Mrs Morrison's sweetie shop, now a gallery too

Seen in the hobby horse chase

Also seen in the film. I lived down here.

Down here lived artist Donald Rudd whom I have written about previously. The hobby horse gave a clack right outside the door.

The town prison, or toll booth. The chase ended here.

Yes, it's now an art gallery as well

Iron collar for miscreants

Lincoln Steampunk Festival

Something rather different today, although one could say there is a fair amount of scientific equipment involved.

I went to Lincoln Steam punk Festival, another of my holiday adventures. I was (rightly) terribly afraid of looking horrifically underdressed and out of place amongst what I thought (again, rightly) would be a fantastic looking throng, so out came a black shirt, retro shades and my usually never seen in daylight bowler hat. Not so much steampunk as dismally failing goth, but better than nothing.

To the train!

It seemed odd to be heading up steep hill for an event other than the Lincoln Grand Prix cycling race, but when I got there it was worth it. So much to see and look at, and admire. Being what I am, I sometimes envy groups of outgoing people, and there was no question that the Steampunk crew of begoggled Victorian scientists, and pith hat wearing soldiers sporting badges relating to their membership of some form of Tea based regiment, was something I would want to be.

Being a fan of Verne and Wells, and the later "valvepunk" sci fi of the 30s to the 50s with Asimov and his joke analysing "Multivac", this I suppose is only natural. The practicalities of dressing like this in a town where sometimes wearing a hat makes you a target for a beating, well, that's something else.

There is a safety, in numbers.

One thing that was very noticeable that this was no youth cult. Many of the Steampunk folk were were well into their 50s, and some even older than that. As was pointed out to me by a friend, the look they sport is not a cheap one, and a fair amount of affluence might well be required to support the lifestyle. The other thing, was that it is a look that requires a little bit of weight to make it really work; skinny steampunks don't look quite right.

Apart from two people, it's a very white movement was well, the reasons for this I have no idea. They are hardly a right wing crew, after all.

The amount of material I've collected today is huge, I'll begin with thise images from the walk up the hill, and the Castle Square area where the first group of stalls were.

Waiting for the train

The crowds in Castle Square

Surprised the scooter wasn't tricked out. 

A senior gathering

Meta. Photographing one steampunk photographing two steampunks

Aesthetics versus functionality

The sun shone occasionally

The black haired woman sported horns of some description

Steampunk dog clueless on goggle wearing

The impermanence of flesh

It did indeed play a tune

Posing by accident with her wings

Retro Rommel and the flame haired girl

Slim

A group of ladies

Genteel stall owner

Militaria

Scary scary fellow

Loucheing for tea

Browsing in boots

Posing with tourists

On the Balegate

I advance, masked

Antique shop owner

He appears to have the horn

A mixed gathering

Spinal plumbing

Angel wings