Excellent - thank you for sharing. There are definitely places in the world where it feels like the veil is thin and whatever is on the other side is lurking and just waiting for something… a victim, vengeance, grief, who knows… I felt this when I was driving through northern France and the atmosphere felt so heavy, inert with creeping dread. Afterwards I found out that the area was where many WW1 battles had taken place.
Brilliant. This made me laugh out loud. I’ve been on walks like this; your descriptions of the bleakness and desolation were so evocative of that particular part of the countryside too .. I felt I went on that walk with you 🤣. I need chocolate after reading it …
Wow! 🤩 That was some walk!! Brilliantly described, I acutely felt the eeriness you painted with your writer’s pen. Glad you made it safely back home 😂to known creature comforts and familiarity!
The worst for me isn't the mud or the empty roads, it's the abandoned places like that garage. (Beautiful photos throughout, by the way.) Seeing those two wonderful cars just sitting there makes me wonder what terrible thing happened to the people who had a nice business, a nice life. And then rust. Frankly that whole area seems hard and cold.
I love this so much, thanks for the reshare! Unsettling walks have been life changing for me. Once we really start to notice the strangeness of the world — the abandoned cars, the places where the very air seems to become thin and otherworldly — it becomes quite difficult not to believe in magic, or other dimensions at the very least.
You are - indeed - an excellent writer! I loved travelling along your gloppy pathways, seeing discarded flotsam and jetsom from a Jag to jars to a heron skeleton. Travelling in woodlands isn't so safe around here... coyotes in most every part of the city, and across the harbour the mountain trails have wolf, bear, puma warnings. A man walking alone likely feels different than a woman in the same scenario. Perhaps. Keep writing.
As a teen, I used to go and sketch the trees and wildflowers in a field near the village of Terling in Essex, a couple of miles from my home. One day I was so unsettled by the atmosphere that I never went back. A few years later I found out that it was suspected a covern met there around the time of the Witch hunts. (The Witchfinder general Hopkins was based in N Essex of course)
This had me entranced! I know these thin places well as a child in Suffolk and Cornwall you learn early that some places don't welcome you in, but merely tolerate you 😂
I felt that walk, the pull of the thick mud and the feeling of being watched.
There is a section of the river nearest to my house that is lined with old cars. In the 1950s, they decided to experiment with erosion control and used what they could find in a local junkyard.
I love it when you include photos taken on your walks. I recently read a bunch of essays about WG Sebald’s habit of including enigmatic blurred photos in his books, see especially Rings of Saturn. Your photos by contrast actually illustrate what you write about. I like both styles.
Excellent - thank you for sharing. There are definitely places in the world where it feels like the veil is thin and whatever is on the other side is lurking and just waiting for something… a victim, vengeance, grief, who knows… I felt this when I was driving through northern France and the atmosphere felt so heavy, inert with creeping dread. Afterwards I found out that the area was where many WW1 battles had taken place.
I slept in a place in Morocco called Bou Gaffer where many French soldiers had been killed by rebellious Berbers. There was a wine bottle dated 1932.
Brilliant. This made me laugh out loud. I’ve been on walks like this; your descriptions of the bleakness and desolation were so evocative of that particular part of the countryside too .. I felt I went on that walk with you 🤣. I need chocolate after reading it …
Thanks Natasha!
Thanks for including me on your walk! Got my steps in for the day. Now off to have a cuppa and finish my book!
Wow! 🤩 That was some walk!! Brilliantly described, I acutely felt the eeriness you painted with your writer’s pen. Glad you made it safely back home 😂to known creature comforts and familiarity!
Thanks Catherine!
The worst for me isn't the mud or the empty roads, it's the abandoned places like that garage. (Beautiful photos throughout, by the way.) Seeing those two wonderful cars just sitting there makes me wonder what terrible thing happened to the people who had a nice business, a nice life. And then rust. Frankly that whole area seems hard and cold.
The decapitated heron was very freaky ... I wonder how it got that way? I can see why this walk was so memorable for you.
Where I walk, this would have been the work of a fox.
The witches familiar might have something to say about the heron, perhaps.
Now that I think about it. I once found the head of a decapitated magpie on a beach. A fox or a feral cat I suppose.
That was a great evocation of mood. Well done!
Thanks Michael!
I love this so much, thanks for the reshare! Unsettling walks have been life changing for me. Once we really start to notice the strangeness of the world — the abandoned cars, the places where the very air seems to become thin and otherworldly — it becomes quite difficult not to believe in magic, or other dimensions at the very least.
You are - indeed - an excellent writer! I loved travelling along your gloppy pathways, seeing discarded flotsam and jetsom from a Jag to jars to a heron skeleton. Travelling in woodlands isn't so safe around here... coyotes in most every part of the city, and across the harbour the mountain trails have wolf, bear, puma warnings. A man walking alone likely feels different than a woman in the same scenario. Perhaps. Keep writing.
Thanks for the great story and photos.
As a teen, I used to go and sketch the trees and wildflowers in a field near the village of Terling in Essex, a couple of miles from my home. One day I was so unsettled by the atmosphere that I never went back. A few years later I found out that it was suspected a covern met there around the time of the Witch hunts. (The Witchfinder general Hopkins was based in N Essex of course)
This had me entranced! I know these thin places well as a child in Suffolk and Cornwall you learn early that some places don't welcome you in, but merely tolerate you 😂
Penhallam just looked it up, don’t know why I’m posting as no one should ever go there…
Good grief! That stump that looked like a statue, that Thing with a square head wearing a dress(?) What the -? Why? Atmosphere in spades
I felt that walk, the pull of the thick mud and the feeling of being watched.
There is a section of the river nearest to my house that is lined with old cars. In the 1950s, they decided to experiment with erosion control and used what they could find in a local junkyard.
https://youtu.be/22343i0mqLM?si=liwEFk554A0m4rDI
In New Zealand they turfed old steam locomotives to hold raging rivers. Lately they are being hauled out and restored.
That's in Oamaru. Also there were 2 found in Lumsden. I guess at the time that was the only value in those old steam engines.
I love it when you include photos taken on your walks. I recently read a bunch of essays about WG Sebald’s habit of including enigmatic blurred photos in his books, see especially Rings of Saturn. Your photos by contrast actually illustrate what you write about. I like both styles.
I love his books!
I consider you a low-key Sebald. I’ll have to find your writing about your walks in Norfolk.
Blimey, that sounds deeply unpleasant, what a relief when you got back into the car. Phew!