Day 121: Brighton to Dungeness

November 6, 2014January 2, 2015 / Dan Taylor / 1 Comment

‘We’re protected from their malice by their incompetence’ – Laurie, Brighton.

Strange times, these. Everyone seems to believe so much is wrong, but no-one’s offering a way forward. We’ve become uneasy about right answers, and fixated with locating wrongs. Hope has become a debased currency, one feels embarrassed at the exchanges about even taking it out one’s pocket. Clunky, greasy, funny spelling, weird symbols. Better traded for cynicism or snide complaining. Wandering around the marketplace of ideas, all one hears is the hullaballoo of people demanding refunds.

I’ve been travelling across a land-mass and nearby islands where not even the English language is a universal definer. There’s a vague sense of common-ness among the peoples I’ve met, but the regions, cultures and histories of these islands are so diverse that I can no longer imagine them as one country, say ‘the United Kingdom’, on a map. You can call it ‘UK’ if you like. But there is no king here, and little united about it. UnKnown might be more apt.

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Day 101: Bristol to Avebury

October 4, 2014January 3, 2015 / Dan Taylor / 2 Comments

‘It’s just intuition’ – Jason, with his girlfriend, besides an ancient stone around midnight, under the stars, Avebury.

To hell with alarms, or lack thereof. Mine’s not gone off, so the morning is like a firefighter’s scramble out of bed, leaping into a set of the nearest clothes, licking toothpaste round my mouth and hobbling out, half-shoed and hungry. Outside Pat’s place, I look on as a strung-out fella attempts to sleep whilst riding his bicycle. In his hand is a large sports store bag with his belongings. He stirs for a second, talks to himself, curses, wheels ahead a few steps, then dozes off again.

We’ve all been there, eh, victims of our misjudgements, an inability to say no… but sleeping on a bike?

Liberal attitudes towards drugs legalisation struggle when faced with situations where a person indulges in risky behaviour or becomes dependent on getting out of it, more than dependent on any particular drug (and alcohol’s one of the worst). He wheedles down an alley where I’ve locked my bike, then inexplicably reverses and returns to the street, where a phone drops out of his hand and shatters.

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Day 93: Aberystwyth to Carreg Coetan Arthur

September 12, 2014January 2, 2015 / Dan Taylor / Leave a comment

‘Are you ok there?’
‘Yes, we’re just doing a treasure hunt.’
‘Good luck!’

— Meeting wanderers on a twilight path, somewhere near Newport, Pembrokeshire.

I awake inside the headmaster’s office of an old school building in Aberystwyth, a small but pretty university town by the sea. The students are still away for their summer break, giving the town a tranquil but not too desolate feel. I look out its jaunty multi-coloured Victorian terraces, so self-contained and sure of itself. Yet there’s little around Aber, and nothing in the landscape I passed earlier would suggest its existence. It’s not sucking the life out of its surrounding areas, unlike most of the major cities, nor is it desperately trying to prove a point, often badly, like many of the smaller cathedral cities. I hear the cry of the gulls in the air, and as Nia and I wander into the town for some breakfast, I can’t help noticing passers-by with a swing in their step.