The Party at the End of the World

We went to stay with Pascoe in Edinburgh.  The Fringe festival would be on but following two years of Covid, it was impossible to imagine packing together with strangers in tiny pub rooms.

We planned to walk in the Pentlands.  We took an extra big case to accommodate walking boots and walking poles and massive woolly socks.

But when we arrived, the lure of fresh live entertainment was strong.

‘And Covid levels are dropping’ said Pascoe.

The limpid summer light across Edinburgh reproached us, but still we allowed ourselves to be funnelled into backrooms, to have our flabby laughing muscles tickled back into life.

A fusillade of puns and one-liners was a great hors doeuvre for the more substantial imaginative humour of Foil, Arms and Hog, and Flo and Joan.  We marvelled at people of extraordinary skill, such as the Australian acrobats of Humans 2.0 and the almost-telepathic ventriloquist Nina Conti – to appreciate performers like these, live performance was so important. 

This year, there seemed to be more festival-goers than ever before.  There was little mention in any of the acts of Covid, Ukraine, Climate catastrophe.  People just wanted to forget for a few days.  With the streets full of fire-eaters and stilt-walkers, it was like the Party at the End of the World.

However, after two days, heads whirling and ribs aching from laughter, we needed a palate cleanser – going for a walk along the tranquil coast at Musselburgh and taking stock, before returning to the realities of our daily lives and the grim news reports.

So we did use those boots after all.

Get my Goat

At the weekend, Perran and I went to camp near Avebury, Europe’s largest stone circle.  We planned to explore the surrounding landscape, rich in prehistoric monuments like Silbury Hill and West Kennet Long Barrow. 

But we reckoned without the livestock.

We set off from the stone circle towards the Western Ridgeway intending to walk to see the Cherhill white horse.  At first we set up a thousand butterflies, a hundred birds and a couple of hares and it was all very magical and charming.

Then I spotted a problem – at least it was a problem for me – a large cluster of big white park cattle with calves.  I know cows with calves can be aggressive (understandably) and am becoming less and less willing to walk through such a herd.

Luckily the path veered round that field.

‘But,’ I said to Perran, ‘I can see more in the next field where the path goes.’

‘Well I can’t!’

‘They’re in that dip.’

As we got closer, he too spotted white backs. ‘But they’re too short for cows, Mum – must be sheep.’

‘Oh great, I’m fine with sheep.  But sheep aren’t tan are they? I can see some tan.’

As we passed through the kissing gate into the field, a whole herd of very lively goats raised their horned heads and cantered enthusiastically towards us en masse. 

‘It’s okay, Mum, they probably just want to see if we have any food.’  But too late – I had done a vertical take off over a gate into a nearby field full of brush and thistles. 

‘Safe!’ But then the first goat managed to squeeze between the gate bars and join me.  Suddenly I was charging uphill fast with Perran just behind, chuckling.  Now off the path, we had to squeeze under one barbed wire fence and climb over another in order finally to attain the Ridgeway.  If I looked a long way back down the path, I could just make out, lying in the dirt where I had left it, my lost dignity.

When finally we found ourselves on the bank above the Cherhill chalk figure, I was about to go through the kissing gate to get a better look, when Perran said.

‘Are you sure you want to go into that field, Mum?’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘I think you’ll find there’s a white horse in there.’