Cheddar Gorge town is totally shut, as you’d expect. I imagine the same is true of Niagara across the water and loads of other tourist towns. These places that only really have an economy because they’re near a thing that people go and look at… Many of them are going to be driven into the ground by now. The windows of the hotels are boarded up at the bottom of the gorge, the lights are all out, nobody walks the streets. It’s like a ghost town. We drove through looking at the shutters swinging in the breeze. We were just glad to check out the gorge on our way home. We stood in an empty coach stop listening to the birds fighting. We saw just two people who were working in the area. A construction worker held a sign saying “Go”, and a single shop was open selling coffee and cupcakes. By the side of the road we also saw a single oblivious brown goat. Cheddar Gorge.
I had chosen the scenic route as I had plenty of petrol. Before long we turned a corner and saw Glastonbury Tor on the horizon – unmistakable. We didn’t stop on the high street, but the wells were still running and bereft of crowds so we filled our water bottles with well water. Back in the car and a bit more south and eventually we were in a car park looking at the Cerne Abbas giant. For some reason, he had been my destination all along – I probably diverted about an hour and a half just to get to him on the way home. I don’t really know why, either. I just knew he was kind of in the right direction. I’ve never been to him before. I just felt called … drawn to his vast priapic cock, your honour.
It was cold and wet. We stood admiring him from the car park, with neither of us wanting to trek up the hill to walk on his member.
Nobody really knows who he represents. Some say Hercules, some say he marks the burial of a nephilim. Others say that because there is no record of him before 1694 that he is just some obtuse jibe at Cromwell. I call bullshit on that, not in this area. Far too much ancient stuff buzzing around here. His penis called to me because he’s of an older world than Cromwell. Hercules is familiar, but only because he was written down. Our tales were lost with the genocide of our storytellers and druids and wisdom keepers. Who knows who he is. Gog? He’s a colossal ithyphallic clavigerous petrographic figure. He’s got a big cock and a weapon and he’s made out of stones. Who he is doesn’t matter so much as what he is. If you ever need the energy of a dude with a big cock and a weapon, he’s your man. Clearly part of me felt I needed to connect with that energy right now. I was glad to look at the happy fellow from the car park. I might go lie on that vast dick another time, when the summer has come down and restrictions have lifted. That’s what you’re supposed to do, I think – sprawl on his manhood. That’s what I have been led to understand anyway, m’lud.
The rest of the journey was less loaded with ancient sights. The lovely village of Chettle came and went – gorgeous with a manor house to die for that was recently sold because the incumbent family were burning money trying to fight each other for ownership. That’s in Dorset, and we passed just as the rain was starting. We saw a lot of England through the windows of the car before the rain came. Now I’m safely installed by the sea again in Brighton with my emotional support bubble, AKA Lou. Tomorrow I’ll have to go back home to sink into admin hell while she attempts to make sense of her existence here after her long foray into meditation and her brief stint as my plus one on the driving job.
AlBarclay 