North Norfolk got off comparatively lightly with the 'stormzy'. Our petite back patio, bore the brunt of flailing in a continuous gale. Bits blew off, a fence departed from its frame, a decorative garden mirror flew into raised bedding and broke. When Storm Ciara was predicted I moved our bins from their raised area to prevent them cascading off it. They stayed off for an entire month. When I put them back it still felt a bit presumptive. Still when the children ask me what I did during the dreadful storms of 2020 I can say proudly, I brought the bins down.
If people visit Sheringham at this time of year, its at weekends. When the forecast is so bad, understandably no one comes. They say there was a 7.8% drop in retail footfall in February, well that means most of North Norfolk had donned gilets and were cowering in their bungalows. With every storm wrecking gale of rain passing through each weekend, our most profitable days vanished. We've almost forgotten what a good days takings can feel like.
It was hard staying confident, our Buddhist practice has been put through its paces. Nevertheless, it can slowly wear you down. Finding yourself emotionally zonked at the end of the day, simply from the effort of staying present and positive. We've focused on product making to distract us from the lack of human interaction. These items are starting to be fed into the shop now we're entering March. Easter is still a month away, the official beginning of the tourist season. We've increased our opening days from three to five. Trade doesn't really justify it yet, though we're ready for it whenever it does.
Just when the imminent arrival of Spring offered up hope of more fruitful times, along comes the 'demon sword' of a virus pandemic. This could either have a deleterious affect on summer trade, or bring a boost from people not taking holidays abroad. We have a larger percentage of elderly people here. Imagine if half your local population self isolate and never venture out for weeks. Apparently what people seem concerned most about is not running out of food, but toilet paper to wipe their butts.
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| No cases in Norfolk as yet |
TV bombards us with updates about the relative lethal consequences of the 'demon sword'. This tends to 'alarm the elderly' with oracles of their looming demise - Its now come a lot closer than you think, my dear'. I tend to view this quizzically. Should I apply this to myself? What makes one elderly anyway? Of course this doesn't apply to me yet, I am a few years shy of 65, thank you. I can, however, read the early portents whilst I amble blithely toward the neatly cut grassy lawns of being 'elderly'.
I almost daily encounter fresh locations for a bodily ache, the arthritis in my hands is gradually turning them into claws with feeble grip, plus my recall of words, information or names are travelling a little further away from being at the tip of my tongue than before. When I find myself feeling less than charitable towards a pensioner fumbling for change in a shop, or whilst weaving in and out of the phalanxes of zimmer frames on the narrow pavements of Sheringham High Street, I warn myself,- 'one day you'll be doing that, you'll be struggling simply to get about, you'll be getting flustered and out of breath just opening your wallet'.
Perhaps marrying a husband whose younger than yourself, will help knock a few years imaginatively off the age tally. I don't feel in my being that I'm getting older, I guess no-one does, yet the body says no, nonetheless. I notice myself gazing vaguely in the general direction of my face and body in the mirror. I look, but not really look, if you know what I mean. The external experience of my body changes regardless of however youthful I might feel the person living inside of it is. My skin develops increasing spatters of liver spots; the flesh around my neck moves inexorably towards resembling a wrinkled, sagging testicle, my body mass has settled for being squarely chunky over trim and slim.
All this is meant to be edifying for a Buddhist to fully acknowledge their impermanence. To calmly observe the sea of ones mortality advancing ever higher up the beach til inevitably it hits the sea wall and dissipates. This doesn't prevent it from also feeling sad, in a manky sort of way.
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So, just when we all need a little bit of cheering up. the Sheringham Scira Viking Festival arrives, huzzah!. Its only eight years old, but grows more popular with every year, already the second largest such event in the country. However, if there are only two, then, as a statistic this is less impressive. The programmed events over half-term mainly focus on 'the children', with sword, helmet and shield making workshops. Teaching them the social benefits of a well executed decapitation with a sword, this is educationally good, no doubt. The axe throwing, mock fights and stalls selling period authentic cow horns and other things to vaguely Norse accessorise your home, keep 'the adult children' fulfilled in their desire to keep shopping. It culminates, as any charade must, with a torchlit procession dragging a fake viking long boat through town to be incinerated on the beach.
We went along to the boat burning, just to say we'd been.. once. This is Sheringham, so the first thing that hits you is - the ridiculously over amplified music. This time it was a continuous portentous drone with horns and drums interjecting over the top. Loud enough to make your brain vibrate or explode in a fit of hand tremors. Someone put 'Viking music' into the Spotify search engine and this was the longest piece they could find. It just went on and on and on, constantly sounding like it might just be about to reach a dramatic crescendo...... but never did. Apparently this drone could, and did, go on all day.
It was high tide, so the 'fake boat' was squeezed well up beach by the sea wall. Viewed from the Esplanade where we were, it was hard to see much more than an odd bit of flailing rigging and a wisp of black smoke. In a stiff cold gale I was surprised they could get it lit at all. But after piling loads of pallets into it, throwing in some petrol, then flaming torches, whoosh, up it went. Was it impressive? Not particularly. Was it moving? Nope. Did it make you long for the simpler times of your Scandinavian ancestors? It made me long for a bag of chips.
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This 'boat burning' prompted reflections on the emptying out of communal rituals, the general trivialising of significance. Things become just a little night amusement like this one, devoid of local cultural meaning or resonance. Sheringham has a Viking Festival simply because a local artist convinced The Sheringham Festival Committee it was a good idea, based on the town's name being originally Scandivanian for Scira's hamlet. These two slim facts justifying it's entire existence. No profound connection, local lineage, long held folklore or background tradition. Everything has been literally stolen piece by piece from somewhere else....from someone else's culture.
Its like spending a week in a Viking theme park. Yes, I guess it could be fun, but it can't escape from also being spectacle for spectacles sake. With no overarching purpose, ritual associations or mythic depths to touch, it has, spiritually speaking, zilch to offer. Perhaps building a giant standing man out of crab and lobster crates and burning them with last years Carnival Queen buried inside it, might have a bit more punch. Lets have a Wicker Man Weekend, with a Christopher |Lee lookalike competition and transform Sheringham into an isolated insular Scottish Island community. It wont be that hard.
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I'm killing time in Norwich before my Zen group, walking in the general direction of The Forum Library across the market. A young woman approaches, she is perky and personable in a scarf and winter coat, her head leaning slightly to one side in that mixture of beseeching coyness and fake friendly eyed enquiry.
'Are you from round here?'
'I live in North Norfolk'
'How long have you lived there?'
'Two Years or so'
This is already getting too chatty and familiar for my liking. I'm nervous. What's this about ? Where am I being led by this conversation? I'm envisaging a public poll, questionnaire or request to support climate change or a homeless charity. I wish she'd just get to whatever the point of sale of this street intervention is, so I can respond 'Not - today -interested - now - never - clear off' and move on.
'Have you got a few minutes to spare?'
Oh here we go
'Well I do have to be somewhere soon'
(which is the polite English way of saying clearly and loudly - No I Do Not!!! )
Not picking up on the subliminal passive / aggressive undertow of my reluctance, she shouts very brightly
'Just follow me'
and facing away from me she runs like the clappers across the road away and towards the Victoria Arcade. I seize my opportunity, walking briskly in the opposite direction.
In my mind I'm thinking -
'Was that some sort of Situationist performance art project or bizarre behavioural psychology test.........that I've now failed'
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