Mab of Dream

WOW! OH! WOW! OH WOW! :-D I'm still sitting here grubby as hell and badly in need of a bath. It was PeteFest and it was brilliant.

Friday

We stayed at Birchwood Tourist Park for the occasion of Pete's 30th birthday (which gave me the shock of my life when I did the maths there... that means that he was only 18 when I met him! :-0). Folk came from all over the country to pitch our tents in the whole section of the camping park, as Pete had booked for us, though I think that Kate and I came furthest.

It took us 6 hours to get there. I was supposed to get the afternoon off, but I couldn't get out of a conference. That was supposed to finish at half 3. At 4, Kate was in reception waiting for me. It was still 20 past 4 before I fled and the conference still wasn't over. Thing was that we had to get to the site by 9pm and it was about as South in England as you can get without ending up in the English Channel.

We hit rush-hour. We hit road-works. We hit major miscellaneous conjestion (probably brought on by the bank holiday). Kate had contact lense trouble, which looked like conjunctivitis at that point; then got cystitis. A few miles down the A350, we hit fog and very slow cars. By quarter to 9, we were going through Blandford Forum thinking that we couldn't make it, so I 'phoned the site and a very reassuring man on the other end of the phone told us that it was ok. It was raining by the time we pulled up on the site and I told Kate I'd get someone to help me put the tent up (it's a mansion of a tent), but they'd all disappeared. We could see their tents but no people. There was also no 'phone signal. Kate looked ready to burst into tears. We put up the tent and it was mysteriously wonky. (It's only today, after taking it down that was discovered why - the ground underneath was wonky! We've spent days tatting with the tent trying to correct it! LOL) And as we were putting it up, a pole ricochetted off and hit me across three fingers, I thought I'd broken them at the time, but gritted my teeth and just got on with it.

Soon as we were up, Kate had a lie down, then went to war on the cystitus with water. It lessened slightly, but wasn't knocked into touch until the next day, when we got some stuff from a chemist in Wareham. After a half an hour or so, she was in much better spirits. The gang returned from the pub and Pete popped in to see us, but mostly it was a case of getting set up and settled down.

Saturday and Sunday

There were about 30 people there by Saturday. It really did have a festival air about it, we each had to keep reminding ourselves that this was a camping field with families on it. The 30 people came as a bit of a shock to the landlord of the Duke of Wellington pub, in Wareham, when we all turned up within an hour of each other after a full English cooked breakfast.

We basically set off in bits and drabs as another carload of people were washed and dressed enough to go. By the time me, Kate, Pete and two others arrived, the first carload had been there 40 minutes and still hadn't got their breakfast. The group after them were on the verge of saying, 'fuck this for a game of soldiers', cancelling their order and going up the road to a cafe. We'd already ordered by then. The concept of vegetarians hadn't been introduced to the landlord either. Kate had to explain it. We decided not to prosecute, because we're nice. (It's illegal in Britain not to have a veggie option on the menu.) When our food eventually came, two hours later, it was patently obvious that the tomatos had been fried in lard. It was horrible.

The lads who went to the cafe reported that they met the landlord out in the street with a newly purchased toaster under his arm. Kate overheard him on the phone telling someone to get out of bed now and get into the pub to help out. On average, the breakfasts took between an hour and two hours to arrive and got less and less as time went by. Pete had a single mushroom, not a big one, just one single button mushroom. My egg wasn't well-done. People were counting ten baked beans etc. None of the meateaters had the advertized two sausages. My tea tasted like it had been stewing for a week.

Funniest of all though was the Toast Lady. You were supposed to get your toast with your meal. Even after the landlord had bought a toaster, it still arrived an average of half an hour later. The old lady bringing them would put it down on the table, look around nervously, whimper, 'toast' and flee. One of the lads did complain three times, but none of the others did. Usually Kate would be the first up doing it, but I think that we were just having fun and it had become hilarious rather than annoying.

After a mini look around Wareham, we drove back to the campsite to chill out even more. There was talk of going to the beach later, but as time went on, it was obvious that there weren't enough drivers still sober, so we scrapped that in favour of the surrounding forest instead. Some of the others played cricket, while the rest of us sat watching and enjoying the sunshine. It was great getting to know folk like that, because it was a lot quieter than it would be later on, while smaller groups meant less people talking over each other. In short, I could hear them! LOL I also watched an Australian lose at cricket, which I understand is quite rare. Mind you, she did do 16 of those run things, before she was caught and had to come out.

After a while, though, the forest was just too enticing. I'm amazed it took me until Saturday late afternoon to do it, but I went exploring on my own. It was so cool in there, under the green, grey and black shade.I wandered and dreamed. I avoided the beaten paths whenever I encountered one and made my own, even if it involved using a tree as a convolutated bridge over a patch of nettles. I looked at pretties and meditated on Beltane. I got as far as a swamp to the north of the campsite, then came back. Everyone was still at the cricket, but Kate was about to go off to see the forest too. I let her go alone, because it was the sort of place which is lovely to explore alone. Not that I realized then just how big it was.

Wareham Forest, I know now, is 14 square miles. It encompasses marshlands, watermeadows, a fir and conifer forest, heathlands, as well as your bog-standard forest. It is BIG.

I sat another hour chilling out, then went for another adventure. This time I wasn't priestessing, I was out playing. I passed a field (heath?) which was full of rabbits. I mean hundreds of them. I gasped, thus alerting them to my presense, and as I struggled to get the digital camera out, they all disappeared down rabbit holes.
About fifty yards down the track, I saw another rabbit who darted into the forest. I looked to see where he'd gone. Now I don't know what you see on this picture, but I saw a gateway. 5ft 3" people can pass under it just as well as rabbits can and ALL the rulebooks are very clear on the subject of what to do when rabbits run past you... 'Alice in Wonderland', Syd Barrett, Jefferson Airplane... all VERY explicit. So I followed him into densest forest, though I had to stoop quite considerably a little way in. That was worth it. For a start, I saw a hobbit's house and, after a while, came out on heathland to discover a bonfire ready made up but not lit... on Beltane...

Which reminded me. I have a really good sense of direction, given enough clues, and I looked up at the sun to find my way back. I hadn't gone too far out, but the camp was relatively difficult to find. I made it back well before sunset though, so rejoined everyone at the camp to have a little sit down. As we were all present and correct, it was time for the cards and presents. Sue, Pete's girlfriend, had organized a bush survival week for him in Sussex. (Nothing to do with American presidents, a surviving in the wild thing instead.) We'd all put together to pay for it and signed the big card. He opened it and couldn't work out what it was from a brief glance at the list of things he had to take with him. Sue told him and his face was a picture. She knew her man. You could just tell that it was the perfect present for him.



Sunset wasn't far off, so I meandered back to the tent (which has a large central area) and opened my circle. I've never done a circle in a tent before, but one side was open to the west (and therefore the sunset) and the energy within was unbelievable. It was top-of-the-Tor level of buzzing. I sent a bit of it to everyone I knew who needed it, then was halfway through those who didn't need it, but should have it anyway, when Kate came back. I opened the circle to let her into her bedroom area (*giggle*), but she waved it off, saying she'll go at the toilet block as well, but wanted to warn me that folk were getting ready for our bonfire in the forest. I closed the door again and finished off. I'd just closed the circle when she returned. It was a beautiful atmosphere in there and, having seen the bonfire made up on the heath earlier, I fully expected us to run into a group of pagans out there with a fire already going.

It was quite an expedition. 30 people, some with chairs, some with lanterns, some with beer, all heading out into the forest. I kept having to run ahead or behind in order to avoid the torches. I have excellent night vision, which gets blinded by the torches. One torch in particular blinded just about everyone. I couldn't understand why so many people needed their torch when the night wasn't so dark yet, but Kate told me that people's eyes are different and some really do need it. We went quite a way into the forest, way past where I'd seen the bonfire, and I began to get a tiny sense of the size of this place.

A lad named Ben and I were up front when Pete called for a fag break. We stopped and that was proclaimed our place to stop for the night. We each took turns to forage for wood in the surrounding forest, while Pete and Ben created our own bonfire.



I love that picture. At some point during the night, I came across Pete and Ben canting and asked, 'Is Ben your Kate?' (meaning your best friend/partner in crime), Pete replied, 'No, Ben's my Ben, man.' LOL

It was really chilled out. Sitting around drinking, talking, then someone got a portable music system (of some sort, I didn't look closely enough) and all chance I had of hearing was gone. I didn't mind that, I'm used to it, but when Ben was trying to ask me about Paganism and Jim was trying to talk about... something... I had no chance. Also it's very hard to lip-read in that light. I had to keep apologizing, but I was having so much fun. Everyone was. You could see it in their faces and Pete's face was great to watch. He kept looking around and getting this little grin on his face, which I translated as 'look at my people, who came all this way to share this beautiful moment with me...'

Then IT happened. It started with a couple of flashes behind me and Kate, which first I caught and asked what that was. Then Kate caught. By the third, we realized that we were looking at a storm. It grew and it was stunning! Forked lightning, sheet lightning and not a drop of rain... Someone said that it was probably over the Solvent and we could see it because of our vantage point. But later I learned from one of those who'd returned to camp earlier that they saw it all around us, spinning around the sky, but not touching us in the centre. It was amazing enough for them, but for us... WOW! Every few seconds, the trees would light up or forked lightning would zap across an opening in the trees.

One of the wenches next to me was afeared that it would strike us, but Ed reassured her that the trees are taller and it would strike them first. But what if we were under it? I replied that we just don't sit under it. On retrospect, telling her to avoid being under trees while in a forest... She was among the group who left shortly after that. Then there was Jim, very drunk and wanting to talk to me. So he sat on a chair right in my view of the storm. I ended up talking to him like a three year old. 'Get up... move your chair there... here!' *picking it up and moving it for him* 'I can't hear you... I still can't hear you... there's a storm, music, people talking and I'm deaf... I can't hear you... I'm just going to watch this storm... I can't hear what you're saying. Shut up.' Bless his cotton socks. I met him for the first time this weekend and he was generally lovely.

I was so energized by it. Downright high! The place, the setting, the company, the storm AND it was Beltane. As the storm died down, I wanted to run wild. I did a lap of the little bonfire and was about to tell Ben about the leaping over it, when I realized that he was missing. Looking up the track, I could see the storm still going on further up and a little incline in the track, which I could only tell by silouette in the lightning. I asked Kate if she wanted to come a walk up there, but she was too comfy. I was wanting the walk and two seconds of silence just to kiss the goddess's skirts for letting me be me and be there.

I wondered on up the track, being careful not to deviate from it, because it was dark and even I recognized that I could get lost. A little way up, I found Pete and Ben collecting wood. Ben was considering the walk too, but he needed to take the wood back. I told them that I'd only be five minutes and walked off along the track, transfixed by the lightning in the distance, the moment and the forest all around. Very careful to stay in a straight line along a single track... the irony...

I reached a gate and from there could watch the storm in the distance. As I sat, I heard a scuffling and a little yelp. I strained in the darkness to see and made out a fox about ten feet away. OMG! I just stared and as I did, it came towards me, right at my feet as they dangled from the gate. I barely breathed, but I could hear it panting. It came to me suddenly to wonder if foxes would attack... you'd think that I'd know by now, wouldn't you? But no... then, as I watched, it seemed to become transparent then ran away. I sat there half in shock. It was either an hallucination (I wasn't entirely sober...); a real fox (this was the early hours and everything in darkness pixelates greatly with all the buzzy, golden lights (phrenozones?); a ghost fox; or it was my totem/familiar showing itself. I didn't know then and I still don't know.

I thought I'd consult Kate or Pete on the subject, so meandered down the track again. Partway down, a track forked off and I nearly took it, then remembered - Stay on the straight line, so you don't get lost. I looked down and the track very distinctly led one way, but there was a slight curve which made it look like a fork. That other was a track going off it. I walked on. What I failed to notice was that I'd never once, on the way up, walked around even a slight curve. That had been my track and I was now walking along another track which led at right angles away from both where the others were AND the camp-site. We reckon that was around half 2. I made it back to the campsite, utterly exhausted, at around half 8 the next morning after spending the entire night walking around the forest trying to find my way back.

The first question anyone asks, if their look of horror hadn't already asked it, is 'weren't you scared?' No. I was never once scared, even after it became obvious that I was lost. I trusted myself and I trusted the Goddess. Besides I had enough cigarettes to last me. It was Beltane and I figured that this was all part of the Great Universal Game. Very early on, I was looking up and saw torchlight up a ridge and what sounded like Kate and Pete. I got my torch out and flashed them. One figure waited at the top, while the other came down the track. In the torchlight, I could make out Kate's orange blanket/coat, then, as I watched, the apparition changed and became a Maiden, all in white, complete with white cloak. She went behind a tree and never came out again. The torchlight had gone from the top as well. Later, Kate and Pete told me that they'd never gone away from the fire together.

I didn't have time to contemplate that, because just on it there was an almighty shrieking howl very close by. I still had my torch in my hand, so swung around with it on. There was a huge electrical pilon and I wondered if something had been electrocuted. I moved over there and the howl continued. I remembered that sound from the Wyre Forest - foxes! It moved away, getting quieter, which is how I know it's moving away. Putting my witchy, hippy head on now, would that have been my animal guide warning me that I was on the wrong track and to follow now? Seeing that pilon was the first time I wondered if I was on the right track, because I didn't remember seeing it on the way up. Then I pointed out to myself that I wasn't sober AND I'd been watching the storm in the other direction at the time. I kept going.

Eventually I arrived at the camp-site. Now I knew that I'd taken a wrong turn, but serendipidously, because there were a couple of things we'd forgotten which I could pick up and fill up with water. I did the latter, went to the loo and then looked for the tent. Or any tent would have done. There were no tents. I walked all the way to the main gate having spent about half an hour in there and discovered that this was the wrong campsite. Being so late, there was no-one around to ask directions, so I set off again. I didn't know then but that site is separated from ours by a thin wall of trees. It was about 10 mins away from Birchwood site, but, as we'd approached each time from the other side, I had never seen it.

As I said before, I have a good sense of direction. I usually only have to go somewhere once to memorize it. Folk find this hard to believe after Saturday night, but it's true. What my downfall was was that it was cloudy, therefore I had very little to go on; I didn't know either the lie of the land or the forest, as I'd never been to Dorset before, let alone Wareham; and I was in a totally different part of the forest from where I'd been earlier. The few clues I had, I utilized. I looked up and found the Plough and the Pelaedes. I remembered staring at them before the storm and where they were in the sky, then I faced them and headed in that direction. I also thought I'd seen the pilons to the north of the campsite (no, they were telephone wires, I learned later), so I kept them to the north (the pilons were actually to the south of the site...).

I found the A35 four times, but the first time didn't go near it because there was a van parked at the gate of the track and I didn't want to have to hurt anybody. The second was when I was at the gate of the first campsite. I decided that a main road would be better than a forest, insofar as I could get a clue to where I was, phone a taxi to take me to my campsite and then find the gang from there. I walked up it, pondering where I was going to find the taxi number from, when I saw the van at an entrance to the forest. I remembered that! I wasn't long lost when I first saw it, so I still must be close! I walked further up and re-entered the forest (I was actually moving in the opposite direction to both campsite and gang here.)

I passed a hillfort and noted it for returning and taxi purposes, then went on walking. It was around this time that I texted Kate to announce that I was lost. I didn't want Pete to think I'd disappeared in a huff or something. There wasn't much network coverage, so it took a while to send it. She didn't get it for an hour or more later. By then I'd been as far as a sign to Bloxworth (one and a quarter miles away) and a sewage works. This gave us later the scope my walking - probably a three and a half mile square of forest. Along the way, I saw definitely three foxes, none of which disappeared and all of which started howling at me.

It was around this time that Kate got my text and phoned me, but her battery was going. The moon had just come out and she just had chance to tell me where the moon was from her view from the fire, when her battery cut out. She didn't think I'd even heard that, but I did and it was crucial information. Thank you Kate and thank you Lady. I had been walking towards the moon, now I knew that I had to walk away from it. This was all going well until I found the hillfort again. My spirits sagged then for the first time. I knew that the hillfort was near the wrong campsite... I just didn't know that the wrong campsite was next to ours, so I turned around and walked back to another main track. This still kept the moon behind me and, I reckon now, would have taken me near to the fire.

I stood at a crossroads and I could hear a car on the road. I listened and I could hear music and voices. In short, I could hear my friends. This hadn't been the first time, but it had been the first time in a couple of hours. Unfortunately, I can't tell direction of sound. I was also getting tired by then. I was seeing wondrous things and having quite an adventure, but I wanted to be with the others celebrating Pete's birthday. Frustrating, to me, is wanting to punch something. This wasn't frustration, but some kind of milder cousin. I figured it would give folk a laugh back at the fire and it wasn't my fault. Pete would understand that (and he did and they laughed after they'd got the being concerned over with). I had no concept of time, I didn't realize how long I'd been gone. I looked at the moon; I discounted (foolishly) the road as not being ours; and, as it was getting lighter by then, I looked around at the landscape - the first time I was able to over any distance. Across two fields was a bit of forest which looked like ours and it kept the moon in the right place. It never occurred to me that even though I couldn't tell sound direction, there was a fireside gang of people who could. Why didn't I just shout? I thought of phoning Kate and getting her to shine a torch into the sky, but her phone battery had just died.

I headed over the fields, then saw a flash of yellow - gorse bushes. Our campsite was surrounded by gorse bushes. From the gorse, I could find the fire! I walked over to find a beautiful sight, a massive stretch of gorse, a maze of it. I had a toilet break, but had already noticed the main road behind it. I knew it to be the road that I should be dismissing... and didn't trust my sense of direction AGAIN. So I turned around and made my way across some bracken and wetlands, then, climbing up onto a bank of a brook, I felt something slip from my pocket. Looked down and couldn't see what, checked fags and lighter... checked 'phone... shit. I ended up with everything out of my bag looking for it. It was gone. Thing is, nothing else was missing, so I don't know what the slipping sensation was. I even climbed down into the brook and peered through bracken and ground nests looking for the Ddraig Goch of my mobile.

Decision time. I knew I had it when I spoke to Kate. I knew where I'd been since and it was light enough to retrace my steps while searching. I only had vague clues as to where 'home' was. I decided that the sensible thing was to see if I could find the phone on the basis that if I got injured or collapsed that might be my salvation. Also, if I gave up and went for the road, then I'd need it for a taxi, unless I wanted to add 'finding a phone box' to my list. If I'd thought that I knew where I was for definite, I'd have said sod the phone, it's replaceable. So I retraced and found it in the gorse-bush place. It must have slipped out as I squatted for a wee.

I made my way back across the wetlands and across the bracken. As I crossed a heath, I saw a patch of forest turn into the most magically beautiful colour. I turned and welcomed a glorious dawn. That's when I stopped walking for the first time, sitting on a rock at the edge of the forest, thanking the dawn for coming. You see, I'd celebrated Beltane in a circle during which I'd watched the sunset. I now knew precisely where east was and I knew where west had been in relation to the camp-site. I walked, and walked, and walked.

I stopped. Deer! Remembering the lesson of the rabbits, I didn't fumble for my digital camera, I just watched and loved it. There were four of them, so graceful. Each froze and watched me, so I did too. It seemed to go on for an interminable amount of time, until my legs screamed to sit down, so I moved and they fled. They weren't like deer as I imagined, either grey or red with white spots. They seemed dark grey to black, very small with white, broad, stumpy tails. I entered a forest trail and ended up on that same damn road.

The really stupid thing is that each time I'd followed a clue, I'd ended up back in the vicinity of the campsite, but upwards of ten mins walk further south-east. Had I just trusted that, or got the message, and persevered, I'd have got there, but each time I turned around and ended up approximately three miles too south at one time. This time I was too tired, I decided to stick with the road on the basis that it had to lead somewhere and if I collapsed from exhaustion, then a passer-by would see me. I stood there and looked up and down this forest road. No clues. I looked at the sun, I chose north-west. :-D

After about 20 mins walking, and wondering if you could call 999 over being lost or report yourself as a missing person or something, I got so despondent for the first time. I knew Kate's battery was dead, but I'd half-sat, half-lay on a grass verge at the side of the road and just wanted to pretend I could call her. So I did. Her phone had been off long enough to get some charge in the battery. Looking back, I was so pathetic a figure there! LOL I didn't cry and there was nothing she could do to help me (I knew that and told her), but I just wanted to hear a friendly voice. Why the fuck I didn't phone one of the Americans, I'll never know... but then it was good canting with Kate, because if something did happen, she'd know that I was last on a proper road somewhere in the forest.

It gave me heart enough to get on my feet and carry on walking. A few minutes later, I saw the van at the end of the track and knew that the wrong campsite was just up the way. They would be open now. I could get directions or a taxi. I walked in there and just fell onto a bench. I got my phone out to tell Kate where I was, but the buttons wouldn't work. I figured it had been damaged lying in the dew, but it worked before and since.

A man came by with some dogs and I asked him where Birchwood was. 'Just there, through the trees'. I stared at him. 'Pardon?' He gave me directions, but I couldn't take them in. I wrote them in my book and just blurted out, 'I've been lost in the forest all night!' He said, 'All night?' 'Yes, I got separated from my friends.' I was losing my voice and I could hear the knackerness in it myself. He replied, 'You should get better map-reading skills.' I nodded and got up, thanked him and followed his directions. I still managed to take a wrong turn, but within sight of the road. I decided against his short-cut beside the sureity of the road.

Within five minutes, I was at the entrance to our campsite. That was such a beautiful moment! As I walked down the driveway, I saw my guide from the other campsite coming out of the short-cut he'd sent me down. I waved and called 'thank you' again, touched that he must have followed to see me alright, but carried on walking towards my tent. There was no sign of anyone. (They were all sitting IN tents, I found out.) I was too tired to think what this meant. I opened our tent and Kate called out, 'Who's that?' She sounded really scared. 'It's Jo.' I mustered. 'Are you alright?' 'Exhausted, but sorted, ta.' She didn't say anything else, and I thought she was gone to sleep. Moving as quietly as possible, I removed my sopping wet DMs and socks, revealing white, wrinkled feet. I sat down and had a fag. My phone told me it was half past 8 in the morning.

I needed fresh water (a cup of tea would have been better, but there was no easy access to one) and the loo, before I lay down. I found Sue in the toilet block and told her what had happened. She'd been abed and didn't know. She looked at all my cuts and scratches and said to wash them. I told her I could deal, I have a first aid kit in the tent. I asked her if there was a cafe on site, because I was desperate for a brew. Nope. I went back to the tent, opened my bedroom section and just crashed. Then heard a beep, beep from Kate's half. 'Are you awake?' 'Yes' Kate opened her section and we canted for a bit. I'd just got to the 'and I could die for a cuppa', when the tent-flap opened and there was Sue with a huge beaker of tea. I nearly cried.