Trying to find monthly adventures to go on with my husband, Andy despite having absolutely no money has been quite a challenge. But it’s also been quite a lot of fun!
We searched through all our reference books for ideas, and yesterday came up with a double adventure. There is a small churchyard a few miles from our house, which contains one famous resident and on 24th April the possibility of seeing spectral visitations.
Driving into the tiny village of Haresfield we saw the church steeple in the distance, but couldn’t find our way to the church. The village was deserted, but then as if by magic a man appeared. Stopping the car we asked for directions to the church, and the reply came, ‘I’m on my way there now, I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.’
We followed his directions through a closed gate, and along a road marked ‘Strictly Private – No Entry’ and finally came to the church. Passing the sign warning us of unexpected rabbit holes we quickly got on with videoing ‘Jarek Adams Investigates’ before the man appeared. He then produced an enormous iron key and let us into the tiny church. Our eyes were immediately drawn to an ancient oak chest with two further giant iron keys sticking out of the lid. He explained that in medieval times the vicar held one and the verger held the other, and that the church valuables were stored inside. Our imaginations immediately worked out how to use this glorious object in our books. Brighton Bites, which I’m working on at the moment will feature it in a hopefully unexpected way.
The very nice chap also pointed out the empty fields surrounding the really eerie graveyard, and explained that these had been full of houses until medieval times when the plague drove everyone away, leaving the church as it is today in a tranquil island of its own, with only the crows, and our mysterious guide visiting daily.
Although we’d love to have the money to skip off to the Caribbean, our monthly adventures are turning out to be just that.
You can see the video by following this link.
I also liked the way our guide described the nearby stream as having been 'blocked up by badgers'. The whole thing was very surreal.
ReplyDeleteAndy the cameraman.