Apologies (again) for my not blogging last night, but it seems I just can't find anything interesting to say about anything at the moment. Having said that, there was a minor event this morning I felt worthy of relating to you, so I shall:
After the Green One and I had perused through the corridors and rooms of another set of flats (makes them sound like mansions doesn't it?) I had to take a different route home via our nearest ASDA supermarket. This meant travelling along Union Street, Aberdeen's central shopping district, and then down past Castlegate, the old central square of the city, and onto Beach Boulevard, which surprisingly enough, heads towards the beach. This lead to some random explorations in both the physical and mental planes of existence and the inspiration for various possible writings.
Firstly, at Castlegate, I was admiring the Mercat Cross, a monument made up of a circle of arches carved into what might be sandstone but which is now a dark black. It's quite a striking piece and it dates back to the City's earliest origins, marking some agreement or other nearly a millenium ago. Anyway as I walked past it I started imagining the arches as gateways to some other place and what if that really were the case, that some work of arcane magick (the k is neccesary, honest) could be situated at the end of a prime piece of high street shopping.
I thought about this as I wandered on down past the Salvation Army Citadel (an oddly turreted building that always makes me think of fantasy more than reality) and onto Beach Boulevard.
I have walked this way to ASDA at least once before and I was always intrigued by the little streets that head off from it (towards the harbour) which I had never explored and had trouble imagining what their contents might be. On a whim I picked one of these streets (Hannover Street I believe) and followed it down towards it's conclusion. This turned out to be the bottom of a road I had only just left, but beside it was another road which lead vaguely beachwards so I followed it and, rather than taking the street I had originally intended to bring me out beside ASDA, I found myself lured away by the sight of a church tower. Following these industrial backstreets, lined with various builder's merchants and harbour support services I found myself wandering into an Aberdeen I knew logically must exist (its harbour has been its central soul since it was first founded and is obviously crucial to the modern North Sea oil industry), but which I had barely experienced. Looking over my shoudler I could see the Citadel and the clock tower of the Sheriff's Court (also very turretous and fantastic), reassuring me that I was still in the same city, but all around me there were warehouses and signs of a culture compeltely alien to me, built on services and supplies I had nothing to do with. I felt like an intruder.
Still the Church Tower lured me on. It had a fine detailing at the top and a shroud of trees which made it seem very incongruous amidst all the angled, corrugated-iron rooftops.
Then I rounded a corner and there it was, St. Clement's churchyard. It was filled with well-kept graves and a sign told me that it was open for visitors, so I stepped in through the cast-iron gate and felt its silence englulf me.
As I approached the church building itself I realised something was amiss. It appeared boarded-up and the stained glass windows were hidden behind mesh coverings. A sign in fluroescent yellow on the board door informed me that CCTV camera's were in operation. I casually circled the building, staring at all the unfamiliar signs of its abandonment and saw parts of it covered in grafitti as well as further warnings that CCTV cameras would be watching me.
Ideas began to form in my mind. A Church, hidden away in a district that had no need for such an anachronism, for surely this church had once been for sailors and their families, but now it was lost amidst warehouses and chemical facilities. Something was going on there, something that meant people made sure it looked clean and tidy, well-kept, with neatly cut grass, but were concerned that no one should enter.
Expect a story about it soon :P
No comments:
Post a Comment