Not Very Much Reality - A Search
"You will all have read", he said, "Jung's account of a dream in which he located the Grail castle in a island to the south of England." If we had read this, we nodded; if we had not, we remained silent. Some of us nodded off. The lecturer indicated a small relic of the Angevin empire, off the coast of France.
Some years later we happened to be in the Channel Islands for a heat of the International Pro-Am Long-Track Pooh Sticks Championships, and took the opportunity for a two day visit to that very place.
Our boat passed, in turn, a series of islands: one high, dark, and apparently deserted; one lower and green with beaches; another with a dominant, but not ancient, castle; and then a chain of islets, round which we turned towards the harbour.
There are no really long walks in that pleasant spot; from south to north it is not four miles in length. At the southern tip is the Bath of Aphrodite - a tidal pool beside which it seems that half the poets of Victorian England wrote sonnets. North from there, past abandoned mines, a tea garden with an all day licence, a causeway where the island is almost divided, through the village at the widest point of the island. Detours to west and east lead to rocky capes apparently named for castles in Malory. Then, on past the church and the "Chateau", the walk ends at the northern common with a panorama of sea, rocks, larger islands, and France.
A chain of islets leads away to the north. At low tide, these are joined up, and a determined scrambler can reach them. It is not an easy walk, the tidal ground is not a beach; it is a mass of boulders covered in seaweed. I have never attempted to go beyond the first islet; there would be time, but the tides return quickly and being cut off would be safe but not comfortable. The ground on the islet is curiously soft compared with the turf on the mainland. It is, in fact, slightly harder than you would expect to walk to the top of it. But this difficulty is due not just to the ground, but to the hostility of the colony of Lesser Black-Backed Gulls.
On this occasion, the tide was right, and I decided to cross and explore. As I approached the top of the islet, several things happened at once. The soft earth gave way enough to make me stumble. A gull swooped so disconcertingly that I actually fell. I cut my knee on something metallic. Another gull actually pecked me on the arm. As I got up, an earth fall covered whatever it was that had cut me.
I retreated down the slope, across the boulders, and walked the mile or so to the comfort of the Littlefield Hotel (which can fairly claim that its cosy bar is at the centre of the Channel Islands). I was bruised, more than I had expected; there was a nasty gash on my arm which later needed treatment.
Of the cut on my knee there was and is no trace.
I probably should not have added this entry, and I doubt if would have sent it if I needed to email. Entry A had appeared, but no other, and I decided to add this one, on the assumption that at least a few more would turn up. In the event there were no more, so this rather unsatisfactory entry was left to compete with the obvious winner.
Whether the "story" could be improved is another matter. I am always conscious of the limitations of length; 1200 words is - I believe - too long in the context of the competition (at least in the form where the entries are posted in the forum).
There is an account of a dream in Jung's "Memories, Dreams, Reflections"; the island in the dream could, just, be a distorted and enlarged Sark.
The Angevin "empire" was the extensive kingdom of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, which included Normandy and therefore the Channel Islands - the sole remnant of that Duchy in British hands.
The reference to Pooh sticks was a signal that the piece is not entirely serious.
The journey from Guernsey to Sark passes Jethou, Herm, Brecqhou, and the chain of rocks which includes La Grune.
Should I have added a more explicit description of the arrival on Sark than a mention of the harbour?
"We" were on the boat and visited Sark; "I" went on the walk alone because my wife, in warm weather, prefers to sunbathe.
The places on Sark are: Venus Pool (Swinburne certainly wrote verse describing Sark); the ruins of the silver mines; the Sablonnerie tea garden (it has a "licence" to sell alcohol all day - except Sundays); La Coupee joining Little and "Great" Sark; the names "Tintageu" and "Derrible" do seem to resemble "Tintagel" and "Terrabil"; the Seignurie; the Eperquerie Common; and the chain of La Grune, Courbee du Nez, and Bec du Nez.
I did once cross to La Grune. The gulls merely squawked. With more effort I could have contrived a better encounter with a Relic; more Amfortas than Parsifal I would expect.
The hotel is the Petit Champ; I recommend it.