Skyberries and Voidmelons or Voidberries and Skymelons

Locations which may or may not still exist in Leeds,, but mostly did at the end of March 2008:

1. The goth section in a charity shop. (May have disappeared, since I last saw it a few years ago.)
2. The rainforest; the swamp; the desert.
3. The place where owl-monkeys brawl.
4. The place where you can buy plastic caterpillars.
5. The strange home-made books exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery.
6. The restaurant where you can eat orchids and flowers carved out of raw potato.

I ran out of time to see all the books in "From book to book" at Leeds Art Gallery, but I now imagine some of them must have looked like this: Don't try this at home!.

From Leeds, renegade_badger and I headed north to County Durham to find the High Force Waterfall. Passing mossy bridges and following the river through trees, led us to the spectacular waterfall. The water pounded down, with mist spraying us and our cameras, and leaving branches of trees looking somehow like lightning. I found a wishing tree there at the bottom of the waterfall, with coins dug into the branch, like scales.

In Durham, there exists a fine cathedral, many colleges, cobbled streets, a large muddy-looking river, a castle, and a giant chair, but I did not see any trees which were once witches.

The sun had gone before we reached the Angel of the North, but we circled the giant anyway, wondering just how large the wings were, touching the cold metal and looking across at the nearby city lights.

The tree trunk lies still on the ground, leafless and branchless, but not bare. Tuppences and wishes glint in the sun, just slightly now, as the light begins to dim.

A girl who arrived in the Lake District just a few hours before, stands near to a guy clutching a tripod, and they both pause to look at the trunk studded with coins for a few moments.

She thinks the embedded coins look a little like scales and then she wonders about the fallen tree, what it would wish for, if it could wish.

They walk further into the woods and there are more unusual trees to stare at, some striped and mossy and some looking as if they were struck by lightning. When they reach the waterfall, they find it roars in places and trickles in others, and they step from rock to rock to get closer to the pools of water. Later, when they look at the photos they took, the waterfall itself seems to be perhaps a bit forgettable, but there is a slight dreaminess about the streams that flow past the moss-covered stones and the tangles of tree roots.
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Nothing stirs in Arkham when they get out of the car they had been zooming down motorways in earlier, listening to CDs they'd forget to change, so the songs would repeat over and over again; listening to the voice named Ken or sometimes Tim, that gave them directions every now and then; listening to the beeping noise warning of speed cameras, that she'd hear rattling around in her head for days after that.

But Arkham, Arkham is quiet at the moment, as they try to find the 17th century cottage they are going to stay in. After the motorways and after being in London just a few hours before, the village green with stone cottages around it, two pubs and a post-office all seems far too still. There is no answer at the cottage when they knock on the door. There is no answer to the phone that they can hear ringing inside.

They stand by the green and wait, and maybe she's just tired, but Arkham doesn't seem like a real place, even after Londa arrives and leads them in to the B&B with hunting scenes depicted on the bedroom walls.

They leave again soon, to find Ullswater, and watch the silhouettes of boats drift across the lake.