A view down the mysterious well

I am supposed to gracefully accept an award, but I want to think about it for longer to give it the proper answer. Telling my readership about me is something I do every day, it is difficult to find something new to write about. On the other hand, recently I got enough inspiration to blog about something like a dozen different topics. So I better get started.

Yesterday, my wife and I went with another couple, to a small English village, one of those picturesque villages that are lost in the middle of the country and therefore seemingly untouched by modern life (I hope I am not spouting clichés here, it sounds a bit too much like something from a bad tourist brochure). So much there was old, surrounded by English countryside, almost by wilderness. I was feeling like in a Dungeons & Dragons setting, or in a Hammer movie. We stayed about two hours, but I took enough snapshots to feed this blog for a few weeks.

We went to a local pub, a genuine traditional pub, an old building, with lots of real ales, old wooden furniture, a fireplace, etc. We sat at a round table and discovered that said table was built on a... well. Now how cool is that: a well in a pub? I blogged about it before: I love wells and what they represent in our psyche. Now, since the hole was covered by thick, solid glass, I could look into the well, stare at this black muddy water that was both fascinating and frightening. I felt closer to this imaginary (or not?) danger, into this gate to another world the well represents. Of course, I could still drink my beer above it, which diminished its frightening aspect. Or maybe not, actually. On a full moon, in a drunken state, my imagination might have ran wild and the irrational feeling of danger could have been enhanced. The pub and its well could be the setting for a great story, either a D&D adventure, or a classic horror story. The whole village reminded me of something I could find in one of M.R. James' ghost stories, to think that such a place really exists, especially in our modern age, is quite stimulating. I wish I had the talent for horror stories. I could make a good pastiche. Maybe I should try it. Until then, I still have the setting. As I said to my wife, we need to go there in Autumn, when Halloween is coming. We would then be in the perfect setting in the perfect season.