Close Encounters of the Third Kind~February 2018

Posted in Adventures, art, B&W, birds, FujiX-T2, landscape, people, photography, uncategorisedTagged , , , , , , , , ,

Or… Eat for England, The Cramlington Spoon.

Sophie and I are back on track for 2018 and off out at weekends again with our cameras. On Saturday the weather was predicting dry/cloudy/sunny/blowy but no rain expected, so we decided to head up into Northumberland, to Druridge Bay as our last trip there got rained off. We were also incorporating a trip to see Northumberlandia, The Lady of The North on our way back home.  But first I had a surprise in store for Sophie as we would be passing the location of the Cramlington Spoon, which she didn’t know about, and I had seen in passing on a website.  The location of it turned up easily enough on google maps, so I set the satnav and off we went.  When we got to the point where it should have been, the road I thought we would go up to see it was closed- “private Estate” but old eagle eyes Sophie had spotted a public walking path that ran up the side of the fenced off ‘Estate’. (note to self- do research BEFORE the event, not after 🙄 ).  So we parked up the car and set off along a muddy path up the side of the field. Then we turned right up the side of another field. We still couldn’t see it but kept going, and eventually, after a left turn, we were walking towards the spoon.

Eat For England art installation by Bob Budd (Cramlington Hospital in the distance)
Anyone for mud pie?

What the (expletive deleted) is THAT doing there?  I hear you wonder.  Well dear reader, it was erected in 2006 as part of a Lottery-funded art installation trail and its position was “very logical” for the artist, who explains that the fields are the very origins of food production. Hmm. In spite of it being there for 12 years now, it’s rarely visited and not well known at all, which isn’t a huge surprise as its IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE and it is a royal PIA to get to, at least on muddy days.

Dig in!

At about 15ft (4.5m) high it is quite big for cutlery, and Mr Budd calls it a “carrot” to entice people into the countryside. You’d think he of all people would know the difference between a spoon and a carrot, but I’m not convinced of his sanity so we’ll leave it at that.  When interviewed by the BBC, Newcastle University’s head of fine art, Andrew Burton, said he believes  there is “always pleasure in unexpected discovery. There is an excitement or frisson about placing a work somewhere where it will really have to be sought out, so that the hunt becomes part of the overall experience,” he says.  I can certainly attest to it being an experience.

So why is Close Encounters of the Third Kind the title of this post? I hear you doing more wondering. So I’ll tell you.  When we got to the spoon there was a man standing opposite it. He was quite young, in a grey tracksuit, and had a small GoPro camera attached to a short tripod, also opposite the spoon.  He spoke to us, with an unidentified accent, possibly East European, not sure to be honest.   “If you wait 10 minutes a plane will come over and you can get a shot of a plane going over the spoon”, he said.  ” Um ahha” I said intelligently, “I’ll look out for one”.  Sophie spotted some birds swarming (not sure birds swarm, but they were far away and looked a bit like bees so swarm will do) and we got our zoom lenses attached and tried to get some shots of them.

Swarm of birds.

You can click to embiggen that so they look more like birds than bees if you don’t want to take my word for it. There was no sign of any airplanes “Two came along in 10 minutes before you got here” said the Gopro man. We’d just about finished taking our shots of the spoon, and still had to get back to the car and a drive to Druridge Bay, so I said we couldn’t wait for planes any longer and would have to go. ” Do you know anywhere else good near here?” he asked, “In walking distance?” which perplexed me as we were IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!  “Umm ahha” I replied intelligently, and got out the satnav on the phone,

no, really, we ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!!

“not really, sorry”.  As Sophie and I turned to leave, the chap took off his track suit and did a perfect handstand by the spoon, which was a bit of a surprise, and both Sophie and I managed to get a shot of this feat.

photo courtesy of Sophie Cormack
looking for carrots?

He then jumped up on the spoon for what purpose I can only leave to your imagination.

Commune with the Spoon. photo courtesy of Sophie Cormack.

On our way back to the car, we discussed the strange encounter with this chap.  Why doesn’t he know where he is? how did he get there? is he Eastern European? none of our questions had answers  of course, so naturally we decided he’d been zapped there by alien technology and consequently would be zapped back up after he’d done whatever he must with the Spoon. A definite close encounter with a third kind.

stay tooned for a trip to Druridge Bay

70 thoughts on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind~February 2018”

  1. I had a blast reading this post. It almost felt it was like some mythical quest for a hidden artifact that both you and Sophie embarked upon. It was definitely written a bit like that, and as such I really have to say that I love your writing skills. Now, ofcourse that man surely was kidnapped by Aliens and just returned to Earth. It has X-files written all over it that’s for sure. This was terrific, and as usual the photographs were amazing! 😀

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  3. Remember that old nursery rhyme about “the cow 🐄 jumped over the moon 🌝 and the dish ran away with the spoon 🥄 “.

    Perhaps the dish and the spoon got separated on their lunar bound journey with the spoon winding up in this field and this man was the private eye the dish hired to find the spoon and this man was ecstatic because he finally found the spoon 🥄.

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  8. Looking at his physique, I’m guessing the man ran there. From a long way off too.
    I actually like the random nature of the spoon in a field, as it is a lot more interesting than mud, for one thing. But if a stranger started doing all that in front of me, I would have been making a fast exit, I suspect.
    Best wishes, Pete.

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  13. I can just hear the eerie music playing! Lol! That is too strange! I love that you went to go take pictures of the spoon for us, I keep trying to go on a road trip to find giant versions of things.. I think everyone should have to do that at least once in their lifetime!

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  14. Confession time!! I live there…I am about a mile away from you “middle of nowhere” on map. But….I have never heard of or seen the Spoon 😊😊😊. (Only Spoon I had heard of was Weatherspoons!)

    But…I’m going to hunt it down. There are a few Aliens in the area…but they live in Blyth!! (Joking…a bit)!
    Great story.

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  23. What a funny character to run into. I can’t imagine how he got there! Maybe he escaped from the hospital?? I dig the spoon. We have some random art installations like that here in Denver. Some are well liked, and others aren’t. Amazing how a simple giant spoon can become a work of art. How was the restaurant?

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  29. It’s a cute sculpture. I imagine the giant of “Jack and the Beanstalk” tale dropping while asleep his spoon from the sky into our world. To find out the interpretation of the author was actually less fantastic. :l

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