Sergei The Incredible Is The Champion.

I went round to Sergei's caravan tonight to tell him he had won the title as Craignish' greatest scarecrow. We celebrated with a large shot of vodka....... And then another. We talked long into the night of Tsars and strong men. He told me about his love for Elvira Madigan, the tightrope walker who met her tragic death at the hands of her jealous love, of the last time he saw Rasputin alive and of his proud russian mother.

He challenged me to an arm wrestling match but laughed when he saw my puny arms. 'Didn't your mother feed you borscht?' He roared and he poured me another drink to make up for my bad luck. 

He says he's leaving soon, for a circus in the Steppes. If you want to say goodbye, perhaps it's not too late to catch him - let me know, perhaps we can go round together.

Just before I left his caravan, we toasted the runners up - the marvellous juggler at the Potter-Irwins and the spectacular trapeze artist at the Robertson's house at Moine Ruadh. 

Prizes to follow.

A Humanesque Canon Ball

At the school house

A World Famous Trapeze Act

An Exotic Equilibrist

Buffalo Bill's wild west and rough riders

Up at the tipis, anyone can ride bareback.

A Spectacular Strong Man

The strong man at Mill Cottage

Juggling and plate spinning and smiling up at corranbeg

A seal performing outside the village shop

In the Garden of Eden

......    But watch out for snakes!

A glamorous stilt walker

Circus seal

The man who cleans up after the elephants!

The Trapeze Artist

The fantabulous trapeze artist at Moine Ruadh. If you want to hang out with this guy, you'll need to look hard.  This one is for the serious scarecrow bagger. There are two routes  to get there. 1) go to craobh road end and head towards craobh haven. Take the second left and head up the track about half a mile all the way past the barn to the house at the edge of the woods.
Or
2) from Ardfern, head up the lunga track and cut off to the right through the felled forest area. Keep going Straight on for about two miles, head through a little woodland until you get to the house.

He's a masterpiece waiting to be discovered.

A Big Cat ...... or a Jellicle Cat

Jellicle Cats come out tonight,

Jellicle Cats come one come all:

The Jellicle Moon is shining bright —

Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.

To find these jellicle cats, head along the Craobh Haven road then turn as if going up to Lunga House.  Alison, Liz and Aileen have been spoiling these musical pussies at Alison MacColl  furnishings.

A very happy clown.

A very happy juggling clown at An Doirlinn.

Sergei The Incredible

Sergei The Incredible.
Follow the signs from the bin near the red telephone box  opposite The Galley if you want to visit him in his caravan. Be warned, though, don't say 'da,' if he challenges you to an arm wrestling or a vodka drinking competition

You can be anything you want to be.........

Reaching the village, turning the corner, our friend discovered something he had not been looking for. Scarecrow love is that special kind that sneaks up on you from behind and makes you believe you can be anything you want to be.

And so ........

North

At Lochgilphead, a traveller , wishing to continue his journey, must decide North  or South. You see, three roads meet at the bridge - the roads to Glasgow, to Campbeltown and to Oban. West is not an option. And so, the solitary runner turned to the North. By the time he reached the Beallach he had settled into a jaunty stride and the view from the top of the hill lifted his spirits and his step. On the loch side of the Tarmac, the old original road wound down, secretive and overgrown. Three local girls were practising cartwheels on the grassy slope. One turned towards him, laughing. 

"Are you circus acrobats - are you travelling to the circus?" he asked hopefully.

The girl with dark eyes laughed again. 

"No", she said "We're having a pic-nic"

Sometimes and in some places , and with the right sort of people, making fiends is easy and that is how  it was.  The girls shared what little pic- nic snacks they had brought and the sun shone down on a long, lazy afternoon. 

"If you are interested in circuses" the girl said eventually, " I know where there's going to be one" and she pointed down to the cluster of little houses that rested among the white masts. Then, taking his hand, she lead part of the way, at least as far as the single track road that ran to the village.

Rest and be thankful

Roads, like ambition, can creep as well as soar. As he reached the top of the Rest, by the long low road, the runner noticed the higher road was blocked with traffic lights, lorries, caravans....... and sheep. Little stubborn, filthy sheep who insisted on hanging about in the verges of that miserable highway, content it seemed to eke out a living among the oil soiled grasses, and the petrol fumes, rather than head downhill where the air was clear and the grass safe.
How curious it was, then, that both roads led to exactly the same place anyway.
And in that place, our friend stopped to rest. He was still heading west, just like the heavy horse told him, but  there was no sign, yet, of the particular kind of circus he had hoped for.

Glasgow

 

On the far bank of the river, a shipyard pretended to be a carnival. The runner stopped and, with the sun in his eyes, he listened to the hammer and the hum. In the dark  fire-work scented pavillions, air craft carriers were being built. Some  people still found work and worried about finding work tomorrow.
"... And there will be no hooliganism," he thought he heard some one say, " there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying"
The runner turned around to look for the source of the voice but there was no-one. 
"Who said that?"
But there was no-one there to answer.
A rat ran across the paved walkway and slipped into the water.
A cloud moved in front of the sun and the runner knew it was time get going if he wanted to hit the open road before night fall.

Keep going west

"Is this the circus? Are you a circus horse?"
The heavy horse on the M8 looked down at the little man. He longed to go with him, to gallop around the ring with a ballerina on his back. But, not everyone is free to follow their dreams.
"Keep going", he said " keep going west."

Frankie goes to Holyrood

At the end of the royal mile, the runner stopped to check his map.  Behind him, the streets teamed with actors and street performers but the address scribbled in his own handwriting said  'holyrood' and here it was - a strange deconstructed smorgasbord of granite blocks, shaped metal and dreams -standing at the centre of one of the most important decisions in the history of Scotland -  whether to stay in the UK, or leave it and become a new, separate and independent state. 

This was no circus and the colour and energy and madness of the surrounding  city seemed suspended a few yards before it.

"What do people want from this place if not circus tricks and spectacle", he asked. 

In the public circulation area, Edwin Morgan, the great scottish poet, explained .

"What do the people want of the place? They want it to be filled with thinking persons as open and adventurous as its architecture.

A nest of fearties is what they do not want.

A symposium of procrastinators is what they do not want. A phalanx of forelock-tuggers is what they do not want. And perhaps above all the droopy mantra of ‘it wizny me’ is what they do not want."

"I see" said the runner "so not a juggler or a sword swallower?"

"No"

Outside, a fire-eater walked passed, flame extinguished for now. He stopped, "you are running away to the circus?"

"Yes"

"So am I"

"Do you know where it is?"

"No - we are all trying to find the road that leads there -  all the performers and street acts you see around here. i don't know where it is but i think it is in the west -  we have a week  to get there - if we do not find it we will perform here on these damp city streets. Good  luck, my friend,  in your search."

The runner nodded.

"Good luck"

So, that is where he must go!

The runner re-appeared at the end of July. The Olympic year had passed and his body had changed. His legs felt thicker. The village lay quiet in the morning sun. A man was walking his collie dog and a woman was tending her vegetable patch. The loch beyond the village was peaceful too. A yacht with white sails silently tacked down towards Goat Island..
He smiled, and then something caught his eye. Some light, or at least a flicker of some light, out there beyond the peninsula. The runner paused to wonder and, for the first time, he felt a strange new yearning deep within himself.
He tried to translate this new feeling - a sort of dull pain that twisted into a thrill now and then lay heavy in his scarecrow torso. If he had more experience, he might have known exactly what that feeling was but there, that morning, he felt sure that it was a desire to run away  - to join the circus, or the carnival or to star in a musical.
Perhaps what he had heard was true - that there was a great circus in Edinburgh located in the Holyrood area of the capital. So, that is where he must go!

Your inner Scarecrow wants to join the carnival, star in a musical or run away to the circus. set him free during the arts festival. Prizes will be awarded to the best scarecrows and to the best piece of garden art. To get on the Trail map please call Clare on 500 242 before May 25th. Our blog is craignishscarecrow.blogspot.co.uk
Rules—build a scarecrow or a piece of art, try to use natural or recycled material then stick it in your garden 2-11 August