Giants in the Forest: Chapter 6.1 Forres

Apart from my cheeky night-time adventure in Falkland - which I am pretty sure that I did on purpose to give myself something terrifying to write - my trip to the Giants in Forres becomes the first time that I get lost. I managed to get confused by the route, because it went through a housing estate. Quite obviously, urban cycling no longer suits me.

Forres is also the first place that I meet other people who have explicitly come out to the woods to see the Giants. A charming
couple arrive from  nearby Findhorn and talk about the Giants in a way that is mystical and intriguing.

Forres, the town, is also mystical and intriguing. Thanks to the simple straight line of the High Street, and the complicated network of the housing estate, it feels like a more modern settlement than those I have encountered recently. The shopping selection is also unique: there are the usual suspects (the sweet shop, a bar or two, a couple of supermarkets and the charity shop). Yet there are more alternative therapy centres than I would have imagined. The influence of Findhorn, which is a haven for spiritual seekers, is clear in the main area of town.

I am slightly disorientated by this, and that same dualism is played out when I head out towards the heads. They are in a patch of woodland that is within the housing estate. They are tucked away, up a hill and at the end of a muddy trail, but I am never that far from a road.

The three Giants are on the crest of a hill: it's still early enough in the day, despite my detours, to catch the sun as it floods onto the plateau. Each set of Giants has taken on their own identity, but I am struggling with these guys. I am running about, photographing them, trying to chat to them, asking what they have seen. They are, unsurprisingly, less talkative than I am.

The photographs never manage to represent the experience of seeing the Giants (no angle holds all three together, to give the sense of their relationship to each other, and while the films do show their stillness, the depth of the forest background is lost). But I like the way that the photograph flattens them against the tree-line, and emphasises how they respond to the colours around them...