The eighth instalment of Darren Hayman’s Thankful Villages project

We arrived in Holywell Lake during the heaviest rain. It was Remembrance Sunday and nothing was open. We found a crumpled paper poppy in the gutter. We found a crumpled paper poppy in the guitar. Torrents of water ran down the hill. The car windows misted up and we kept the windscreen wipers and heaters on. I was reminded of doomed childhood holidays and waiting for the rain to clear.

We started to film and collect sounds: the rain falling down the drain, the water splashing on corrugated plastic roofs, a cheap set of wind chimes clinking in the wind. I was thinking of repetition again and the type of downpour that never stops.

I thought of home and the days when you are happy that you never have to go outside, but we weren’t home, we were just passing through. I tried to make something warm amongst the cold. I sheltered in a covered part of the pub garden. Holywell Lake tinkled and pulsed in the background.

Imogen Griffiths did the filming on this video.

View the previous Thankful Villages posts here.