The bigger picture

Hi. I'm nervous, but you can call me Scarlet.

That's obviously not my real name - my parents weren't that cool, but it'll do for the sake of this blog.

Alright. Here's the drill, although you've probably read this from the other guest bloggers. We have to write something about 80% and about where we live. So I got thinking about where I live, and basically, I got myself into a whole long-winded rant on where I live in the hope that it'd make me look a) funny and b) intelligent.

Epic fail.

At this point, I should probably explain that I live in Glastonbury, which is mostly known for the huge, anarchic (and recently over-hyped music festival) that takes place here every summer, as well as the ruins of the first Christian Abbey in the UK, the Chalice Well - where the Holy Grail is believed to have been washed (and possibly buried) and the Glastonbury Tor.

Glastonbury is an odd little town. It's been here for years and didn't really do very much of anything. Jesus' dad showed up for a visit and planted a tree a zillion years ago. We built an Abbey and then Henry VIII ripped it down and tortured the Abbot and monks to death. We built a church on top of a pagan worship site and an earthquake destroyed some of it.

Now it's called the Tor and people come from all over the place to look at it, sit at the summit, smoke illegal herbage and talk rubbish. Some other stuff happened too, but apparently nothing interesting enough to get a mention here.

But things really kicked off with the hippy revolution, when some bright spark decided that it was built on a place where a bunch of ley-lines crossed and the flower children moved in. Shops that had once sold groceries, sheepskins and clothes were sudden full of fertility crystals, hemp t-shirts and statues of the Goddess and Green Man.

The shops are called things like Gothic Image, The Cat and the Cauldron, The Psychic Piglet, Natural Earthling, Man, Myth and Magik, and Starchild. We have a Goddess Temple, a Tantric Sex Temple, Meditation Workshops and Healing sessions and weekend events on the Tao of Relationships and the Call of the Shaman.

It's populated by interchangeable women who wear purple velvet skirts and have alarming, long frizzy hair, henna'd to within an inch of it's life.

People talk earnestly about ley lines, aromatherapy, hypnotherapy, transition towns. It believes
in UFOs, worships the Goddess and studies past-life regression. They all go by names like Kestrel, Xero, Galahad, Mystica and Ravensmile.

And (see, here's where I get to the 80% bit...it took me a little while, but..) as you might imagine these children of the sixties are not the best people to run businesses.

There's a local joke, that Glastonbury runs on GMT - Glastonbury Maybe Time - shops open when they feel like it, but usually around 10.30 - "Better late than grumpy" one shop has on it's sign thingy that shows opening hours.

They close when they feel like it, maaaan, because, you know. Being open is such a drag, you know? Really heavy.

I'm not entirely sure if Glastonbury is a place, or a state of mind, man. I expect people to cut corners here, it's part of what we are. All the normal people moved out of Glastonbury a long while ago, and left all us fluffy, floaty-headed hippies in charge.

So as a Glastonbury resident, does that mean that I cut corners in every day life? Undoubtedly yes - you just need to look at my washing up to see that. Unfortunately, I live with the worlds biggest perfectionist who frequently points out my handiwork - bits of old food that have somehow avoided the dishwashing process, crumbs that have defied the hoover - to point out my domestic failings.

My response is always the same - I sarcastically offer to inform the media, get NATO involved, call out the army - clearly these crumbs are a matter of a national security! Yes, I know there are people trying to blow up London, I know that we're facing a recession, I know that violence against women is rising five times faster than the national crime rate, but these are crumbs, dammit! On the carpet!

But there are other areas of my life where 100% is a given. In my job for starters, birthdays and Christmas, when it comes to spending money on my dearest and dearest. And, apparently when I'm trying to figure out what to write in someones blog - for some reason, since Blackpetero asked me to do this, I've found myself waking up at 3am and trying to think of something to write about.

I think it's OK to be 80%, to be honest, as long as you give 100% when it really matters. I guess all you have to do is figure out exactly when you need to give 100% and then you're well sorted.

And I guess it's why Glastonbury works - Mystica and Xero and all the rest of them might all have their collective hippy heads firmly up their bottoms, but they believe 100% in what they do, what they sell and what they talk about.

And so do the velvet-skirt, stick-wielding tourists who come to the town to take photos of the Tor and the ruined Abbey and buy up healing crystals and statues of the Goddess by the truckload - otherwise there's no way the place would work.

And as well as the weird shops, we're aiming to be a carbon neutral town, we promote healing, health, well-being, enlightenment and empathy. It's a town full of people who genuinely, 100 % believe that the world can be changed through Shakuhachi meditation, crystals and incense. And when there's incense to light, and sharing, ritual and transformation groups to channel energy and allow you to connect with the conscious universe, find your true, authentic self and search for the path of your heart, the odd hour here isn't all that important, when you look at the big picture.

Mmhmm.

It's hard to write about 'what's 80% about where I live', because honestly? 80% would be a step up for Glastonbury. Most days we're lucky if we can scrape 50%.  Hell, I'd give my right arm for 80%.

I suppose I could do something about it. Join some sort of community group, stand for town council, lobby the chamber of commerce, set up my own business and be a beacon of industry and business ethics that would force other shops to up their game.

But..you know. It kinda sounds like too much effort.