Other Edgelands People

The vicinity of my retreat is an area that is accessible to the public..there are the wild meadows, leading to the riverbanks.A public footpath leads alongside and thru the middle of the meadows and then continues on alongside the river. My place, betwixt a golf course and railway track, is not accesible in a conventional way. i.e. a footpath, so it is left to nature, and to me. Luckily for me, not many others share my desire to create a little shrine in the midst of a wild area and tend to stick to the paths..but what of the other people i see and meet on the public areas..the other people that frequent the edgelands? The area attracts some people, but in the big scheme of things not too many. It has no shops or outlets down there, no paid activities, or boats for hire, so people go there for other reasons. In the main people go there to walk their dogs, they love the place, i know many of them, and the whole attraction for them is the wildish nature of the environment, the all important 'green lung'..some of these dog walkers trespass on the golf course in the morning and evening, when the golfers are not around, and i don't blame them, for the golf course is a visually pleasing place, with plenty of trees about.A few fishermen can be spotted now and then, but fishing must be dying out, as there are no where near as many now as there were down there in the 1980's. One can catch flatfish (known locally as flukes), eels, salmon and sea trout, roach, perch, too now and then. It is tidal here, the river , so has a mix of salt and freshwater fish. I have met geocache fanatics, metal detectorists, youths by fires drinking, homeless people, i have seen all these and more over the years down there. But what of other 'edgelands people' in the same vein as I? About ten years ago i chanced upon a teepee in a reaaly hidden away area at the back of one of the wild meadows, i only found it because i explore and roam, often off the paths themselves, there it was, with an axe on a wood chopping block, the smell of firesmoke...i caught a glimpse of the fella thru the flapping entrance, and recognising him as someone to avoid..( a dangerous sort that lived right on the edge, and who i had once witnessed at an illegal rave in the early 1990's hitting someone with an axe)..so i crept away as silent as a mouse...he lived there for about 8 months and moved on. Recently i discovered a 'camp in use' and had a look around. The occupants were not there but sleeping bags were spread about, a deck of cards, a couple of pans, a few tins of sweetcorn and kidney beans, the remains of a fire and a structure made from various tents stretched over bent willow poles...home made tools had been made and attempts had been made to hide the area with high mounds of undergrowth piled up all around. i was silent, careful, had a potter, but didn't linger, the vibes didn't feel good. But i have found no 'shrine ' as such...so, we each go down there for our own reasons..some for exercise, some to be in nature, to walk dogs, to fish, or to set up a temporary home as in the case of the teepee man. We are edgelands people, we like the bits outside of the box, the plans and the concrete, we are in every town, village, city the world over...