It's the end; of the beginning..

Midday on Tuesday and the town is thronged with a hectic summer mix of locals and visitors. A very tired Simon Clarke sits on the bank for a few moments after returning to dry land.

"...towards the end I didn't want to get out of bed. Despite the fact I was so close to the hustle and bustle of the thoroughfare, I felt relaxed and happy. It's funny though I got a mix of reactions this morning. One lady thought it was pathetic and was furious that I'd been allowed to do it."

She's not alone. Others are equally critical. One lady says to her husband as they pass by; "What's he doing there, sitting on a mattress in the middle of the stream. I wouldn't think he was allowed to do that."

But to Simon that is part the exercise. He sees it as breaking the human barriers that fence off certain spaces. He continues. "The dream catcher doesn't have to have a function; it's something that happens out of the spotlight of ordinary living and celebrates something that is essential. It is away from the world of obligation and compromise and more to do with desire and pleasure. Though I am making a specticle of myself, the role brings it away from being just about me - I have only to listen to what I am told."

"I became fascinated with the juxtaposition of the water of the river and the brick in the bridge. The bridge is built as new and is intended to be sturdy and impervious to change. But as it gets old, its structures pull apart and decay sets in. Whereas the river is timeless and new at every moment, even whilst it makes no attachment to place.

"Civilisation demands that we are caste in a series of roles which demand that we let go of the pleasure principle in favour of the reality principle (Civilisation and its discontents, Freud)."

Just then a worker from Safeway puts his head over the bridge and says "... It did shock me this morning. At 5.30 it was all quiet and then I turned round and saw these two blokes sleeping in the river."

And Simon finishes:

"But this has simply been about achieving something that is possible; it needed no mastery. It also has no doctrine as to what it was about; it has not needed the 'audience' to share or understand what I am attempting to achieve."