Avebury Standing Stones

Years ago I went to Stonehenge, it's a circle of big stones you pay a lot of money to not get any where near and be barged around by lots of tourists with large cameras on whistle stop bus tours.  It's a shit experience and I've never wanted to go back.

I have always wanted to go to Avebury though, and on the way to our spring holiday this year we stopped off for a look.  Now the nice thing about Avebury is it's not bigged up.  There is no 'experience' to be a draw to the buses.  It's just a bunch of very old stones.

They start quite a long way from the main village, like a road leading up to the circles.  These are 5000 years old Neolitic/Bronze age stones.  Placed for a reason.

There is an 'air' about this place, the feeling you get when thousands of people have taken a spiritual journey to get here.  It is the same shiver I get when at Canterbury Cathedral or Walsingham.  The ghosts of millenia walking onward.

Parts of the Fosseway or the Ridgeway (which starts here) make me feel that way too, shook by real history...people just like me, doing what I am doing.  Here and then gone.  The stones stayed the people just suggested by the winds of time.

Anyhoo...Avebury...it's huge.  Why on earth people decided to build a village in the middle of it who knows, but at least the village is better than the main road that roars past Stonehenge!  We really don't look after history in this country, maybe there's too much of it to care too much!








So these stones are just there, you can walk around them, touch them, lean on them, feel their energy.















The ditch goes all around it.









The size isn't to be underestimated.   This picture is an inner circle.  Look at the people next to the stones.

There is something special here.

Look at the roots of these trees.

The branches were covered in prayer ribbons.

It was like something from the Hobbit.
















The whole place is amazing (and free).



















And of course, every which way you turn there is a stone.

As we drove away we saw the Westbury chalk horse on a hillside, I need to come back to this area with more time and more knowledge and really get to know it.

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Daffodil season

I love daffs, really love them.

The season seemed to kick off with tulips this year so I started there but only as a warm up.

80% of the world's daffodil production for cut flowers comes from Cornwall and they haven't have the man power this year for cropping them.  The brexit affect and the falling pound means that the workers that will normally come to the UK for poor working conditions and low wages aren't coming any more.  People in the UK aren't prepared to work for piece rates so bad they can't make the minimum wage.   So with the crops rotting in the fields there haven't been as many around.  (I guess the people of Cornwall understood the direct effect a lack of migrant workers would have on their local economy when they voted leave - bless)

Anyway, back to my true love....

The daffs started true and bright.

But those green stems you pick up are really like a box of chocolates, with each new bunch you never know what you are going to get.

Even out in the fields on a cold day they surprise you dotted around.

I'm not so much for the subtle colours, but each has their own beauty.

And the point where so many people come home with them, I run out of places to stand them.

These I liked least of the season.






















These are glorious, as bright as they should be.

And these were my favourite bought with love





















And enjoyed in the place I most like to eat my breakfast.


And as quickly as it came, the season has ended.

I miss them already.

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Rutland Half Marathon

 I'm not sure what came over me but sometime mid November I signed up for a half marathon.  It might say half in the title but it's a distance not to be sniffed at.

13.1 miles

And some of the problem is time on your feet.  If you aren't fast you have to spend a lot longer doing it!

So mid December I started a 21k running program that was based entirely on time not on distance.  By the end of February I was up to 13 miles and worrying that I'd 'peaked too early'.

It was a wet muddy winter

 and I was getting a bit fed up with dragging myself out to do running I didn't want to do.

I cut right back on the training, dropped my miles and hoped that if I just maintained a general level of fitness (about 18 miles a week running, of which one was a 10ish miles) I'd manage to finish the run.

Taper week was whilst we were on holiday which helped with that but I drove HWMBO mad with what I was and wasn't prepared to eat during the week, and with not wanting to walk  too many miles on sand or loose stones as my knee was feeling it.

Race day came too fast, I'd spent 4 months totally focused on this. It had affected my lunch hours and weekend plans.  If I'd been more inclined to get up and out in the mornings maybe it would have been easier but I rarely got out the door running before 11am when I wasn't at work so it seemed to suck up most of a weekend run day.

I was really pleased though that I'd made sure my training runs were including really horrid hills, some were 25%.  The course for the race was very undulating with a couple of real killer climbs.  

 I finished in 2 hours 11 minutes and 38 seconds.  I'll take that as a success.

I was just so happy to have actually finished

(and without major toilet need disasters, as I had really struggled on some of the long training runs.  It's a common problem with runners, but all the same, not much fun and it had been really worrying me.)

I think this will be forever my favourite medal.  My favourite flower and I worked really hard for it.

There's life in the old dog yet.

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Retro Revival (Express Myself Innovate Stage 5)

So we went for Retro Revival in the spirit of the aim rather than word for word off the card. We picking the 60s as the era to 'reinvent'

We ate the classic 'party food' home baked cheese straws!

We played 60s music.

And went for tie-dye up cycling - totally hippy man.

Because easy tie dye generates fumes our usual meeting place cannot be ventilated well enough for, I decided to have the meeting at my house where I can open windows and doors a plenty.

They each brought an old white t-shirt and turned them into tote bags.

And then 'tie-dye' effect patterned them

It is easy done with permanent markers and surgical spirit

It can create lovely patterns

and at the end they all shouted - plate bags!

There was an impromptu conversation as parents came to pick them up about the 60s, 70s and general despair at parental fashion currently.  This was also in keeping with the last part of the card so I felt that the activity and the way the night naturally panned out suited the aim well.

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Hathersage

 It was a wet start to a day forecast rain with a massive storm coming in.

Starting somewhere between Calver and Stoney Middleton in the Peak District.

 We went through Eyam (the plague village)

From the Eyam Museum website: "In 1665 a tailor from Eyam ordered a box of materials relating to his trade from London, that he was to make into clothes for the villagers. He unwittingly triggering a chain of events that led to 260 Eyam villagers dying from bubonic plague – more than double the mortality rate suffered by the citizens of London in the Great Plague.
Between the first death and the last, the villagers set an extraordinary and enduring example of self-sacrifice by sealing off the village from the surrounding areas to prevent the disease spreading."

 It'd be worth spending a bit of time here

 As these few signs

 were on a short straight in and out.

I also recommend reading "the year of wonders" if this story interests you.

 Anyway, onwards

 This farmer really didn't want us to get lost and I really appreciate this sort of effort!

 Onto Foolow

 And out.  We struggled to get up to this road as path after path had been closed.  As had this road but we walked through anyway but it soon became clear the entire hill was subsiding and I was glad to be off it to be honest.

 Onto Abney moor

 There are a lot of paths around here, you really need to know where you are and where you want to be. 

 Moles!

 And across the heather which will be lovely once it really comes out.

 That storm was on it's way in.

 It got wetter and every time I got the camera out I fell behind the group.

 But I had to stop for this.  I don't remember it being like this when we walked across here in November.  But clearly a fire had swept through and it wasn't small, it went a long way.

 I'm starting to recognise these paths from previous walks and it's a nice feeling of not being quite such a newbie.

 But we were moving fast to beat the storm so I really couldn't afford to keep stopping to take photos.

 After Offerton we put an extra loop in and headed toward Thornhill 

before doubling back along the water to Leadmill and finally Hathersage.

We made it to the bus with only 15 minutes to spare and actually walked further than the 'long walk group' had this month!

15 miles and about 2000 feet in persistent precipitation.

I was pooped and actually fell asleep on the journey home.  But still found enough energy to go for an indian with the sub section of the walkers.  Felt I'd earned it!

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