A fine day in Wiltshire

At Avebury we dodged sheep pies to wonder at the megaliths, feeling puny beside their ancient bulk. Knowing that a crushed body had been found beneath the Barber Stone made Kid #1 and I race to touch its surface first, pressing palms against the rock to discover if we could feel some power inside. We ate lunch in a lonely pub with roof beams torn from a ship. A countryside pockmarked by barrows invited us to speak of the dead, but Stonehenge was so full of life that it was impossible to be gloomy. Kid #1 admitted that he thought the place would be ominous, the stones in their circle dark, but the sky was blue and the sun was bright ... and the circle shone radiant gray. Kid #2 sang about rocks and birds and dancing. At Salisbury cathedral we had cream tea so good my eyes watered. My spouse spotted Jude Law at the table next to us and I realized how easily she could leave me with the kids (luckily, Jude was their with his own daughter and her sports team). We glanced at Magna Carta, walked a city busy with its market day, then headed to Old Sarum ... where bright sun, grass so green it blinded, and chalky ruins of a castle touched us all the more for the Iron Age fortress they squatted upon. When we stood at the top of the wall built upon a mound built upon another mound, we thought we could see the very edge of the world.

A fine day in Wiltshire.

[Karl, Eileen: Sorry not to weigh in on your recent, substantial posts. I've barely been on the internet, only long enough to drop this postcard and little more]