Stonehenge!

Finally got connected via dial-up... here's the promised Stonehenge post.

It was really nice having the day off today - pity I have to go back to work tomorrow, though.

Since it was a 3 day weekend, I went off to Stonehenge yesterday (a 2 day weekend is really too short - Saturday you're too tired from working all week to do much, and then Sunday you don't want to do too much and tire yourself out for the coming week).

It was quite a cool trip, although Stonehenge itself was somewhat... unimpressive. I think it gets so built up in the media that you end up expecting something more than it actually is. The stones are big, but not all that big... but big enough when you consider where they came from and how they were dragged into position and all that, and considering the tools they had to work with. But the whole thing is just on a much smaller scale than I would have thought - the circles of stones are much closer together than I thought they would be, as well.

But I'll start from the beginning... I did the SouthWest Trains special, which was included the train tickets, and a guided bus tour of Salisbury and Stonehenge. The train trip was nice, I always enjoy travelling by train, and it was great to see lots of greenery and trees (although you don't get much of a view, since they seem to have screened off the railway lines with trees - which must be nice for the people living nearby, but not so exciting for the people on the train).
The bus tour of Salisbury was not so much a tour as having some of the main attractions pointed on the way out of the town to Stonehenge; the commentary was uninspired, especially considering how everyone always makes Stonehenge so mysterious, but I guess I did learn some things I didn't know before... We went past Old Sarum on the way, which was interesting too. We saw Salisbury Plain as well, of course, although it's the hilliest place I've seen in England yet. Oh, and they pointed out the abbey at Avebury where, supposedly, King Arthur exiled Queen Guinevere after finding out about her and Lancelot, which was kinda cool.

On to Stonehenge, then - lots of burial mounds in the area, which were interesting to see. I read a book about them once when I was at school (a very basic book, since it was one of those "for early reader" type books), and they've fascinated me ever since). And for those of you who've read Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books, it was cool to see that this was clearly Chalk country, and I even tried to take a photo of an area where the chalk is exposed, although it didn't come out very well :-) Stonehenge itself is very photogenic - you just can't help taking a photo every couple of steps round the circle, and they all come out really well, which means you end up having (and I'm not exaggerating) 50 photos of the stones. I've put some of the best below - my camera has a really cool "panorama assist" mode, where you take a photo, then it ghosts that on top of the viewfinder for the next photo, so you can get them all lined up nicely; then an app on your PC stitches them up nicely for you into a wide panorama shot.

The best part about Stonehenge was the contrast to London. Just wide open spaces, for as far as you can see... it was windy (haven't felt wind like that since Cape Town!) and the air was fresh. And there were sheep! I realised then that I haven't really seen any animals, barring a dog or two, since I came to London. So I took a bunch of photos of sheep as well :-) Just wandering around the grass in the quiet, peaceful, open air was the best part of the trip.

Then the tour bus went back to Salisbury; I wandered around a bit, saw the house where they filmed Sense & Sensiblity (although you have to pay to go in). I spent about 5 minutes wandering around Salisbury Cathedral; it's very impressive from the outside, but inside it's just kinda overwhelming. There are tons of tombs, which are interesting at first but after you've seen one medieval tomb you've seen them all... the stained glass windows were impressive, but too big to really appreciate (it sounds odd, but I can't describe it better). I had lunch in the refectory, which was really nice, since it opens onto a little garden (with yet more tombstones, of course). Then I wandered off the Salisbury museum, but didn't go in since by that time I was a bit bored of looking at ancient things (there's only so much you can take in in one day). What I found funny was how the Salisbury museum had signs all over the place, quoting Bill Bryson's Notes From a Small Island (which I just read last week) where he says "The Salisbury Museum is outstanding and I urge you to go there at once", but they don't quote any of the bits where he says how the cathedral is the most money-keen of English cathedrals, or wonders how long it will be till you are "whirred through the 'Salisbury Cathedral Experience' complete with animatronic stonemasons and monks like Friar Tuck" ;-) I wandered back through Salisbury to the train station, and it really is a nice place, with a real English village sort of feeling to it. Then I spent 45 minutes at the train station, since trains to Waterloo only run every hour :-(

So even though I was mildly disappointed by Stonehenge and spent a lot of time hanging around train stations (I got to Waterloo an hour early on the way there, too), it was a really great day and I thoroughly enjoyed myself!

I know this has been a really long post already, but just a couple of things:
- tiscali dial-up sucks, and is really unreliable (or maybe it's just me, or maybe they're having a problem this weekend - either way, it sucks and I really hope their broadband is more reliable). It connects, but nothing actually loads... very annoying.
- I went to see The Breakup today, and I really enjoyed it. Sure, it's one of those dumb comedies, but it was good fun
- in the continuing saga of things going wrong, two lightbulbs blew last night and tripped the light circuit, leaving me totally in the dark. I replace the bulbs today, but one of them still doesn't work, which means the light fitting itself has a problem and now I'll have to get of the landlady, and she'll have to send an electrician out, which means I'll have to be here, which means, again, either postponing my weekend plans (if they'll even come out on weekends), or taking time off work. Unless she can be here instead, which I hope, but doubt, she will. And she doesn't have email, which means I have to phone her... and I REALLY hate phoning people :-(