by Marja-Leena 
A little bit of spookiness created just for you, dear readers, to put you in the mood for Samhain, All Hallow’s or Halloween, All Saints Day, Day of the Dead, Kekri or whatever you celebrate this weekend!
If this Pineapple Express we are having right now keeps up for tomorrow evening, the little trick-or-treaters may be washed away!
by Marja-Leena 
Even in Paris, birds of a feather stick together. Even the lady has had a visit from feathery friends.
by Marja-Leena 
Sculptures everywhere in Paris,
an abundance of art in everyday life,
feasts for the eyes and the soul…
by Marja-Leena 
A ride on the London Eye with daughter and granddaughters.
It’s touristy, it’s expensive, it’s scary for height-phobics like me.
An impressive work of engineering and what fantastic views to satisfy the human eye.
A hazy cloudy day, not so perfect for photography.
Little girls had no fear leaning on the sloping out glass of the pods.
by Marja-Leena Back to my travel diary and our last few but extra busy days in London….
Our ‘Londoner’ daughter had once taken one of the walking tours of London and enjoyed it so she suggested we all take the Historic Greenwich tour because it combined a boat ride on the Thames as well as the walk. We thought the children would particularly enjoy it.
A bus and tube ride to the meeting point by The Tower started that sunny Sunday in early May. A surprisingly large group showed up but our expected guide did not because his tube was down that morning. Soon a replacement came, a pleasant and energetic fellow but we were to learn, not as knowledgeable and often rather difficult to hear over the large group. So, I don’t have all the names and facts of what we saw. Check out their description and interesting video on their website.
The half hour boat ride was very enjoyable as we passed under the Tower Bridge and past a mix of older and modern architecture. Coming in to Greenwich we could see the unique clock of the Royal Observatory. We were guided around immense classically designed buildings, many former royal homes like the Queen’s House, with delightful glimpses of art work like Hans Holbein’s portrait of King Henry VIII. We were entertained by stories of the romances, scandals and foibles of the royals of the day. Our tour ended with a watch of the movement of the timeball on the observatory up on the hill beyond the green green park.
Afterwards we were on our own for we learned the return trip was not included. We wandered around the town including the flea market, had an ice cream to cool us as we weaved through huge crowds of visitors; I don’t remember now what special event was on in the town that day. Way way past lunch time, kids and adults starving, we found a pub and had good old English fish and chips and ale! We eventually found the train back into London and our tube home, very tired, both happy and a just wee bit disappointed. The children were amazingly well behaved for such a long day and what must have been at times a boring tour for them. Opa’s pocket full of trail mix was a life saver!
Photos by my husband, again, and just a small selection from a great number.
by Marja-Leena 
Photos top to bottom: The Pantiles area, Heidi (in green jacket) and I chatting, and Joe.
One of the great delights of our trip to England has been the opportunity to meet a few blog friends. I wrote about some earlier meetings here and here in case you missed them.
When Joe Hyam (Plutarch) of Now’s the Time learned that we were interested in possibly visiting the lovely sounding Tunbridge Wells, he and his wife Heidi invited us to come for lunch one day. I first met Joe through Lucy of Box Elder when she announced their poetry and photo collaboration called Compasses. I so enjoyed that and soon found Joe’s own blog and we have been blog friends since.
Joe had sent a map of how to find their place via a leisurely walk from the train station through the Grove, a pretty treed park often mentioned on his blog. At the edge of the park I was surprised and tickled to spot The Compasses pub, another sometime mention. How very clever of him to send us this way! Almost around the corner we then found Joe’s home and were met with a warm and gracious welcome. Joe is just like I imagined from his blog with his gentle humour, erudition and measured speech. When I commented on all the beautiful artwork gracing the walls of their home, I was of course thrilled to learn that Heidi is also an artist and the creator of most of the work. Heidi and my husband even enjoyed a chat in their mutual native tongue, German, and her lively personality made me think of one of his cousins.
We had much great conversation and a fantastic gourmet lunch! I had suspected from his blog that Joe was a great cook and they both are! After the long and leisurely lunch, we were given a little tour of their garden and some of this historical town. All too soon we said our goodbyes and thank you’s and hopped on the train back to London.
Once again, I have to say this blogging experience has given such great rewards in the friends we’ve made and been able to meet. Instead of the too final sounding goodbye, I prefer to say näkemiin or auf wiedersehn – see you again!
PS – Suddenly remembered that Joe had written a few words about our meeting, the very next day.
PPS – If you are interested and haven’t read the earlier posts on our recent trip to the UK and Paris, please click on the theme Travel on the side bar or here.
by Marja-Leena 
Last of our destinations during our day long tour of Ancient Britain was Avebury. Like Stonehenge, Avebury is very well-known and many believe it is the superior stone circle. Certainly it is the largest of its kind by area and number of standing stones. I’ve read conflicting information on the original number of stones of which many have been lost or damaged, one site says 98.
My personal impression of the Avebury stone circle was of some disappointment. I was not able to feel the magic I felt at Stonehenge. Certainly it was accessible, being able to walk into the enclosed pastures and right up and among the stones. Their sizes varied quite a bit, from small to a bit over human height, and the shapes from tall and slim to chunky and square, and all placed at some distance from each other. I knew it would be quite different from Stonehenge’s smaller circle of bigger standing and horizontal stones.
But… there is a road and a town breaking up the circle so we could not see the whole. We were able to walk around one area, much too slowly because we were taking photographs while also stepping carefully around dozing sheep and their droppings. Pastoral and pretty, yes. I wondered if we had gone the best way around for we noticed most of the others walking elsewhere including on the surrounding henge. Perhaps our guide could have been a bit more helpful in suggesting the best walking route. We had arrived late in the day behind schedule, so there was not enough time left to see it all. We finally had to rush for a much-needed bathroom break and a take-out cup of coffee before returning to our van to head back to London. Anyway, essentially it was far too short a time to capture the spirit of the place. That can be and usually is the way with guided tours, I know with some small experience.
As for photography, it seems that the best atmospheric photos are taken early or late in the day or during mist and rain. Almost four years ago I wrote about Avebury linking to a beautiful and informative site that I’m happy to see is still up: Avebury – A Present from the Past. It includes gorgeous photos, stories and information including other related sites in the area, but I can’t judge for the scientific accuracy. Also, this aerial view helped give me a better sense of the Avebury, Silbury Hill and West Kennet Barrow area – wish I’d had it with me on the tour.
As has been said in some of the earlier articles by me and some commentors, a first time tour really is to give general impressions, an overall picture and is helpful in showing what one wants to revisit alone in greater depth. It’s unlikely that we would have been able to cover so many places in one day on our own, which is one reason of course why we took this tour. I would love to spend more time in these ancient places of mystery and power so hopefully there will be another chance for me to revisit these sites, as well as many more, in the future.
I’m so very grateful to my husband for taking so many great photographs on this tour, especially under the time pressures, something that inhibits me from doing it. I just wanted to absorb the feel of these places though sometimes I would point out spots that I particularly wanted photographed. He told me that he was surprised how much he enjoyed this tour which makes me glad since I desired it, researched it and booked it.
Ancient Britain Tour series of articles:
Salisbury
Old Sarum
Wiltshire Flint
Stonehenge
White Horses
Silbury & West Kennet
by Marja-Leena 
Soon after passing the White Horse we could see Silbury Hill, a huge man-made chalk mound near Avebury. It is the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe and one of the world’s largest.
Composed mainly of chalk and clay excavated from the surrounding area, the mound stands 40 metres (130 ft) high[2] and covers about 5 acres (0.020 km2). It is a display of immense technical skill and prolonged control over labour and resources. Archaeologists calculate that Silbury Hill was built about 4750 years ago and that it took 18 million man-hours, or 500 men working 15 years…. Mackie asserts that no simple late Neolithic tribal structure as usually imagined could have sustained this and similar projects, and envisages an authoritarian theocratic power elite with broad-ranging control across southern Britain.
It still seems a mystery as to why it was built. It is off bounds now but we could see it well from the road and as we walked up a hill or ridge nearby on top of which lies the West Kennet Long Barrow, a Neolithic tomb or barrow. Older than Stonehenge, this too was a marvel of construction and many man hours of labour. Open and accessible, I thought it would be spooky to go in but some clever openings cut into the sod above it gave a little light to see the construction of stones holding up walls and ceiling and reveal a central passage and several adjoining small bays. Spooky though to know this was a tomb.
Our stop was not long enough for serious photography. There are some nice photos at wikipedia, and probably at some of the numerous sites online, and one can also view the inside of West Kennet Long Barrow via this cool interactive VR Panorama.
Avebury is next, our last tour stop before returning to London.
Posts about our Ancient Britain Tour:
Salisbury
Old Sarum
Wiltshire Flint
Stonehenge
White Horses
Avebury
by Marja-Leena 
Leaving Stonehenge, our drive continued on through the lovely Wiltshire countryside towards nearby Avebury, with a few quick highlights along the way. A very quick sighting was of a White Horse, a chalk hill figure. My husband luckily had the camera handy and managed to capture a couple of blurry photos of it as we rode past. However we didn’t catch its name and forgot to ask later. It looks similar to this image of the Cherhill White Horse and the location sounds about right, but I’m not positive.
I’ve long been intrigued by England’s White Horses, especially the Uffington one. This was our first live sighting, exciting but much too brief. Just over a week later when we were on the Eurostar train somewhere in southeast England heading for Paris, we saw another one, even more briefly and without any warning. We have no photo of that one and by now the particular shape of it has begun to blur in my memory… but not the unexpected thrill of seeing it.
According to the The Wiltshire White Horses site:
Wiltshire is the county for white horses. There are or were at least twenty-four of these hill figures in Britain, with no less than thirteen being in Wiltshire, and another white horse, the oldest of them all, being just over the border in Oxfordshire. Most of the white horses are chalk hill carvings, and the chalk downs of central Wiltshire make it an ideal place for such figures.
Of the thirteen white horses known to have existed in Wiltshire, eight are still visible, and the others have either been lost completely, or are in a sense still there, under the turf, but have long since become grown over and are no longer visible.
Contrary to popular belief, most white horses are not of great antiquity. Only the Uffington white horse is of certain prehistoric origin, being some three thousand years old. Most of the others date from the last three hundred years or so, though the hillside white horse can be a slippery creature, and the origins of some are impossible to establish with any certainty.
There is a wealth of information on the web on hill figures. Here are just a few that I’ve gathered over the past:
The Little Professor’s Links about hill figures
The National Trust: Uffington
A Mouse in France visits Uffington
Grooming a White Horse
EDITED July 14th: Olga of Threading Thoughts wrote the following in a comment on the next post. With much thanks to her knowledge, I’ve added it here:
Yes your photo is of the Cherhill horse. It is such a lovely road that one, either side of Avebury with the horse to the west, and Silbury Hill to the east.
Further along that road to the east, just before Marlborough (with its famous Polly’s tearooms which you must visit next time if you were not taken there on your tour) there is another white horse -the Preshute. It is only visible from the road when there are no leaves on the trees, and because it is so elusive I love it. It is not one of the old ones, and was cut by a schoolboy, and is mentioned on the Wiltshire White Horses website.
Other posts about our Ancient Britain Tour:
Salisbury
Old Sarum
Wiltshire Flint
Stonehenge
Silbury & West Kennet
Avebury
by Marja-Leena 
Wikipedia has a good gathering of all the information and further links to explore.
Instead I want to talk about the experience. Naturally I felt anticipation and excitement to be there after so many years of dreaming about seeing it. I wondered if it might be spoiled by a ‘tourist trap’ but it was okay, for we quickly passed by the tour buses and ignored the gift and ice cream shops, located some distance from the site. Our excellent tour guide quickly and clearly explained the history and construction in front of the educational display wall in the tunnel way under the road. Then we were on our own, walking up towards the stones. They seemed so small in the distance….
At first we felt the pressure of the busloads of visitors impeding the view, jostling each other to snap photos, giggling girls asking to have photos taken of them in front of the stones (do they even really LOOK at the stones?). Then it thinned out and we were able to spend quite a bit of time looking, contemplating and walking around it. For many minutes I stood alone, silent and breathing deeply and looking deeply. It would have been marvellous to be able to walk up and between the stones and touch them, but we could see some of the graffiti and damage and could understand why not. I just felt so grateful to be there.
My husband took numerous and excellent photos. I trusted him to it for he’s the better photographer when it comes to understanding the finer points of the camera and the light conditions and has very steady hands! If I use any of his photos from this trip in my art work, as I probably will, I’ll have to give him credit by making the works ‘collaborations’! Early morning or evening light might have given us more interesting and dramatic photos but I can’t complain for the weather was good for us – sunny though very windy, the clouds scudding along and providing a stunning canopy over these stones set in the open fields and gentle green slopes with grazing sheep and yellow patches of canola in the distance.
There is a sense of great space physically as well as in the huge span of time and spirits here. I felt awed yet calm as I kept thinking about the immense labours involved in bringing the stones here and erecting them, especially the sarsens. And I kept wondering over the mystery and many theories of why the ancient peoples built these stone circles and other similar sites in many other places. How fortunate we are to still have sites like Stonehenge as a way of reaching back and connecting with mankind’s ancient past.
I’d go back in a heartbeat.
Other posts about our Ancient Britain Tour:
Salisbury
Old Sarum
Wiltshire Flint
White Horses
Silbury & West Kennet
Avebury