My right hand received a signal from the partingua manoosh cortex of my brain to abruptly spin the steering wheel of my Punto off the B40115041141 and down a lane, with no number, towards the village of Dean. A further signal instructed me to park up in a makeshift layby halfway down and stride confidently across a field, like a pagan John Wayne, towards the granite joy that is the Hawkstone.
There was not a soul around as I slumbered by the stone to see out the solstice in blissful solitude, aided by an orange crush sky.
The point I'm making is that if I had gone to the Rollrights I would have encountered a plethora of human beings and most probably wouldn't have had such a personal and engaging experience. You don't really want human beings around when reconnecting with nature and the past. A girlfriend or possibly a mute grandfather at most.
Today at ancient Avebury I've never known it so quiet. You could here a piece of flint drop. A Friday in December sounds quite 'off-peak' but I still expected to see the odd bespectacled, back-packed and bearded homo sapien meandering around. Instead there are sheep.
I ponder whether sheep were around when these colossal stones were erected 5000 odd years ago. Is that an idiotic thought? Have sheep always been around on these isles? Farming was only invented around that time so perhaps they were ferried over from Belgium after these stone circles were built?
I'm at a loss. If only there were some human beings around I could ask.
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