Stonehenge

I travelled to Stonehenge yesterday. I drove myself from Milton Keynes (proud to be UKs most modern city/area/shire? who knows what these things are called?!) which was quite an accomplishment given that on this, my, I don't know, 8th(?) visit to the UK, it was my first time driving.

It was quite a pleasant experience actually...no horrible traffic on the famed M25 or any incidents on the infamous M1 and the drivers here are actually quite nice. What a pleasure not have a taxi (all South Africans join me in commiseration) boring down on you at some ungodly speed with your life flashing before your eyes only to zip off into the yellow lane and pick someone up off the side of the highway. After about 20 minutes worth of driving (on the 'motorway', excuse me) I realised that as we South Africans have been pondering for years, taxis are evil and life without them terrorising the roads is infinitely better.

Anyway, so I drove almost 2 hours to Stonehenge, lovely drive and found these akwardly arranged rocks in the middle of nowhere (for those of you wondering where the shoes are going to come in, just a warning, its very likely that they won't...I'm not feeling that creative tonight), I mean, literally nowhere, which totally makes all that energy stuff believable because there is nothing above ground that even remotely suggests the building of a very large pile of stones to mark anything.

They were not as big as I had imagined them (yes I know, you've heard that one before), roughly about 4 storeys high and I suppose very very difficult to build but then again, man is a pretty nifty creature. Throughout the centuries he has proven to be quite wily and can build amazing things out of seemingly impossibly circumstances. OK, I'm not going to be able to resist...some weird shoes for you obsessive people out there... :)

Anyway, it was raining a little and there were quite a lot of people walking around the 'monument' as the parking guy called it and that was really that. They also have a nice little souvenier shop there that I felt compelled to buy from as it prolonged the experienced and proved that I had been there (and no, they didn't sell any shoes). Then 2 hours back on the 'motorway'.

Still, now I've seen them, they're pretty cool but who knows what on earth (or in heaven?) they were supposed to really mark. I do get all the astrological mathematical things, but we don't know what went on in the minds of those people...maybe they were honouring a big Shoe god somewhere? Ok, I also don't really buy that, but its a good a theory as some of them out there.

PS: Wear some wellies when you go, they will be THE thing to wear to the 'monument', promise.