Sorry for the delay! First time I've had the chance to update for ages.
It's not even a fortnight but it seems like months!
...About an hour down the road i burst into laughter at the thought of having forgotten my maps. Abdul offers to spin the car round, but if we do he can't hang round at Avebury and will have to dump me. I decide we carry on without them, I'd rather he stays with me a while to see me suitably settled in for the evening. I'm nervous about the weather, it's blowing a gale, clouds are racing across the sky. one moment a rainstorm the next brilliant sunshine. I worried about finding a viable location to erect my tent without getting soaked and i don't have anything to read if it rains all night.
We end up getting lost and have to stop to buy a road atlas for £3. Relieved, i rip out the relevant page for my adventure so at least i'll have a clue where i'll be going.
Arriving from the east we discover vehicles parked up a mile or so from Avebury stone circle and decide to park up. I realise it's the Saturday before Solstice and it was obvious people would already be arriving for the solstice, silly me having imagined being on my own, wet through in some iffy location for camping.The place we arrived is known as the Sanctuary and is on the Ridgeway. It seems there will be a party this evening and Abdul decides to cancel his plans and stay for the evening. As ever Abdul wastes no time in making friends and I'm glad to have him with me. I'm not exactly shy but depending on my mood I can be a little aloof, well at least compared with Abdul anyway. Within minutes we've met mostly everybody on site, a mixture of travellers and weekenders. A friendly traveller by the name of Pixies helps us feel welcome and shows us his splendid horse drawn cart.
It was difficult packing for this trip, being that I have to dance with all my belongings on my back. I hadn't got my new 1.5kg one man tent out of the bag before today and was horrified to discover it was like a coffin, my feet touched the bottom, my head the top, with no room to roll over or sit up. How on earth do I get changed if it's raining i have no idea? After putting up the tent I'm advised to move it seeing as it's so close to the track and there is likely to be fleets of green goddesses arriving in the night who might not see my little tent and easily crush my head.
Tent moved, we foot the mile or so to the Red Lion pub in Avebury. The villiage by the way being at the centre of the huge stone circle, the pub itself only a few score yards from the centre stone.To our joy the pub is full of hippies, druids and other colourful characters, a drum session is in full swing followed by songs from bards and singalong numbers, Abdul wastes no time in getting in on the act.
I feel a bit uptight and take a glass of wine. It helps but i feel stupid to take a second one and am horrified when Abdul passes me a third. I try to refuse without much success but end up getting Abdul to drink half of it after kicking up a fuss. Back on the water! We get a tip off about a drum session in West Kennet long barrow later that evening, West Kennet is a so called burial chamber with excellent acoustics for drumming.
Greggsy tells me we will walk past a copse of trees called Witchwood, where witches were buried, and when you stand in that copse you can here the witches talk to you. Eager to hear I pace ahead. I can't say I could here any talking but the wind certainly seemed to blow faster in that old copse.
It gets dark back at the Sanctury and Pixie's girlfriend Lynn lets us cook the cans of beans i brought along for supper in the back of her van. We decide against the walk to West Kennet though I later heard the drum session there was a bit special and regretted that decision. We settle down by the fire, Abdul heads of to party, and Lynn tells me stories about her dreams of Atlantis and Poseidon. We watch and talk of the stars before I head of to bed, for the first time in my new tent and my duckdown jacket I bought instead of a sleeping bag.
Sweet
