Every year on June 21st I get up at my usual not-too-early time and listen to the radio as I make breakfast. There’s usually something on about the gathering at Stonehenge to mark the summer solstice and every year I feel I’ve missed out on something, though I’m not sure what.
This year I determined to do something about it. Stonehenge seemed a bit of a hassle – long journey, where to sleep and so on. However, less than half an hour’s drive away from home is Ivingoe Beacon.
So I’m up at 3:15, dozy from the unusually early start, grabbing a cup of tea and dragging on yesterday’s clothes. Though I’ve been there many times before, I want to be sure to find the car park in the dark and allow myself time to start the walk up to the Beacon in partial darkness.
As I half-expected, there are cars there before me, including a camper van that has probably, and if so, illegally, spent the night there. I have my walking boots on already and a torch in case I need it, but keeping to the road at first means I know it is even underfoot. It is now around 4:00.
I strike off the road across the chalkland and a quick glance at my watch shows I have plenty of time. There is a slight but chilly breeze from my left as I climb and I’m glad I’m wearing a sweater. Something quite large and dark scuttles away, and later, what I’m pretty sure is a rabbit scoots across the path. It is very quiet, with just the faint sound of sheep nearby and the more distant noise of occasional traffic.
Though it is still twilight the whiteness of the paths is plain to see. I reach the summit at about 4:15 and stand where, I imagine, generations of people have stood on this date before me. An orange gash in the clouds above the escarpment holds my gaze. Two people are huddled at the base of the trig point. The lights of Leighton Buzzard twinkle on the plain to my left; on my right the white lion of Whipsnade is just visible, with the morning’s first flight out of Luton Airport suddenly in view above it.
More people arrive. Two teenage girls horse about, talking loudly. I find it extremely irritating. It seems irreverent, somehow. Gradually the colours of the countryside emerge from the grey of dawn. At last it is 4:45, but there is no visible sunrise. The clouds stubbornly remain and the orange gash fades. I wait on for a few minutes before leaving, to avoid companions.
As I walk back down, cattle are fanning out across the grass and a red kite circles overhead. I go back home and back to bed, uncertain of why I came out and what I got out of it. All I know is that as I get older I seem to become more aware of the countryside and of the changing seasons. Maybe I have just tried to tap in to that huge and slow rhythm that brings darkness and light, sleep and wakefulness, warmth and cold, life and death, decay and renewal. Maybe it’s something to do with what D.H.Lawrence called “the deep oblivion of earth’s lapse and renewal”, reflected in “the changing phases of a man's life”. It makes me feel a bit melancholy, to be honest.
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Happily, I was snoozing until 0715 this morning :-)
Lyrical though, the descriptions.
As I get older I like to sleep more.
Off in minute for my siesta!
Last edited by: Roger on Fri 21 Jun 13 at 13:36
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>> decay and renewal. Maybe it’s something to do with what D.H.Lawrence called “the deep oblivion
>> of earth’s lapse and renewal”, reflected in “the changing phases of a man's life”. It
>> makes me feel a bit melancholy, to be honest.
Had you seen the magnificent palate of blue colours appear and fade, bleached to a magnificent orange and yellow with the rising of the sun, you would have felt much more uplifted and upbeat.
I have had some complete crackers to watch while train chasing, and not all in the summer either.
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Blue food is generally a sign to one's palate that it is not palatable.
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I know you said "generally", but this was on the news this morning.
Litopenaeus stylirostris (o Penaeus stylirostris), langostino azul, conocido como camarón azul.
Not sure I could eat it though. It looks wrong.
tinyurl.com/neoa988
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>> Not sure I could eat it though. It looks wrong.
Does it change colour when cooked?
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I don't know. I didn't even know they existed until the news this morning. I'll ask.
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It will no doubt change colour when cooked. Prawns do and this is a shrimp too.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 21 Jun 13 at 16:52
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Nice one FP, I'd like to do the same, but atop Mount Teide, which at 12,000ft is (usually) above the cloud level ;)
Should have dunnit when we lived there for 3.5 years really!!
Sorry about the spielling, I didn't go to a very good school (but at least it was approved)
:}
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We were up at The Hurlers just after 4am today, it was thick fog and difficult to see the stones.
There were others there, but everyone respected the others reasons for being there.
It was peaceful, beautiful, mysterious, ethereal and well worth the effort.
I wouldn't miss it for anything.....
Pat
PS Off to bed now:)
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>>We were up at The Hurlers just after 4am today
We like the whole area of Minions, the cheese ring, burial mounds, hut circles, the disused rail tracks.
it's somehow even more otherworldly in the Winter months.
goo.gl/maps/HXCv2
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I have to say that luxury is never wasted on me. At the opposite end of the spectrum, I am still, fortunately, able to experience incredible dusk and dawns whilst wild camping. Not as often as I would like, and preferably in remote wild places, but I can understand where these people are coming from in getting up close and personal with Mother Nature.
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The country, the country, the country gets me down.
I don't like the country, I'd rather have the town.
From Beethoven's 6th...The Pastoral Symphony.
Ted
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I did the Stonehenge summer solstice job several times (together with the winter solstice plus spring and autumn equinoxes) when I was working on the Plain during the days of confrontation between English Heritage/Police and the hippy fraternity.
Courtesy of the weather, on all those occasions I never once actually saw the sun rise.
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>>on all those occasions I never once actually saw the sun rise.
Like the BIG event of August 11, 1999 = Obscured By Clouds www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_vVFC7URkc
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"I did the Stonehenge summer solstice job several times (together with the winter solstice plus spring and autumn equinoxes) when I was working on the Plain during the days of confrontation between English Heritage/Police and the hippy fraternity."
Let me guess - you were a member of the hippy fraternity?
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Nope. In the middle as a member of the Fourth Estate. I had good friends on both sides, which made life easier.
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A lot of people wrongly believe that June 21st is the longest day.
In fact it's the one with the shortest night...:-) :-)
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Daybreak - Summer Solstice 2013 - Roger.
