Stone Circles

I was going to call this first post "Ancient Stones" but it is stone circles which are particularly in my mind this afternoon.

I have been sitting and working at my desk with Radio 4 coming through from the kitchen. It is a pleasant background to my drawing (and yet another small pleasure) but I didn't really stop and listen until the announcement of a program about the 1970s children's television program Children Of The Stones, which was set at Avebury in Wiltshire. This is my favourite stone circle in Britain.

I love the scale of stone circles, the size and weight of the stones, the sheer effort of constructing such features and the mystery surrounding their origins ans purpose. I love how they have survived and they way that they nestle into the landscape, weathered, perhaps fallen; sometimes reconstructed. With Avebury, I particularly love the proximity of the stones to the village.

I needed to be in the area last summer and, given the distance, I took the opportunity to book a hotel room and make my trip a more leisurely affair, including a visit to Avebury. There were a few other visitors but not so many that I couldn't enjoy a feeling of pleasant solitude as I walked round the circle, touching the stones and then sketching them.

A very pleasant journey and meal, private time at a favourite stone circle and then the quiet solitude of my hotel room.