the weather WILL turn

It was an early start for us yesterday as we left the flats around 8 a.m. Breakfast was grab and go with the pink lady apples, bagels, jam and cream cheese we have in the kitchen. Our coach driver, as we knew once we finally arrived back at the flats, was awful. I’m still wobbling from the ride. I didn’t realize that the majority of people still drive a clutch here. I know that I haven’t learned so I can’t quite judge, but I DO know that my 15-year-old brother who just got his learner’s can drive a stick better than our coach driver today.

I slept for nearly the entire two-hour ride to Salisbury, just southwest of London. When we arrived, it was a gorgeous and quant town with narrow roads. The people walking along the sidewalks would stare up at the coach as though it were a rare occasion to see something so large come through their town. When we got off the coach, it was lightly drizzly, but hardly noticeable. We went straight up to Salisbury Cathedral, a 750-year-old cathedral that houses one of four of the remaining copies of the Magna Carta of 1215. It has a gorgeous spire – the tallest in England at 404 feet high – and also holds the world’s oldest working clock. It was neat to see how the gears still ticked rotated so slowly as they triggered the other enormous gears around it. Historic figures and saints stand stuck on the outside walls of the cathedral. One part that we weren’t expecting at all was when we walked into the Chapter House and were surrounded by gorgeous stained glass windows of mint green, yellow and springy colors that let the light flood in more than the other stained glass windows around the cathedral. When we approached a display at the back, we were faced with an original copy of the Magna Carta. Our jaws dropped when we saw the elegant handwriting on muted forest green paper. No one told us we would be seeing the Magna Carta!

When we left Salisbury, we drove through countryside with checkerboards of different green and brown fields. The path had natural overhangs of trees forming a tunnel of green that looked like it was carved by a number of buses and vehicles that have squeezed down the street over the years. We then encountered peach-orange fields that Elise and Dr. Barnett dubbed “Hay Henge” as the hay standing at increments in the field was stacked in squares rather than the barrel shape we’re used to at home.

As we approached Stonehenge, I couldn’t believe I was finally seeing it. It was built around 3000 BC and is connected with the sun and the passing of the seasons. I couldn’t help but think of “Children of Eden” from senior year at Lackey and the song “A Ring of Stones.” We modeled the set after Stonehenge by hanging rings of sheer curtains from the top of the stage. It was so neat looking. But the real Stonehenge is way cooler, of course. Outside Stonehenge was someone called the modern-day King Arthur, a man who has pledged to stay at Stonehenge until it is returned to its natural state: without concrete and fences, a café and other goofy touristy things that take away from the magic of the site. He stood behind a wooden gate with cloth banners that say: “English Heretics Take Up Thy Fence and Walk,” “Set Free the Stones,” “Honor Thy Spoken Word” and “Return Stonehenge to the Free, Open, Sacred Landscape.” Honestly, I can’t blame him. It’s just like the Great Wall. I can understand wanting to protect it, but why on earth does it have to be encircled by hideous fences and be made into a tourist trap!? Oh, well.

After the awe of Stonehenge, we headed to Avebury. This is when the weather turned on us. The sky was absolutely perfect at Stonehenge, a beautiful and clear blue with fabulously soft white clouds. As soon as we arrived in Avebury, the sky turned a bit gray and ominous looking. We popped into one small museum to learn about the henge (and David decided to color at the kid’s corner) and about the people who built it. Enter downpour. We dashed over to the next museum – thank goodness I had my umbrella – but everyone was drenched. We spent a long bit of time there before braving the rain to actually see the stone circle that was built around 2500 BC. The stones are smaller than the ones in Stonehenge, but the circle of stones itself is 14 times larger. We sloshed through the mud and flooded paths to see part of them before surrendering and wading back to the coach. We were some of the first back, but were followed by the rest of the crew shortly. It was a nice but damp sleep back to London.