New Friends, Perfect Winters Days and Two Very Special Old Piles of Stone..Stonehenge and Old Sarum

"A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles." - Tim Cahill

I often marvel at Emma's ability to make friends wherever she goes. It's happened time and time again that she will gravitate towards the nicest girls you could hope to meet, just like her, and suddenly they are firm friends.  Rather than having lots of friends Emma has special friends, while Julian simply doesn't understand the concept and everyone is his friend. With a smaller class it seems that all the girls in Emma's class at school are friends and two weeks into term we have already had one afterschool play which was lovely. But Emma seems to have already formed one of those special friendships, and so we get to introduce Miss Meli, Emma's friend from ballet and the added bonus is she comes with a lovely family we have already spent special days with.

This Saturday the school hall hosted a local theatre companies performance of Anne of Green Gables and Meli's mum Jo recommended we come along. I'm glad we did as it was very clever, witty and heart warming with four adult actors taking all the parts in the play. There were lots of quick costume changes and funny scenes where the audience was rolling in the aisle at characters calling off stage for another character who was in fact played by them and a men playing precocious little girls. This was even funnier with Julian whispering loudly a few minutes later "Mum I think she's a boy". If you have the opportunity to watch a performance by Forest Forge you shouldn't miss it.

On Sunday we were ready for another day trip and this time we decided to bring Meli along to share the fun. The kids were thrilled by this idea and it was such a shame we didn't have room in the car for Meli's brother Evren. It was such a gorgeous sunny day and Stonehenge was only an hour away and so we took  advantage of the sunshine and head off early for once. After consulting our English Heritage and National Trust guidebooks we added Old Sarum as a second stop with a plan to stop in Salisbury on the way home.

 

Stonehenge Visitors Centre

 

There has been a lot of talk, both positive and negative, about the recently opened visitors centre at Stonehenge. It would appear that this mostly because so many people have been visiting in these early weeks since it opened, a very rainy period, and the artfully designed roof has holes cut in it which would not stop the rain. I'm guessing long queues for the land train shuttle from the visitors centre to Stonehenge coupled with pouring rain would be quite off putting. But no such disasters for us, we had sunny sky's and a gentle breeze, no queue for tickets thanks to our English Heritage membership and after maybe five minutes of waiting for the shuttle we were off to Stonehenge. It was just perfect.

 

The shuttle looks like a small train carriage coupled with a few others, pulled along by a Landrover. The trip took only about ten minutes and after a short walk Julian let us know we had arrived "look Mum a pile of bricks".

With audio guides in hand the kids were ready for fun. We had chosen the family audio guide and we all had to listen to the commentary until the adults were told to turn off and the kids continued to listen and then retold us a range of information, from the Slaughter Stone being red due to it's iron content, not from the blood of ancient sacrifices, to the contents of ancient burials. Running from marker to marker and listening to the commentary I'm not sure the kids spent much time actually looking at Stonehenge but it certainly gave us time to take it slowly and appreciate the fabulous effect of the light on and through the stones as you walk around the trail.

 

While you cannot actually walk amongst the stones, at the end of the circuit you are able to come quite close and, even with other tourists milling around photographing themselves, it is undeniably  a very special place just some spend some time standing quietly. We even met a druid who spent some time talking quantum physics with the bemused kids and showed us how to connect with the energy of the place, as very special experience.

 

 For the return journey we had the choice of a regular bus or waiting a few minutes for the land train, which of course was our choice. Back at the visitors centre we really enjoyed the new exhibition, including various artefacts and a fabulous collection of original books from various periods of time which make mention of Stonehenge. The highlight for the kids came when we stood in a room and images of Stonehenge over various periods of time were beamed onto the walls so that it felt as if we were standing right at the centre of the stones.

Before we departed for our next stop Rob and the kids had a go, unsuccessfully, at dragging home one of the stones and lastly we had to check out the very impressive new loo's. Not only where they very clean but the toilets are also self flushing, which was very disconcerting for a young boy when it flushed while he was still seated and he wasn't waiting around for it to try and flush him again.

Yet again we found that times flies when your having fun and it was already after two o'clock so we snacked on muffins and fruit in the car while planning to find a nice place for lunch on the way to Old Sarum. Unfortunately we found Old Sarum before we found somewhere to eat so we gave up on lunch and decided on early dinner after the castle, a pattern we seem to be getting into.

It was much windier at the top of this ruined castle near Salisbury than down on the Salisbury Plain at Stonehenge. The wind and our hunger had us racing around to start with but it didn't take long for Old Sarum to win us over. While there had been hill forts at this site since roman times Old Sarum became another royal palace built in stone by William the Conqueror and it was from here that he paid off his men after the Norman conquest. Another interesting fact we learnt was the it was here that Henry II kept his wife Elinor of Aquitaine prisoner.
 

In total ruin this castle was great for playing "what do you suppose that used to be", such as "mum I think that was the bathroom", "no darling the sign says it was a chapel".  We were amazed to discover that only about twenty people lived on the top of the hill in the castle with everybody else camped around the base of the hill ready to move inside the walls if there was trouble brewing. While the history of the place was very interesting it was also very short. When the church decided to relocate to New Sarum, or Salisbury as it was later known,  in the early twelve hundreds the towns people went with them. By the days of Henry VIII Old Sarum had fallen into disrepair and was sold for building materials.

 

We walked around the remains of the castle walls and enjoyed the gorgeous views of the surrounding countryside and Salisbury. It was so beautiful that the kids broke into their best Julie Andrews impersonation, except somehow the song became the "the hills are alive with the sound of mooooosic".

After behaving beautifully all day it was time to reward these terrific kids, not with five star cuisine but with burgers, salad bar and knickerbocker glory's. I've never seen three kids eat so much so quickly, I'm not sure whether it was the fresh air, loads of walking or the lateness of the meal but they certainly did justice to it. When Julian decided he didn't like his icecream the girls were beaten and had to leave it to Rob as they were in fear of bursting. Meli had been telling us all day how great Salisbury is to visit, and having seen the glorious cathedral dominating the landscape from various vantage points throughout the day we were keen to go but had run out of time. We agreed on a taster and set the TomTom to the cathedral and managed to see it close up from the outside in the twilight. It was an awesome site and we have vowed to come back and attempt the tower climb before the end of our holiday.

 

After we dropped Meli home there ended another perfect day. And now for the first time I am up to date and looking forward to our trip to Bath this weekend and will be back here to tell you all about it as soon as I can.

(Date of visit to Stonehenge and Old Sarum: Sunday 18th January 2014)