Today was the solstice celebration, we had the hotel reserve a taxi for us when wed first arrived so we had a taxi that would arrive at 7am. Since the hotel served breakfast until 10am we asked if we could get breakfast at 10 and they said yes. The who wed done the day tour with Nicholas said that after the solstice celebration we could hop on one of their coaches and theyd drop us off across from our hotel as they would stop at the Salisbury Cathedral as part of their tour.
We went out slightly before 7 and on the dot, the taxi arrived. There was frost everywhere, it looked like it had snowed. We hoped in the cab and turned up the heat in the back.
We were at Stonehenge by about 7:20 along with lots of other people driving in. Wed heard that only people who needed help could ride on the bus up to the stones, but that was not the case. Anyone who wanted to ride the bus could, so we got on.
that there were people packed into the circle to see the up between the stones. People were standing on fallen stones, sitting on the stones, climbing on the stones. All of the things that cause damage to the stones, by the way.
We worked our way around and finally found a place where wed see the sun rise between stones. We tried to light our sage but the lighter went out. Then we saw a woman with a candle, she helped us with her candlelight and we got our sage lit.
There were several people, we saw about 6, with drums, beating a beat, people were chanting, a guy was blowing in a horn of some sort. People were dancing. The drums became louder and beats more frequent as the sun Finally, the sun came above the horizon and there was much cheering, drumming and dancing.
We waved our sage, allowing the smoke to rise and along with our thoughts to our own who have passed. We walked 1st around the entire outside of the stones, then inside the stones. One woman stopped us and directed smoke to herself and on
Finally, we had to catch our ride back to the hotel as we had to keep moving. We had seen 2 women sitting by one of the stones, they had what looked like offerings to the gods/goddesses so we offered to give them what was left of our sage. They had a piece of wood burning, I forget what it is but is important in the American Indian religion as well. They were thrilled when we said we wanted them to have our sage, so it stayed at the stones, the ashes from it will part of the landscape.
We caught the coach we were to ride to our hotel and we were back just a few minutes after 10. We had great Full English Breakfast, this includes bacon (not like ours) sausage, broiled tomato, broiled mushroom and baked beans. We needed a big hardy breakfast as wed likely not have any time to stop until late in the afternoon so we stuffed ourselves.
As we had left our larger bags at the hotel in London, we only had 2 small carryons but still needed to finish packing those. We missed the 11:30 train
We got to the station when I couldnt find my phone at all. We searched all of our pockets and tried to look thru our shoulder bags. Finally, Dale ran back to the hotel, about 10 min away. The train was due to leave in about 30 min so we were cutting it short. With about 5 min to spare Dale came back, oh was I glad to see him, otherwise we would have had to wait yet another hour. But no phone.
We got on the train and once we had seats we emptied our pockets, no phone. I emptied the smaller shoulder bag, no phone. I went to started searching thru the larger shoulder bag and there it was. My phone is one of the new flip phones so it was opened and the screen dark between 2 dark things in the bag. What a relief. This phone is our hotspot, google maps, our lifeline.
About a week before our scheduled departure, we learned that we had to have a Covid test the day before departure. We had to schedule an appointment but most places were full by the time I was set to schedule.
We had an appointment set for 2:45 for both of us.
