Saturday 12 June 2010

The Place With the stones (Stonehenge I think you young ones call it)

Well here I am, finally on my peregrinations. I took my time to get out in the world but it was worth it.

We arrived at a very unassuming car-park in the middle of Wiltshire on a very hot day. (No-one can fully understand what it is like to be covered from head to toe in red fur until they have experienced it first hand) Whereupon we disembarked. We were greeted almost immediately by a worldly mixture of licence plates and languages ranging from Japanese to Midwestern American English, We are truly a global village. We got out of the car and proceeded to the visitor centre, where I watched with fascination as the transaction for admittance to the place with the stones was carried out.

Now, I am a Dragon, and will probably never understand the human need for these little metal discs and scraps of paper, In Dragon culture you prove your standing by how many of your foes you turn into crispy frazzles. So I watched as Banshee and Undead Medic paid for our admittance, noting not without some ire that the subject of "Dragon Rates" wasn't even raised. But hey-ho, at least I got in for free. I had honestly had visions of having to fly across the road and meet the pair of them on the other side.


Now I remember having Dragon raves in this place back in the middle ages, when you were free to approach the stones and touch them to your heart's content. I may be sounding like an old buffer here, but I am 3000 odd years old and I'm allowed. Don't let my diminutive stature fool you! As Yoda said "Judge me by my size do you? And well you should not..." What I am trying to say is that it seems a shame that something as old and revered as Stonehenge has become yet another tourist "Cash-cow" when it is only within Undead Medic's lifetime that the place has been free to enter and relatively unspoiled by overt money making propoganda.

My penny pinching miserliness aside we proceeded along a tunnel under the road and onto the site. I could almost smell Dragon Queen Wilhelmina's breath from long ago, almost feel it singeing your fur. The stones themselves haven't changed that much, they are a little more weathered maybe, but that is all. It was nice to see that that Doctor Who mob hadn't trampled them or anything.

We had a wonderful day of it, Undead Medic took loads of photos of moi *blushes* and the stones themselves, and then we had a picnic at the back of the site, hoping that no-one from English Heritage would object to us not availing ourselves of the cholesterol filled niceties in their café.


Upon finishing our picnic we resumed our tour of the site, taking in the history as we went, with the audio guide wittering in our ears. We were intrigued to see a one man film crew somewhere near the heel-stone, recording video onto a huge MacBook Pro, and couldn't help but wonder if we might be making our TV débuts.
My thoughts on the day turned to my friends the Druids and what they must make of what has become of one of the most sacred sites in rural England.

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