Wanderlust

Where the love of wandering started. One of my earliest memories of going for a walk as a child.
We have both been under the weather this weekend, So just a short one to be going on with.

Stonehenge.
(picture from English Heritage)

Salisbury Plain.

In the year-long heat of a childhood summer,
past the gate at the bottom of the houses,
there was an open space. A whispering field
and the stones waiting quietly at the edge of sight.
Every day I looked out and they called me.
Then one morning I went, I walked out of the gate
and into the tall grass of the fields.
I walked as far as I could see.
I walked until I found Stonehenge.
Unencumbered then by fences or entry fees,
before Travellers and Druids had claimed it
I was free to circle through, a child
in a forest of stones. I pressed against
their coldness, touched them, stood in the centre
and looked out across the plain. I was
at the centre of the world with everything
spread out around me. It was a different time,
an age of exploration. I found space and silence,
a place. That night, with family around the table
eating and talking, the inevitable question was
of my day long absence. “Where have you been today?
I poked food around my plate and said “just around”

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