Due to a schedule that was very densely packed with things to do, places to go and people to see combined with very limited network access I was not able to blog directly during my recent pilgrimage to the Blessed Isles. Since returning I have been navigating the accumulated work load that awaited me along with the obligatory parting gift of a nasty cold picked up in that toxic petri dish called Heathrow. However this seems like as good a time as any to write up my experiences for the blog.

We arrived In London on the morning of the 28^th (Greenwich Time) and picked up our rental vehicle ready to head out and encounter the wonders of the landscape on our way to Wales. The two main items on the agenda were the White Horse of Uffington and the Roman remains in Bath. We would be lead on our quest by the tutelary spirit of the rented Satellite Navigator “Tom Tom”, which was a strange name considering the voice which came forth was decidedly female. Being a devotee of my Magellan unit back home, I quickly found that Tom Tom did not respond readily to the invocations and spells I was already familiar with. It was necessary to delve into the 93 page Grimoire (User Manual) that purported to reveal arcane secrets for the proper prayers and mudras required to get “Tom Tom” to communicate in a comely form. Fortunately the 93 pages were actually only three real pages of instructions printed in 31 different languages. Unfortunately the three real pages of instructions weren't very much help at all. So we lumbered on and managed to elicit directions to Uffington itself, but we were on our own as to how best to get to the horse. This is where experience with being “fairy led” comes in handy, and we managed through a serious of totally coincidental moves to find a car park designed to the bustling traffic of visitors thankfully to find we were the only ones. I guess Friday Morning isn't exactly peak traffic time at the White Horse. It quickly became obvious that the vantage point from the car park was designed to discourage walking out the the chalk figure itself and I allowed my mind to range a bit and became convinced that we should consider driving up the road some more and see what that offered.

There we discovered a crossroads where one side lead up to The white horse and the other side led down to Wayland Smithy. I should have mentioned that it had been raining all morning during our journey but submitted to our weather working just as we reached Swinton/Uffington. The road leading up to access for the horse was marked as a walking path only, so we pulled off the road to park and wound our way up “White Horse Hill” and entered in through the welcoming gate designed to grant the access we sought. We were quite surprised at the Iron Age Hill Fort just above the chalk figure, It was absolutely enormous and according to the posted sign dated to around 3000 BC. The first thing we noticed at the top of the hill just above the chalk figure is that the Sylphs definitely ruled the roost. Winds were blowing at a heady clip and the pressure exerted by their airy “limbs” wrapped around us in both welcome and warning. Clearly any sort of wandering down to the steep main lines of the horse was unwise so we stayed up closer to the head and eye which are on a relatively flat spot. I am not particularly the most sensitive of seers and even am willing to admit that I can be downright dense from time to time but landscape speaks to me and during the time we visited this ancient wonder and its attendant Hill Fort it was almost as if Time stood still. There was no modern world to discern even though an occasional automobile crept along the road below, it was as if they could have been amphibians lazily paddling down a stream. Leaving the Hill and wandering back down “White Horse Road” the milky white runoff from the mornings rain was still very much in evidence and the enormous thorn hedge which bounded it gave evidence of the antiquity of the path we traveled. At this point we considered adding Wayland Smithy to the agenda but it was clear that this unplanned addition would result in serious problems arriving at our appointed destination in Wales where people were expecting us in a specific timeframe.

I cannot imagine returning to Britain without a revisit to the horse, and will likely plan in the Wayland Smithy next time.

Leaving the complete raw and unfiltered White Horse of Uffington, we were now off to the highly commercialized Roman ruins of Bath. Personally I was underwhelmed with The Roman baths but I suppose it is one of those touristy things one “has to do”. I doubt seriously that it will be on my repeat list for the next visit but I was happy enough to see it this once.

  Follow this link to the Forum Posting