Brown Signing, Memories, Cake and Buttercups
If you let it, life should really be one big adventure. Full of excitement and spontaneity and fun.
But mostly we don't let it, do we?
And is it perhaps slightly ironic then, when we say that maybe, it is life that just gets in the way and stops us?
Whatever. Sometimes we just have to go for it and live a little.
So today we got in the car and drove.
We did a little “brown signing” (yes, it is a thing and was covered in a previous blog post here). We followed a brown sign on the spur of the moment and found the rather special Danebury iron age hill fort in Hampshire. It’s really that easy.
Still quite early on a gloriously sunny morning, we wandered around the site with a few dog walkers, enjoying the views, the lush vegetation and the buttercups. Today was a day with plenty of buttercups.
And the history of course. We even had a conversation with a stranger about the number of times the main gate had allegedly been burned to the ground.
It was nine, if you are interested.
On to the next part of the adventure. A short trip down the road and we came across a place with a familiar name. We stopped in a small village with a place in our family history. I had a vague recollection of visiting Abbots Ann as a child, probably almost 50 years ago now. It was small, very pretty but sadly not at all as I remembered it when I went to visit one of my mothers great aunts before she left to start a new life in the USA. Still, we took a walk along the high street, admiring the cottages with their thatched roofs, jubilee bunting and friendly residents.
Then back in the car and on the road again.
We decided that the next stop would be Salisbury, a place I had never visited before and about 20 miles along the road. A few traffic delays later we found ourselves with coffee, cake and a great view over the Guildhall Square as Salisbury began its Platinum Jubilee celebrations. The sun continued to shine as we enjoyed some of the events in the international arts festival. We watched Timeless, a mix of acrobatics, performance and political commentary, all taking place in a giant egg timer. And we couldn't fail but laugh at the Big Gay Disco Bike, exactly what the name suggests if you can possibly get your head around it, and their feel good activities.
We then headed over to the cathedral, a place immortalised in one of John Constables most famous paintings. Surrounded by lawns and some of the most beautiful, and no doubt expensive, houses in the city, it was easy to see its attraction to visitors and wishful thinkers. Consecrated in 1258, it has the highest spire in England and is acknowledged as the most attractive of the English cathedrals and today it was easy to see why.
And so onto the final little adventure of a special day.
Having arrived at the place we were spending the night, we decided on a visit to the nearest pub. Not for us, at least not today, another trip in the car.
Oh no.
We took the short cut, a yomp on a barely visible footpath across five large fields. Some with crops, some with yet more buttercups, we almost got lost, ended up checking our directions and then followed a dog walker who assured us we were definitely, honestly, on a genuine footpath.
And the sun kept shining. We had drinks and a rather good meal in the pub garden and then took the same route back as dusk started to fall.
A day of brown signing, memories, cake and buttercups.
Yep, I think we could call today an adventure.
