Getting Stoned

Figured it was high time I wrote up what I got up to last weekend, since with this weekend having high potential for being eventful itself, if I leave it any longer I could find myself having far too much to write up.

Last Friday, we drove down to Salisbury. Well, almost. We drove to Orcheston, which is just up the road from Salisbury. Salisbury was a strange neck of the woods for me to be heading to, being as it is the part of the world where my ex came from. It was odd, but not that odd. There does still seem to be a fair bit of baggage there, but it's like it's fading in and out of existence, and most of the time it's unnoticeable.

On the journey down, Alison got her birthday present from me a month early. This was a temporary thing, but since it was a special trip away, I figured it was mandatory for her to be equipped with the digital camera that had arrived the previous day. More on that later.

Anyway, we were camping in Orcheston, in the tent that Alison bought at the Outdoor Show. This was its first proper outing. We arrived at the campsite at about 8pm, which was the time we were due to meet people at the pub for an evening meal.

Ironically, some of the people we were due to meet at the pub at 8pm arrived shortly after us (while we were checking in) and we ended up taking the pitch next to them.

We were set-up by about 9pm, and got around to heading pubwards by about 9.30.

In the other pitch next to use were a gang of twenty-something lads (and one lass) who had brought instant barbeques with them and whose first order of business was to acquire a crate of beer. That sort of thing always bodes well.

On return from the pub we headed straight for bed, owing to the fact that we had an early start ahead of us. As we were heading off to sleep we could hear the gang next to use chatting around their gas lantern, and one of the last things we heard before nodding off was one of the loudest belches ever.

The alarm went at 5.30am. That's not a good time of day to wake up.

However, it was lovely outside.

Alison took a picture of me (with her funky new camera, natch) looking rather shellshocked by the early start, and if I have my way that's not a picture anyone else is going to see in a hurry, if ever.

By 6am we were parked up outside the Stonehenge site.

The trip was organised by Alison's Tai Chi teacher, and one of the main things planned was for the Tai Chi group to get to do Tai Chi in the Stone Circle. There was also a bit of meditation too. I joined in the meditation (and managed to get told off by one of the security guards for sitting on one of the stones) but gave the Tai Chi a miss.

I took over 100 photos during the two hours I was there. You can find 71 of them here. I won't try and describe the place, because the photos do a much better job of doing that. I may annotate some of them at some point, but at the moment that's far too daunting a job.

Oh, and in addition to the pictures in the Stonehenge Album, there's also this picture of Alison with her funky red camera, which was painstakingly joogled using PaintShop Pro.

So then we left. We headed back to the campsite for breakfast and showers and the like, and to pack up and move on.

Our next main port of call was Cardiff, there to pop into the hospital and see my Nan. However, we ended up making two stops along the way.

As luck would have it, I was wearing my Green Lantern T-Shirt. Particularly because of this, I ended up screaming with delight when a partially obscured sign saying "... Lantern Village Store" turned out to say "Green Lantern Village Store". It instantly became vitally important to stop and have my picture taken outside it, so we did, and I did. The strawberry cornetto I got from inside the shop was merely an added bonus. Heh.

Next stop was Weston-Super-Mare, there to have lunch. Alison had been toying with the idea of going for a quick paddle too, but this was quickly ruled out on account of the tide being out. For those of you who've never been to Weston-Super-Mare, at low tide the sea is roughly 543787528937984 feet from the top of the beach (or between half a mile and a mile if you're not exaggerating), and thus we didn't really have time to make the necessary trek.

When we got to Cardiff Nan was suitably surprised to see us. My oldest cousin and his wife were there too, without their son (my youngest second cousin) in tow. He was apparently being looked after by his maternal grandmother.

It's very strange to hear your Nan making comments about the male nurses being dishy.

We stayed with Nan for somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours, chatting to her about how she was coping, and showing her some of the best of the photos that we'd both taken that morning, and generally satisfying ourselves that she was in good spirits.

It would've been a bit much to go dashing back to Warwick from Cardiff at that point, particularly since we'd pass my parents then anyway. So we stayed over at my parents on Saturday night, and had a lovely evening.

For starters, we became the first people to be entertained on their new patio.

There was also a fabby sunset, which resulted in another 20 or so pictures being taken, making my total for a 24 hour period around 130.

In the morning we had to get back fairly quickly, as Alison had a concert to play in on the Sunday afternoon in Leamington. However, we still had time to visit one of the local garden centres with Mum (with all the additional expenditure such a trip involves).

And the concert in the park was cool too. I dozed off towards the end, which was bad of me, but I had had an early start the day before, so I'm allowed.

So that was our weekend. This is a horrendously trimmed account of it all, and doesn't go nearly far enough in getting across what a fab weekend it was, but really it's all I've got time to write.