We're back from Tenerife.

Flying most be the most boring way of travelling yet devised, but it did only take four hours to get to Tenerife so it does have one advantage over swimming.

11 Habitats Del Duque, Costa Adeje, Tenerife. Plenty of space for the ten of us. I never did get a photo' of us all together, too much going on.

After the purchase of essential pool furniture

and the arrival of Uncle Stuart, (Our beach bum son, resident of Tenerife and loving it)

 the pool became the best used part of the villa.

The grandchildren even persuaded Jill to take a dip.

Water, water everywhere, the wave pool at Siam Park. It was a tad crowded.
It wasn't all swimming though,

some of us managed to fit in a bit of deep sea fishing. That's Noah with the trigger fish.

Eating seemed to take up a fair bit of time as well.

Just a couple of views of the beach at Playa Fanabe. Plenty of good restaurants behind the beach, not just fish and chips either, although they were available, but the local cuisine was preferable.

More Tenerife to come, after we climb Caen Hill tomorrow.

Watch this space...........

Be back in a couple of weeks.

This is the last post on here for a couple of weeks as tomorrow we are off to Tenerife and I'm not lugging the laptop all that way.

On Tuesday we drove over to Salisbury. Really doing the tourist bit. Jill wanted to see the cathedral, which has the tallest spire in Britain and possibly

the oldest working clock in the world. Built about 1386.

Quite a line in fonts as well.

I reckon the little 'un has to wear a lifejacket while the padre is doing the splashing bit. 'Elf and safety rules!!

Also found the oldest dated bit of graffiti I've yet seen.

So we will say "au revoir" for a fortnight as we jet off to the sun.

Watch this space.................

Summer is back, rain, thunder, wouldn't be surprised at a plague of locusts.

The beer fest went well, the sun shone, there were a dozen beers and three ciders and all was going well when, with no formal notice, we were hit by a sudden squall. Luckily some of us managed to grab the frame of the beer tent before it soared away. Horizontal rain and howling wind, there was nothing for it, we grabbed the beer and legged it into reception where, in true British fashion, we continued where we had left off. All in all it was a jolly good party.
Sunday was spent quietly.
Today was just a quick trip into Devizes for a bit of shopping.

Make of it what you will, I can only hope there was once a snuff mill in the area, other connotations are too nasty to consider.

I've put this in because I don't think anyone would be too impressed with a picture of Morrisons.
We've been enjoying a rousing thunderstorm for the last two hours, really looking forward to Tenerife next week.
Hopefully we are all ready, apart from the packing, I try to avoid getting roped into that. Jill is so much better at it than me and I never seem to get it right if I try to help, much better if I just offer the occasional bit of advice.

Watch this space..............

Stonehenge. Nothing to do with Druids.

I'm sure everyone has been delighted by the neolithic theme of the last few posts. So we just had to visit the most famous of them all,

along with what seemed like a meeting of the United Nations. It was a case of spot the Brit.

Stonehenge, the place that gave it's name to "Henge" structures throughout Britain. Except that Stonehenge isn't a henge. It's a stone circle. It's a fantastic place. Unfortunately, because of the pressure of the number visitors, you don't get the atmosphere of the place. We visited it one autumn day nearly forty years ago, we were the only people there, there were no restrictions and you could wander amongst the stones, it felt special then. Now it might as well be Disney.

The Slaughter Stone, so called because at one time it was believed that it was a Druidic sacrificial altar where, presumably, helpless virgins were slaughtered. It is just another fallen stone and Stonehenge had been out of use for over a thousand years before the Druids turned up. Good story though. Modern druidism and paganism are the invention of some rather unpleasant characters in the 19thC.  Not knocking them though, they've got a good scam going, selling bits of rock, sorry, crystals, and various useless "cures" to the gullible. "Never give a sucker an even break", as W.C. Fields once said.

 No comment on this one, except that the young lad had the sort of look on his face that said, "Is she for real?"

Meanwhile the A303 was as usual on a summer weekend.
Today the marina has a mini beer festival so I must finish this post and prepare.

Watch this space..........

Sorry, it's more prehistory.

More on the stone theme. This morning it was back up the A361 to Avebury for a quick look at the bit we missed yesterday.

The West Kennet Avenue, a processional way(?) from Avebury to another stone circle known as The Sanctuary, unfortunately nothing remains of the circle, just some modern markers.
The Avenue was originally 1.2 miles long, not much left now.

Archaeological dig taking place on the only domestic site in the whole area. They had brought their own conveniences with them,

Patsy and Edina must be branching out.
We moved on and parked just across from

the enigmatic Silbury Hill. The largest prehistoric mound in Europe. It seems to have taken about 400 years to finish. I've come across building firms like that and I bet the final cost was way above the original quote.
On top of the hill opposite is the West Kennet Long Barrow.

A chambered tomb.

In the five chambers that make up the tomb they found the remains of about thirty six people.
Someone had found a new use for the place. As we wandered in for a look we got shouted at by its present inhabitants.

They had a nest in the first chamber and did not appreciate our intrusion.

The local "pagans" had been there, probably in between sessions of stone hugging and crop circle spotting.

Crop circle made by an unambitious alien? Spotted from the top of the barrow.

We tried a spot of stone hugging.
I definitely felt something,
I had knelt on a thistle.

Watch this space.................

Heavy rock with The Stones.

As we've got a few days to get through before we're off we are doing a bit of sightseeing. Yesterday we went neolithic/early bronze age.

Avebury henge and stone circles. The largest prehistoric stone circle in the Britain and it is impressive. This is the bank and ditch of the henge. The ditch, when first dug, was up to thirty feet deep with near vertical sides, all dug with deer antler picks.

Aerial view of the site, the village buildings give an idea of the scale of the place

and this shows the size of the stones. The lady holding the stone up is the National Trust archaeologist who gave a group of us a most interesting tour. This particular stone is called the Swindon Stone, only because it stands beside the Swindon road.

Artists impression of how it looked when new built. Most of the stones are now missing, many of them broken up for building material and quite a few just thrown down and buried in the post medieval period. Nobody knows why they did this, lots of theories from simple field clearance to destroying pagan sites for religious reasons.

Of course no one knows why it was built in the first place, it's put down to that good old catch all, ritual.
Fortunately it is big enough to lose the tourists, so even with a few hundred wandering about it doesn't seem crowded,

I will refrain from sarcastic comments about tourists, especially as we currently answer to that description.

Watch this space..........

Swindon, at least they have an M&S.

We made it to Swindon to kit ourselves out for our hols. and to change our valuable pounds into Mickey Mouse money, a.k.a. Euros.

It's sad how, if you blindfolded someone and dropped them into any town in Britain, they would not be able to name the town.

The council offices have a certain amount of architectural credibility.

On a sultry day the local youngsters appreciated a water feature, but all in all it's a bit bland. Of course we only saw a little bit of the town, perhaps we missed the best bits. At least, contrary to expectations, we didn't get mugged. Sorry, is that town stereotyping?
Good feature, the parking is reasonable, four hours for two quid.

Watch this space........