Am hoping to visit the Hebrides - Lewis (Callanish), Harris, North Uist and Skye. All yet to be arranged so don't want to say too much lest I jinx it. Not an easy trip to organise for someone without a car but where there's a will ...

Hopefully Shetland, and because of Ravenfeathers photo's and write-up and Carl's write-up from this year The Dwarfie Stane on Hoy [it'll be on the same trip], i wish everyone good luck.

After an almost total dearth of megalithic sites this year, 2013 can only get better! :)

It seems highly likely we'll be returning to Carnac.

And if that's all we do, I'll be happy! :)

G x

Nothing went to plan this year, to be honest. I had some shit personal stuff going on - what with my good friend Big Steve Chamberlain dying - yet neverthelss improvised some wonderful trips, in particular upon Pumlumon.

Yeah. No list. Here's to improvisation. Reckon I'll just go walkabout in 2013.

Well, if I can step outside the strictly megalithic arena for a while, then it’ll be the rock garden of Ryoan-ji, set in the western mountains of Kyoto.

I first visited Ryoan-ji back in the mid 60s, and then countless times since (one of those places that always draws you back - and we all have a least one of those :-) You can’t actually walk in the rock garden itself (the monks carefully rake the sand into a pattern each morning) but you can sit on the temple’s wooden veranda which is just and arms-length away.

Lived in a little hut, just a few minutes from Ryoan-ji, for about a year so it was a place I could visit anytime. Though you have to pay to enter the temple itself and view the rock garden, the larger garden (which surrounds the temple) has a lotus lake and is free to walk around. There’s even a little tofu restaurant overlooking the lake. As you walk up the stone path to the door, one of those bamboo features that fills with water and then CLUNKS onto a stone as it tips itself empty greets you.

Wrote about Ryoan-ji on TMA some time ago, but there’s a photo of the rock garden here for those interested.

Well, as i'm now a single parent of two, time out will get more thin on the ground, but I'm still hoping to get back up Tryfan with my good friend Alken and if were lucky up to Bryn Cader Faner via Y Gyrn ring cairn.

A few days camping in Cornwall would be nice too.

The Drosgl cairns, Snowdonia,
Moel Hebog with a supposed stone row to its erm, east ?
Apart from that we'll make it up as we go.

Will be planning next summer's holiday over the next month or so.
Not sure where we are heading yet? - Ireland or Skye.
Will visit as many 'old stones' as possible once I know where we are going?

In addition I hope to knock a few more English Heritage sites off the list.

One place I am hoping to get to this year is Flag Fen - been wanting to visit for years.