Ah!.... the great long barrow of Waylands Smithy. Is it the great beech trees which give the barrow so much intimacy? Why does it feel so much like home? I have lost count of the times I have been here for painting, picnics, loving, birdwatching, healing, photography, chillin’, and now grieving and celebrating all at once. Sitting above the chamber on the capstone I look down into the mouth of the barrow and think of the beautiful, newly dead, feline body of Finbarr gracefully lying in her grave in my garden, 18 miles away. God, I loved that cat. But Waylands has eradicated the grief and now I remember with joy all the love we shared.
I was curious to see the phenomenon of the way that although the long barrow is tapered, that if you stand at the very end, the edges of it appear parallel. ‘Accident or design?’ I mused. Gotta be design. Surely? Very clever in any case.