Fontburn Dod Wood Stone Circle View all content for Fontburn Dod Wood

Last time on Fontburn Dod....... "Now I know the way, a fair weather visit is already overdue." Six months later. It's the summer solstice and the outlook is for a change, good, so inevitably i'm running a touch late, brought on in part by my erstwhile stoning buddy for the day, Eric, and partly by me not remembering to look up the time of sunrise. So, last time I was racing against the dying of the light, this time I'm racing against the birth of the day. The walk through the woods on the south shore of the lake, was much nicer than six months ago, its summer, everything is growing and gorgeous once more, I also saw a fox and two Roe deer, and I haven't even got to the stones yet. As the path exits the woods and skirts along it I take note of the big cup marked boulder, I did see it last time but didn't know about the rock art, I'll pay more attention to it on the way out. Arriving finally at the stones was another one of those "oh yesss!" moments, I said I'd be back with better weather and I most definitely am. It's beautiful. Two minutes after my arrival the sun put on a bit of a sunrise encore, just for me I swear, it was, what's another word for beautiful, and not gorgeous. I then went for a long walk round the site, west and east of the circle are two large mounds, I go and stand on them for a while, surveying the area, I'm not a surveyor by profession, so the most I can tell you is there was other stuff going on here after the stones were erected. Two long banks run across the common, possibly medieval, or maybe Tudor, i'm not an archaeologist either. Two very vocal Buzzards are wheeling around each other above the trees, and a Cuckoo is down in the trees of the little river valley, with foxes and deer, all the natural wonder that England can muster in just part of a morning, you wont be getting that at Stonehenge. I sit for a while and wonder at the world, but mostly I really hope all these terrifying statistics on extinction are wrong. I quite like being alive, and I like seeing other things being alive, and I hope that it all keeps going long after I'm gone. Don't read anything into that. I get up out of my daydream and attach my camera to the tripod and set about my new part of any stony visit. Lifting the tripod high in the air for that elevated shot, problems encountered.... wonky pictures, blowy winds, dazzling sunshine, and I look an idiot, on the other hand......better pictures. This time I haven't left a babe in the woods in the dark, but her little brother is still asleep in the car, so I'd better get a move on, still got some rock art to find yet as well.

Posted by postman 22nd June 2019ce

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