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Belated summer solstice fieldnotes.
Due to insufficient funds my solstice trip would have to be as economical as possible which for me could only mean one place, the hills above Penmaenmawr and the Druids circle. I also wanted to find the nearby cist which I did after considerable field wandering, and further along the coast near Aber falls is a super little cairn called Carnedd y Saeson, so I was coming back anyway it might as well be on a superb solstice morning.
Up at two and carparked by four thirty, to my mild suprise and annoyance there was two more cars parked by the two pillars, and further up the track two more cars and an over hippied van, que the long inward groan.
I passed the four remaining stones of the red farm circle, and the big maen crwm standing stone, and before you know it a sign points the way to the druids circle, before you get there stop and appreciate the five stone ring circle 275 (blyecckkk). From this little treasure I could hear the voices see the smoke and feel the presence of a considerable gathering up at the big old man.
I sucked it in and made the short walk to the top of the hill and finally cresting the ridge the whole circle is revealed at once, most of the time you would be totally alone, but not today, imagine a perfect summer solstice sunrise and then think of the best way to spoil it and you might be half way there.
Four tents were erected within the circle, a big campfire was still smouldering, a small campfire was boiling water and scorching a fallen stone, four or five dogs were running wild, and quietly standing without the circle were a couple sitting quietly admiring the view, one bloke on his own occasionally taking a picture , and a paratrooper/ photographer who had been out in the field too long, and myself taking in the morning in it's entirety.
The normals can sometimes add to an experience, but the asswipes who decided they deserved to entirely overrun the place should be shot, obviously.
When I came here back in April I saw the burn mark and the scorched stone and thought what kind of an arse would do that?
well I saw them face to face and there was no glimmer of consideration from any of them, they obviously thought it was completely normal, and that was the worse thing, the mindless nonchalance of the thoughtless halfwit.
When the sun came up it looked beautiful, I wasnt even sure the horizon was visible from the ring, but these hoodlums obviously knew, at the moment of peak beauty one of them said in a weak vegan voice " hellllooo suuuun".
It was about now that I started to make way round to the other monuments in the near vicintiy, it took about four hours, just as I was passing the druids circle they were packing up, I moved quickly ahead.
I dont go to places like Stonehenge to avoid folk like that but up here in the hills of my beloved North wales ? is it really that time already.