From the archives: We had set off for Dorset the day before… way back in 2013… and had inexplicably ended up in Glastonbury. There was, after all, only one way we would choose to go home from there… and that road took us to Avebury…

The landscape folded around us as we left Glastonbury. Attuned as we have become over the past months to seeing the land through fresh eyes, picking out the traces left by our ancestors in the living earth, the stones and the contours of the hills, it felt as if we were driving through a place peopled by old friends. Time seems to have made little sense over the two days of our journeying away from home. We had done so much, seen so much, never hurried and had taken our time.  Yet it was still only the afternoon of our second day.

I had let go and relaxed for once, leaving the reins in a variety of other hands for the first time since I don’t know when. I’m not good at it. It niggled at the back of my mind for a while that I had emails to answer, things to do, people to talk to, but for once I actually let go of it all and took time ‘off’ just to be with my friend in the landscapes we love. I didn’t even take the laptop. Almost unheard of! But, without a doubt, it was about time.

So, the car was now pointed north and east as we travelled through a landscape littered with history and legends, with our next stop right amongst them… Avebury.

Six thousand years ago, the first people made their mark on the land here. Four and a half thousand years ago they began to build something uniquely beautiful in stone and earth. Today a village nestles in the middle of their circles and sacred spaces. It is a place of peace and green, where faces peer back out of the stones into the eyes of those who come to see and feel the beauty there.

It is a magical place, however you approach it. From the sheer practicality of the how and why, to the subtle, visionary imagination… there is something in this place that touches you deeply and draws you in. Sheep and jackdaws wander amongst the stones in the encircling arms of the ditches, while mysteries seem to shadow every step. It is a place I love and which holds many memories of friendship, some very dear and recent… it seemed right to be there that evening.

We wandered amongst the stones for a while after dinner in the old pub, looking at the shifting, amorphous images in the stones as the light changed and the shadows danced. Leaving the village, the great earthern pyramid of Silbury hill stands outlined against the fields. We parked close to Silbury and headed up across the slope to the solitude of West Kennet.

It is a passage grave, long since excavated and open now to the winds and those who come here in peace and respect. Though it was raised as a house of the dead it feels loving and warm, welcoming as the womb, which, perhaps, it is. Those who built it gave of their best, building with love, care and reverence for those they chose to lay there. And you can feel that still in the great stones and the care with which they are placed. Wildflowers grow there and birds sing. Even a hawk. There is no sadness, only joy and a long peace.

As we walked back to the car the sun was low in the sky. Approaching the gate, it blazed for a moment above the summit of Silbury hill, touching the land in glory as liquid light poured down the ancient slopes.

We watched it sink lower, gilding the fields, from the Sanctuary on the next hill before turning our faces homewards. We watched it paint the landscape and the corn as we drove between fields scattered with barrows. We saw the sun send out rays of white light beyond clouds of gold and pink as we approached Uffington and caught a final glimpse of the White Horse bathed in the pastel hues of sunset.

It seemed right to see the last of the light fade here where we had begun this adventure some months before and had now come back to the same point on what is not a circle, but a higher arc of a continuing spiral, armed with a greater depth of knowledge and perhaps, too, a deeper understanding of the landscape in which we live. Then it had been shrouded in mist, now it was bathed in coloured light.

To share these things, as we shared the last of the wine when we came home, is itself a beautiful gift and one to be savoured and appreciated, for it is rare and precious. This week, that did not run as planned, that stayed in the south instead of heading north, has been both a gift and a joy. I sat in the silence of the garden after my tired companion had gone to bed, knowing how blessed I am to have someone with whom to share such moments of pure joy.

Saturday dawned cloudy for the first time this week. There was a final slouch around the table over coffee, more laughter, a last church to visit on the way to the station, a last ancient thatched pub, talking of younger years and music,  a final lunch before we both go on a diet, I think! The holiday is over and there is work to be done.

But endings are only beginnings in disguise, garlanded with memories that are timeless and full of potential. Who knows where the great adventure will take us next?