God - what a few days I have had. I'll keep it brief.
The mad search for an old Volvo being sold by mad old men culminated in a drive up to Newbury (Hermitage, actually) via the M4 in a friend's car, and a drive back via the A4 - it being a much prettier road and a lot less expensive to break down on in an unknown car.
The roads are almost parallel - the A route was the old coaching one to London - but just after the turn off for Avebury, it skirts around Silbury Hill, the largest man-made mound in Europe.
It 'skirts around' it, because - despite being brilliant engineers - even the Romans decided to put a bend in the road, rather than demolish it or cut a tunnel through the middle. It is an awesome and mysterious sight, and I never tire of looking at it, whilst trying not to crash into the back of other motorists who are also staring to their right, when we all should be looking dead ahead.
Way back in the 1670s, my hero John Aubrey rode from Marlborough to Bath, to meet Charles 2nd and give him a personal guided tour of it and the Avebury stone circle. I agree that Avebury far surpasses Stonehenge in impressiveness, and so - I think - did the king. Charles was enjoying a little break in our fair city and taking the waters whilst trying to avoid the locals. He had to visit the baths just after dawn! These days, they would just close them off, of course, but then it was quite easy to bump into a king - literally.
I got back on the M4 today, to re-register the 'new' car in Bristol (don't ask, I just had to), and now - you will be relieved to hear - it is all road-legal. The next trip to Silbury Hill will be for pleasure.
Nighty-night.
The man in the photo is a used Volvo salesman.
ReplyDeletePity Aubrey is not with us to give his account of your car buying saga...I'd like his reaction to the advert.
ReplyDeleteThere is something Aubreyesque about that advert anyway - rambling and ranting, with bits added on here and there as afterthoughts. He would have been a bit more polite about it though.
DeleteOMG I briefly lived in Hermitage when I first left home. It's not that big - and almost everyone was related. Scary. Good luck with the car...
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it, the seller did look a bit like Raz.
DeleteMaybe you bought the car from one of my relatives in Newbury.........6 degrees of separation and all that.
ReplyDeleteSee above!
DeleteI remember one Silbury 'dig' being broadcast live on TV..... they didn't find anything, so it must have been the forerunner for Time Team.
ReplyDeleteThe Time Team came to Bath and dug behind the Royal Crescent, only finding (as anyone could have told them before they started), the foundations of the biggest Victorian church in Bath that was bombed then demolished in 1942.
DeleteI have only ever seen Silbury Hill once and, like Avebury, it made an intense impression on me. I can still see my first sight of it in my mind's eye.
ReplyDeleteTogether with some friends we had gone to Avebury to start walking the Ridgeway Path. I knew nothing of Avebury and had not visited Stonehenge. I was, as they say, gobsmacked.
I have visited Stonehenge since and you're right, Avebury is so much more impressive. Funnily enough, I was saying this only yesterday, while plotting (as I sometimes do) a return visit.