Long Meg and Her Daughters

I am rather annoyed. I had a couple dozen photographs on this page, all resized, and several paragraphs of writing. I went to remove a duplicate photo when everything on the page disappeared. I hit "undo" but nothing happened. Everything was wiped out. So now I get to start again. *sigh*

Today is New Year's Eve. Steve had to go to work for a bit, so I was using the time to try and get a blog post published. I've been happily engaged with all the fun times associated with the holiday season, so I've not been posting here (obviously). Now that the magical time is drawing to a close alongside 2013, it's time to get back on the blogging wagon. Unfortunately, Steve is now on his way home so I'm not sure I will actually get this posted today. Time will tell, I suppose.

After Steve had been in England for about a week, we set off on a week-long driving tour. Our roundish circuit took us into northwest England, the Scottish Borderlands, and down into England's heart. It was a varied adventure and time flew because we were having so much fun.

Our first overnight stop was in Carlisle, a city that used to sit on the border of England and Scotland. On the way there, we took a brief detour to visit Long Meg and Her Daughters, a Bronze Age stone circle near Penrith in Cumbria.

As we headed north, we got closer to the mountains. They may not be overly impressive to some, but to this flat-land Florida girl, they were stunning.

This is a 360-degree panoramic photo I took of the stone circle. It boasts 59 stones and the circle is about 100 yards wide. So it doesn't have the heft of Stonehenge, but it definitely has size. It was a rainy day. Thankfully the rain had stopped during this little excursion. Still, the gray sky gave the scene an appropriate gravitas.

The area is arranged so that Long Meg stands alone. The circle of her "daughters" is about twenty-five yards away. The circle is in the middle of cow pasture, so besides having to deal with the slippery, muddy ground from the steady rain, I also had to keep an eye out for cow patties. I still enjoyed it, though.

There was a peacefulness here that I liked.

Less than half of the stones remain upright.

Long Meg stands opposite this large stone. I can only guess that it was used to mark celestial positioning like a calendar.

This shot demonstrates how Meg stands alone.

Long Meg is made of red sandstone and is nearly nine feet tall.

On our way out, we passed by this friendly fellow. I fell in love with his pale blue eyes. He seemed to understand what I wanted because he held this pose as I snapped the photo. As soon as I was done, he walked away. He knows he's beautiful.

The stone circle is definitely off the beaten path.

It was some beautiful countryside.

I saw this house and viaduct on the way to Long Meg. On the way out, I had Steve pull over so I could get a photo. The road was a very narrow lane hemmed in on either side by tall hedges and fencing. I ended up walking probably close to a 1/4 mile before I found the photo I wanted to take. I think it was worth the effort. It's a lovely, tranquil scene.

We probably spent about half-an-hour on this little detour, but it was worth it. My fascination with churches extends to spiritual sites like these. Maybe when we return in the late spring, we can fit a few more stone circles into the mix.