T’was a strange old day yesterday (did you notice I started my post ‘old’ style – and it didn’t even take me that long to think of it).
I wasn’t sure how everything would pan out – the day started with an argument between spouse and I as soon as we jumped out of bed, followed by another argument but it ended with pizza for dinner so that, in my opinion, makes it somewhat a success.
After we spent most of the morning in heated disagreements over where we should visit we didn’t have a great deal of time to go anywhere. Luckily for us we don’t live too far away from some pretty cool stuff. Like Old Sarum in Wiltshire.
There’s not much left of Old Sarum. It’s an iron age hill fort which over time has been home to Romans, Saxons, and medieval kings. The castle, which remains you can see, was built for King Henry I.
You can see the mount in the distance. I took this photo at the site of the Norman cathedral which was built below the castle. It was consecrated then burnt down 5 days later after it got hit by lightening (I admit – that made me laugh).
The last time we visited Old Sarum was back in May when we went to check out the first crop circle of 2010. I was curious to see if there would be any marking left at all from the crop circle now it’s September and harvest is almost over.
Here’s the crop circle back in May:
And here it is now:
You can just make out the shape in the harvested crop. I’m not sure what that means – damaged crop, damaged soil or something else. Any ideas?
Now moving on to Gizmo. It’s my son’s birthday today – he’s 12! OMG that makes me feel old. He’s with his Dad this year so I made his birthday cake for him yesterday. He’s loved his Gizmo for years and wanted a Gizmo cake. Here he is with his Gizmo and my version of a Gizmo cake:
Here’s a close up of my marshmellow mozaic creation:
I think your Gizmo cake rocks! What did you use for his ears — wafer cookies? Happy B-day to your son — hope he's enjoying his teenybopper years!
Thanks Debra! They're ice cream wafers
My big 55 bd coming up fast on the 9th. It's such a privilege to see all those delightful marshmellows (I love the specialty peppermint swirl chunk marshmellows that the health food stores "Whole Foods" puts out from time to time). I have to find a way to get some in between now, retrograde complications, and house hunting (spouse says he will in a house by late spring and that's that).
Oregon is groaning through this retrograde. We made a simple trip out to do my yearly stocking of whole wheat products. I noticed all the traffic on the highway "had stopped" in the opposite direction, and it went on about 20 miles. We have lived here long enough to know how to use rural 99E, a small highway that links our town and many other small towns. Spouse was saying he thought we should just "go shopping" and take our time.
When we got to Canby, which we wanted to drive through, the entire center of town was dug up, huge ruts, I'm not kidding. Kind of like being in a boat on waves, let me tell you. So I notice "detour" signs. Truly the person who put them out must have been smoking maryJ! Just like a crossword puzzle; one down, two up, one down, 4 up, 2 down, 1 up. We definitely got a tour looking at Canby suburbs. Fortunately 2 young women were having a happy conversation next to the video store I finally found, so we were able to stop for a snack. We decided not to buy a house in Canby!!
It's amazing to see rabbits and chickens leisurely nibbing away at the grass right next to a rural highway in their farmer's front yard. That was in a town called Aurora, a little over 800 people. Lots of Victorian homes scattered about, looks like they took good care of it for tourists. Nothing like your castles though. The giant cedars and oaks we passed through remind me of prehistoric times.
Well, I really must get on the highway tomorrow too! I've got a little bit of my own voodoo magic (started some witchie stuff weeks before retrograde), seems to be working just fine!
Every now and then, I get the urge to read a witchy blog. So glad I found yours — it made me grin (hey, my son is 12, too. Whaddaya mean you feel old?).
Isn't Old Sarum near Salisbury? The only things I ever visited in that part of Wiltshire (I lived in Castle Combe) were Salisbury Cathedral and Avebury. I would love to see more, but there's not many trips down to that part of England from here…
It's about 2 miles away from Salisbury. You must come back!!!