Posted by Suzanne McMinn @ 9:06 am | Permalink
Globetrotting
English sheep, dotting.
You know that proper dotting is a lot of effort. Sheep can’t dot this way accidentally. It’s too coincidental! There have to be instructions, rules, work! Nothing that looks easy is easy, you know.
I wonder what happens when one sheep stands too close to another sheep….
“Excuse me, I’m dotting here.”
“But I want to talk to you.”
“Get away from me. I’m dotting.”
“But–”
“I’M DOTTING!”
Sheep dotting the ramparts of Maiden Castle in Dorset.
Maiden Castle is England’s largest Iron Age hill fort. It’s ramparts and ditches follow the contours of a hilltop. It was really interesting to walk up, hike the ramparts, where it’s easy to see how such impressive earthworks would make entry difficult for opposing forces. “Maiden” is derived from the Celtic Mai Dun, which means great hill.
Here’s a skyview of the fort. Despite its massive concentric rings of fortification, the Romans took the fort in A.D. 43 in a huge battle. I hope they didn’t hurt any of the sheep….
Sheep dotting the field below the “Giant” in Cerne Abbas.
The huge chalk figure carved on the hillside is thought to be a fertility figure, perhaps as old as 3000 years. This, like other chalk figures in England, has to be scoured to keep nature at bay. I got stuck in the muck trying to climb up to it.
This is how it would appear from the sky. I noticed in a shop in the village, they were selling totebags with the image of the giant. They had little bits of cloth stuck over his anatomically correct part. I was thinking, hmm. Do they not KNOW that his anatomically correct part is splayed ALL OVER THE HILLSIDE OUTSIDE TOWN???? But, whew, let’s be sure to cover it up on the totebags!:rotfl:
The sheep didn’t seem to mind. Sheep don’t seem to mind much. I love sheep!
London is a magnificent city, but I have to admit it was my least favorite part of the trip. We only spent one full day there, and it was an adventure taking the tube (London Underground)! (Strange people!!) But with the traffic and the crowds, I missed hedgerowed lanes and sheep…..
The Thames River path is a great walk, though, and brought us by Tower Bridge, the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Fishmongers’ Hall, Southwark Cathedral, the Tate Modern Museum, the famous OXO Tower, the London Eye, Cleopatra’s Needle, Charing Cross, and ending at Parliament and Big Ben.
It started raining as it got dark and we dashed into a pub till it let up enough to go shopping–t-shirts for the kids!–and then back on the tube. No, I didn’t get on one of those doubledecker busses, but it was fun to see them in real life.
Anyone been on an overseas trip lately? I thought the monitor in the plane was fun–it gives you a little cartoon picture of your plane crossing the Atlantic and various screens of info like altitude, air temperature outside the plane, how far you’ve traveled, etc. It’s cool knowing exactly where in the Atlantic they will find your body in case the plane crashes…..
