cornerofmadness | So very tired

I woke up at 6 AM since my body thought it was 11 AM. Now it thinks it's 4 AM. hopefully tomorrow I'll be right. Had to drag out to Costco to get 4 new tires. Whee, that was 600$ I didn't need, right? So I'm tired and a bit sad at the moment. Mostly because I seemed to have completely missed the mark on the gifts. Mom said emphatically 'no spoons' and that tea towels and aprons and jewelry were a yes. She's saying 'i never said tea towels. What would I do with that?' and looking longingly at the spoons. I know she said tea towels because i thought it was weird at the time. Dad never once said he wanted a cap or the Welsh dragon so he got the castle t-shirt but rather have the stuff I got my brother and uncle. Whatever. I'll just pick it up online/Celtic festival and save it for Christmas and pretend. At least John liked his shirt.

Also occurred to me that I took no photos with

bob_fish & Dr.H. Now I feel a bit like an ass. I rarely take photos of people. I'm not sure why.I wouldn't have even thought about taking one of me with Big Ben if

bob_fish hadn't mentioned it (I do have some at other places as if to prove i was there and they're all so horrible. I don't feel as fat as I look).

And without further delay: Day one (with pictures)

Wales day one

Thanks to the bait and switch, I knew I was going to have a very long trip ahead of me, made all the longer by learning that Rogue had cancer and I would never see him again. Dad said I would but I think deep down he knew these the last days of his little buddy. I sat with him for a little while then gave him a good-bye kiss. Getting the flight to Detroit went better than could be expected. I had a seat and the only hiccup there was that they didn't allow for any luggage at all as carry on except backpacks/purses. And we had to wait cramped in the plane for a half hour because Detroit was congested.

I have no idea if they've completely redone/got a new Detroit airport but this was SO MUCH nicer than all the times I used to fly into it while living in SD/WI (or maybe I was never in the main terminal. The place was bright and airy with shops though the Mediterranean Grill needs to learn a beef gyro isn't boiled shredded beef on a pita with pickles and tomatoes. Vile. When they gave me back my bulkhead seat, they told me 'we usually reserve these for the handicapped' and didn't want to give it back. Well let me just say it was me and three German men with nothing wrong with them.

The airbus didn't have an empty seat and being in that row of four seats was fairly miserable. The plane was hot and as we flew there was a read out of outside air temp (it's like too b ad we can't crack a window....) miles to go miles already traveled and time to destination (nice). The flight was odd. The flight attendants were constantly up and down the aisle like peanut vendors at a ball game. Ear buds? Towel? Water? (yes please, several times a night since it was so hot). They served dinner (pasta puttanesca, salad and roll) at nearly midnight so there went the hope of sleep. That all didn't clean up until nearly 2 AM. I tried to sleep but it was too hot, too crowded and too many thoughts of dying cats. I snagged less than two hours sleep.

Amsterdam, while a highly rated airport sure as hell does not believe in chairs. There was no where to sit down (maybe that keeps you shopping). I did get to see the art gallery/museum they had in there, a nice little collection done up as fine as any museum. I was dizzy as hell going through since I had no sleep and for me it was like 7 AM, not nearly noon. I didn't find anything I'd want in the gift shops (okay the tulip bulbs and would have got them had this been the last leg of my journey.) I did want to eat something Dutch so what does the airport have? Starbucks and Sbarro's. Sigh. I did finally find something and had poffertjes or something like that, tiny pancakes with molasses (golden syrup?) then Starbucks, talked to Mom and learned Rogue was going to be put down just as I was hitting Wales.

I was so tired on the flight to Wales I didn't even give a shit the computer board went out and we had to wait for it to be replaced. I went to sleep. I wasn't impressed with Cardiff's customs. Rather than just having a sign or telling us on the way in, they segregated the Americans from all other travelers by slowly harassing us out of line. Its like just say so. My tour guide had mentioned to me that her friend was coming with and they were there. Mary is probably not much younger than my mom and her friend and I are the same age and the friend has RP, being mostly blind. I was very surprised at how well she walked around given some of the places we went.

We immediately went to Tinkinswood and can I just say Thank God I didn't try to drive this myself. I thought I lived on roads so tiny you can barely get two cars past each other. Almost every road we've been on have been so narrow they make ours look like a massive interstate. Also road signs are not believed in here. I would have been hopelessly lost even with good maps. Forget about the opposite side of the road nonsense. That would have been the least of my worries (well until I got to one of the thousands of freaking roundabouts). I'm not sure these roads have been widened since Rome first laid them down.

We went past a gate and up a hill (the most adorable sheep looking at us). While sadly having an electrical tower right next door to the site, the rest of the site was intact (and it looked like possible extensions in the sheep field but since it's private land nothing has been investigated). Tinkinswood is a Neolithic chambered burial cairn (and it's obvious the neo-pagans are up there because I saw prayer ribbons tied in the trees all over.) Another archeology group was up there too but the leader didn't know as much as mine (and how sad is it that there wasn't much of a plaque anywhere to say a word about it).

Tinkinswood

Tinkinswood boasts the largest capstone in Britain (40 ton 7.5X4.5m). It falls into the Severn-Cotswold tradition being trapezoidal (the burial chamber). Most of it would have been buried with only an eastern entrance (possibly significant). There were at least three different chambers (looks mostly like a small hill) but at least one collapsed during excavation. Sadly like so many sites, the earliest excavations were treasure hunters for gold and so much were lost but bones have been found here.

The capstone

In the burial chamber under the capstone

(see the mounded land with a depression in it with some smaller stones, this is the long cairn burial. It collapsed in one of the chambers. This is not accessible).

From here we (and the other group) went to St Lythan's burial chamber. I saw something I've never seen before (and wouldn't have known about it without the guide and if I could think then I would have recorded it) it had a station that you had to hand wind and it told the history of the site. Unfortunately no excavation has been done to this site and very little is known about it. Cows share its field (I'm pretty sure there is cow shit on my jeans, aw well not for the first time). This does have a cup formation on the walls (natural? Man made? Unknown) and it does have a stone hole that aligns with the spring equinox.

(St Lythan's)

(you can see the equinox hole in the most posterior stone)

Headed from there to the Great Barn for the night. Went to a pub for a steak and sea salt burger with smoked local cheese which was delicious. The B&B was nice and just as I get ready to turn in for the night when I see a Total Recall on the tv (I could not find a menu and ended up on Gay Rabbit for a while until I could figure it out). Had to make myself turn it off.