Stonehenge - little bird thoughts

My little bird flew to Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain - a fifth visit in my lifetime, a birds-eye view!

The following are thoughts, without too much thinking, not yet influenced by anything I would like to read concerning Stonehenge and its History and 'some-of-the-obvious-to me-now issues' concerning 'visitors' availability' of England's National Treasure!  Probably, at the root of all the mess in the last x years of trying to allow access to these ruins and to prevent it from further destruction, is the lack of MONEY plus different points of view and probably dissension in the ranks!?

THOUGHTS ON STONEHENGE
Rooks. 
Black feathers.  
Rocks.  
Blue stones. 
People are like black rooks pecking around the perimeter of blackened-grey-blue stones.
Preening in selfies.
Preening in self importance.
Standing, walking, listening, discoursing,
whilst elements of wind and rain
whips whisps of hair and scarf across a face
whips wooly hat from pocket to keep head warm
whips laughter and smiles from mouth and body.
Laughter heals in universal language even when different tongues with accents speak. 
Stonehenge must heal something in that Temple!
Moments of love and care abound between people 
who communicate with technological devices
whilst giant rocks from earth stand still, 
watching, 
listening to a circus parade circumnavigating around them.

That awful glass tunnel exists no more, replaced by a new English Heritage interpretation centre enabling access to a site of National Trust property.  The centre is housed beneath a metal architectural canopy which I admire very much...
Metallic contrast to steel cold stone!
Treehenge!  It reminds me of huge trees, which are possibly poplar, growing in fields of France. Did the Australian architects have eucalyptus trees in mind?

The canopy appears to work from a distance; representing undulating forestry like tree knolls surrounding the barrows further beyond.  I like the fact that people arrive in the great outdoors (once free from vehicles), queue outdoors at the ticket office looking upwards to a pixellated edge, queue outdoors for transport vehicles without entering any building, YET, somehow the MYSTERY viewed from the roadway is LOST!

The A303 remains visible as a stark reminder of modernity. I don't mind the juxtaposition of it! Now the debate continues to be considered by Government and the powers that be, of taking the infamous roadway through a tunnel beneath the standing stones!!! Madness or not?  In many ways I think it should stay where it is so that people DO get a free view of NATIONAL HERITAGE ... and so that the people walking around the 'Temple of Standing Stones' hears and sees the thick, colourful ribbon of traffic trundling past... and know they are in England! If rabbits were blamed for the downfall of some stones in the past needing them to be hauled into place by a crane perhaps, what happens if a road tunnel shifts the stones? 

Unlike most of the international people walking around the Henge, as a child I was one of a privileged few who touched the stones.  My children were able to stand alongside them.  Now, visitors walk around a circular track.  I don't see how grass can be maintained as it didn't appear to be protected from thousands of visitors' feet trudging over, nay pecking, the spears of green grass.  It still appears to me that part of the people circuit is in the wrong place.  I had to walk over modern rubber pavement and then onto interlocking, nasty green, uneven rubber matting and here it was that my hip went wonky!  After getting off the Golden Bus,  on the Magical Mystery Tour, we were hustled along.  Suddenly, I am aware that I am there, whilst the spectacle I have come to see has been drowned with a moving mob of mankind!   "Oh... stop... stand still like a stone', I say to myself. "Take stock! What is this pedestrian bridge doing here?"   Later, it all makes sense. It is traversing a most important element: THE AVENUE for THE SOLSTICE ALIGNMENT.   Unwittingly perhaps 'the people path' sandwiches human beings between the most important KEEL STONE, SLAUGHTER STONE and the vastly important SARCEN STONES of the HENGE.  Is it temporary one wonders?  It also is a bridge over the bank and ditch which fortunately has only been partially 'archaeologically dug'.  An English Heritage worker overhearing my comments to a friend interrupted us to explain: it seems that thankfully most of the bank and ditch has not been dug!  I'm glad he was there to talk to us because that is when suddenly it all made sense to me about what was wrong with the route march!
 "Why didn't they take the people further out beyond the Keel Stone?"

It's evidently essential to book online and in advance which creates a discount and a time slot of when to arrive. We were lucky to get a time slot on the day we booked.  It annoys me because one has to be near a printer or one needs a smartphone or ipad/tablet!  P.S. I was politely chastised for my printed ticket because it did not mention my name, booking number, time slot, etc!!!!!!! The lady at the cashier desk found the booking by my surname, and was unhappy that I too complained that the printed ticket did not show the valid information... as if it was my fault?!

I enjoyed being out on the Plain but getting on a Golden Shuttle or Train was not my idea of trekking to see a National Monument.  Was I part of a herd of sheep? Nope... they were in the fields beyond.
With ticket payment one gets free car parking, good, and a free audio tape, good!  But the audio numbers don't match the numbers on the free leaflet which are also colour coded so it took me a while to get my bearings and to focus my historical understanding into alignment with audio info, leaflet info, display board panels info and the ACTUAL formidable magnificence of Sarcen stones, Station stones, Bluestones, Trilithons, and markers!  I didn't realise there was 'an informative Guide book' until I was about to purchase a different book. Anyway I couldn't have read all of that as a visitor...it's something to be absorbed before or after visiting!

Afterwards I went to the exhibition centre and needed more time to study the visual and audio displays. I couldn't work out whether it would have been better to view the 'museum' first or last, maybe both?  My critical teacher's eye came into play when I realised that children could not look at the long animated screen AS WELL AS read tiny script where anyway they would not be looking... and there was no voiceover! Also there was nowhere for children or adults to sit and not be in the way of others! Maybe there was another educational centre somewhere?  I would hate to have a shoal of kids alongside the public as the space was already crowded and not peak season

I could see that opportunity was lost with insufficient space for large scale techno media representation.  When I described the Roc-aux-Sorciers to an English Heritage volunteer, he said that they couldn't compete with the higher level of archaeological historical presentation that the French are capable of achieving.  On reflection, I don't agree.   I think that the information is so enormous that the interpretation centre at Stonehenge needs to be multiplied by at least four... and in my opinion, any money being fed into hiding a road should be put into a larger historical and geographical presentation of all that is known or conceptualised about such a wondrous feat of engineering! However, it is a huge improvement and I have to congratulate the designers of the exhibition area for the tactile displays but not for the huge graphic panels like standing stones that were unessential to discovery!

I was horrified in the eating area to receive refreshments (soup and tea) with disposable paper/wooden crockery and cutlery.  Evidently, it is advertised as 'grab and go" ... OH PLEASE!!!!!
OK, there seemed to be no plastic apart from the tray. That IS a bonus... but packaged products were put into a paper carrier bag which was put onto the tray for us to take to the tables!   The floor was filthy. Tables were unclean. The waiter was not rushing but couldn't keep up with the flow!  We were supposed to put the trays and rubbish on a trolley hidden in the stainless steel wall! The second time  there was nowhere for the stuff and as I didn't have a tray I had to leave the refuse on the table!

The female toilet pans were clean but the stainless steel, paintwork and tiled areas of walls, floor, doors, skirting boards as well as the white ultramodern trough sink filled with hairs were unmistakeably British and filthy, even if it was the end of the working day!  How long will it last? It opened in December!!!! Am I proud to be English?   HELP! Let me return to the cleanliness of my region of France!
Despite all that, yes, I would go again:
to be with ancient peoples whose voices, tools, actions, remains, remain mysterious.
to be with England ... 'and did those feet in ancient times bring me my bow of burning gold, arrows of desire, my spear and chariot of fire',
to be with international people - a lady from Indonesia was on a ten day organised tour of England!  Others seemed to be extremely interested in continuous 'selfie' portraits jumping high in front of the henge, rather than absorbing the wonder of how Stonehenge arrived there and why! Maybe they were doing that as well!