This week, I went to Stonehenge. I had visited before, when you could get closer to the stones. It was cold and wet and busy this week. The jackdaws were so unimpressed they huddled under the stones, looking as miserable as a bird can. In the distance, the deep booms of mortar rounds provided a counter note to the chatter of the young tourists. Suddenly above all this rose the exquisite song of a skylark. He rose, soaring and fluttering, singing his heart out. The next moment he stooped to the grass, fluttering madly in a tussle with another lark.
In that moment I realised that when Stonehenge was built, there would have been skylarks, singing and soaring.
Here was a connection with the distant past.
The mortars still boomed.
Yet, on Salisbury Plain, beside the guns and mortars, the skylarks would also be singing and soaring.
