Today has been an Alexcar day. Alexcars is our local coach company and we go on several of their trips every year. It's so relaxing to sit there and be wafted along on their magic carpet. No traffic stresses, no parking strains, and it's fascinating what you can see from the bus. You can peer at people and peek into parks and parlours. The big advantage is that you arrive at your destination relaxed and looking forward to the day.
Today we arrived at Devizes.
Just a short trip across the county boundary into historic Wiltshire.
What do we do first on a day out? Look for lunch!
And Devizes didn't disappoint. We found a lovely pub called the Four Seasons, where I had roast chicken breast wrapped in finest Wiltshire bacon, while D had gorgeous pork belly. Wiltshire is famed for its top quality pig products, and the Four Seasons knows just how to cook them.
And serve up a glass or two of Merlot to go alongside.
We chose this trip to visit the Wiltshire Museum, recently restored and redesigned, making it now one of the leading museums in the country. That's what we'd heard, and we were delighted to find that it's true. Devizes is a lovely Wiltshire town, and if you go there, don't miss the museum, especially the golden 'lozenge', one of their prize exhibits. A fantastic object.
Wiltshire has a rich vein of pre-history running through it, with incredible relics to show. Many can be found in the museum or referred to here in depth, such as Stonehenge, Woodhenge, Avebury, Silbury Hill, the list goes on.
I just love being immersed in all this and trying to make mental connections to my ancient ancestors in the rolling countryside. We and they are part of the same ancestral line, just numbers of generations apart. We gazed on the same landscape and felt the same wind, rain and sun. The same skies revolved above our heads. We are one and the same, merely separated by time. And my mind reels at my ancestors skills, especially in fine craftsmanship, all achieved without the aid of modern technology. Just head, hand, heart and eye.
The museum takes us back to see beautiful they objects created and left here in Mesolithic times, including by those here before our own Homo sapiens kind, and even before Neanderthal people. Most of the objects they left are flint axes, made for workaday tasks such as jointing game, but nonetheless beautiful works of art. I'm left with the impression that these people were highly practical, they had to be to survive, but they also had a heightened aesthetic sense. They knew a beautiful object when they saw it.
This book will tell you much more if you are interested.
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