I was walking a few days ago with a friend on a wonderful crisp late winters day. The sky was bright but full of white cloud and the temperature hovering around freezing – so a good stiff walk kept us warm and encouraged us to keep on the move. We set out to walk about 20km in beautiful scenery and one of the interesting points of our walk was the small village of Avebury in Wiltshire, England.
Many people will have heard of Stonehenge but far fewer have heard about the stone circle of which you see a small part in the picture. The circle is so large that it embraces a large part of the village and is far larger than the more famous one that is not too distant. This stone circle is about 150km west of London.
The full history of the stones is hidden in the mists of time although it is estimated that the circle was formed around 4500 years ago. Many of the stones have been removed over time for a selection of reasons and I am sure that many a house in the village has been helped along in it’s construction by the use of some of the ancient site!
So what has this short article got to do with a pile of old stones in the English countryside? Well it got me thinking about a whole range of things such as:
- On a cold day like this many people would choose to be inside by a fire – so what encourages others to venture out?
- When rushing along in our usual speed of living we often miss things that are so interesting…..so isn’t it great to make the time to look?
- A good companion on these walks seems to make the journey easier and less tiring – do we embrace this in our world of work and involve others?
- The aching legs the day after remind us of our efforts and joy of seeing new things – do we enjoy the ‘ache’ once our work task is done, and perhaps celebrate our achievements?
Importantly we all can be busy being, well, busy, so isn’t it worth making sure we take some time out to look to a new horizon?
I am not sure our legacy will be around in 4500 years time, sometimes it is worth enjoying just today.
My good wishes,
Peter
