My wonderful baby sister, Alison, had her birthday a couple of days ago, so I thought I would tell you all about her visit to Europe a year and a half ago. Gulp, it’s taken me that long to tell you about such a lovely experience.

Baby Sis, as I call her, is a head and shoulders taller than me (life’s just not fair), but she will always be baby sister to me. She lives in New Zealand and popped over to see our folks and then come to France and visit me. Yipee! It’s a real pity that we can’t move NZ bit closer as I would love to see her more often than once every 5 years.

We met up in England so that we could both visit our lovely parents there and spend time with our equally lovely aunty Wendles and uncle Peter too. We had a super time and Mom and Dad were sorry to see us go, as were we sorry to say “bye bye for a while”.

Alison and I visited Stonehenge which I don’t have to tell you is spectacular. Some might say it’s just a pile of rocks but it is an impressive pile of rocks to say the very least. Apparently it was possible to go up to the stones in years gone by, but I don’t see that this is necessary. It was difficult enough to get photos without anybody else in the shot and it would have been impossible with people crawling all over them. Never mind the problems with breaking them and spraying graffiti on them…there is just no hope for some people.

We got there bright and early and one of the first in at around 9am. I would certainly recommend this as by 11am, it was packed. A and I had the place almost to ourselves and the atmosphere was almost magical. We took the little bus the mile to the stones as there was a really chilly wind blowing…I mean, what do you expect in June in England?!

The Stones as they will forthwith be called, are spectacular. (I could also call them The Non-Rolling Stones, but this might cause confusion, if only to me). We enjoyed being able to walk around calmly and enjoy the vibe due to the relatively small number of visitors. There was a woman who I think worked for The Ministry of Funny Walks as she, uhm, walked funny. See photo as evidence that I am not completely insane (a little yes, but not completely).

Also, if you look at my photos carefully, there is a bird in each and every shot. I find that amazing. I have spent the last 6 years trying to photograph a Cyanus Cook bird in Portugal (very prolific species which flies about everywhere) and have yet managed to get one in front of the lens. But I can’t manage to take a photo of The Stones without a bird. Must be some type of magic…or curse… I have had the intense desire to drink too much red wine since then…spooky, very spooky.

Talking of spooky, look at the above photo and tell me you can’t see A Thingymajiggy in that rock. I mean, it could be a whale! And why didn’t “the voice in the box” bring my attention to this? Oops, maybe it did and I had switched it off? Still, spooky, very spooky.

We had been told that we might be disappointed, but we are easily pleased and thoroughly enjoyed our time there. We took the headphones with us that tells you all types of interesting things about each blade of grass and pebble about, but after a while we decided to just enjoy the vibe and take loads of photos. What can I say, I clearly lack the gene that can spend an hour staring at a slightly raised mound and find it breathtaking.

Now that I have outed myself as a nincumpoop, we admired The Stones from every possible angle and then went back to the open air museum at the visitors’ centre, which is also really good. Mounds are not so prolific and there are lots of interesting objects and facts about. Whoever carried those rocks was quite small (maybe they shrunk because of all the carrying?) and it was great for me that even I had to bend to get into the little houses.

The next stop was the gift shop and tea room and although the prices are eye-wateringly high, we managed to force ourselves to buy far too many things. I have a Pandora’s bracelet and now it has one (yes, only one) attachment (or what are they called, proper like?) and that is a piece of Stonehenge rock. No, I didn’t carve it myself, I paid huge sums of cash and bought it, thank you very much. And very nice indeed it is. As it bloody should be at that price.

Alison and I enjoyed ourselves tremendously and I’ll certainly be going again with The Husband sometime in the hopefully not too distant future. And hopefully I’ll get to see baby sis sometime in the hopefully not too distant future too. Love you Sis.