Taint what a horse looks like...
Feb. 17th, 2008 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadesfireBefore I get into what I actually opened this window for, allow me to point you to something that amused me:
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rent_a_fangirl is a comm aiming to act as a 'Yellow Pages' for SGA fandom, where artists, vidders and writers advertise their services and people come to them there. It's a neat idea, even if I don't plan on signing up myself. I'm having enough trouble with the fics I'm already signed up to write...
However, the point of this post was the Uffington White Horse, which is (shockingly) in the The Vale of the White Horse, about an hour's drive from Oxford. It was a beautiful day here. Cold and crisp, but with a clear blue sky and hot sunshine. It really shows off Oxfordshire at its best, so we decided to take advantage of it.
I've put some pictures under the cut, although they can't really capture the atmosphere of the place. This is a prehistoric landscape, largely untouched by roads and towns, and The Ridgeway cuts a path through the landscape, rising above the Lambourne Downs and then carrying on into the distance, looking like some giant monster sleeping on the lower hills.
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smithy161? I saw something today and thought of you... (see the third picture...)
This is Dragon Hill, as seen from the White Horse Hill, with the horse itself in the turf to the right of the picture and the Lambourne Downs stretching away in the distance. You can't really see the horse from the ground, but you get an amazing view of the landscape around it. Dragon Hill is a natural chalk outcropping not, as I thought, part of the hill fort. Nobody's perfect.
I took this picture from on top of Dragon Hill, showing just how cold it was today! Where the sun shone, it got really quite warm, out of the wind at least, but whatever was in the shade stayed frozen. This was to our advantage during some of the muddier parts of the walk, which would have been impassable if they had melted. As it was, we had some trouble with broken stiles. The ones where the plank had just disappeared weren't too bad, since we didn't even attempt them, but it's a pain getting to the top of a high stile and realising the second plank that you need to get down just isn't there. The results were some jumps onto (hopefully frozen) mud. I think I can now officially say that my walking boots have been broken in!
This is Wayland's Smithy (not to be confused with our Smithy ;)), which is a neolithic long barrow, that has been thoroughly excavated and is now maintained by the National Trust. It turned out to be a lovely spot to have lunch on, even if I did keep expected Nac Mac Feegles to come swarming out to try to steal our sandwiches. The picture is of the barrow entrance, and it stretches about 50 yeards away from here, with another pile of stones on the top. The Wiki entry has got some lovely atmospheric pictures of it, and I can see how it would be a really magical place by night.
All in all, a lovely day. We walked through some real picture postcard villages, with thatched rooves, and a chalk-built church. I've never seen chalk used as brick before, but there were several houses built out of it. This was Tiffany Aching country, and you can really feel the age of the landscape, the 'Land under sea' feeling of the weight of centuries. When the mist was rising off the Downs this morning and we were standing on White Horse Hill with the castle behind us, you could understand why people would want to live there. It felt safe and secure, and solid in a way that only places which have been occupied for thousands of years can. They have a project every year to clear the weeds off of the White Horse, just as they've been doing for the past 3,000 years.
Here's to 3,000 more.
rent_a_fangirl is a comm aiming to act as a 'Yellow Pages' for SGA fandom, where artists, vidders and writers advertise their services and people come to them there. It's a neat idea, even if I don't plan on signing up myself. I'm having enough trouble with the fics I'm already signed up to write...However, the point of this post was the Uffington White Horse, which is (shockingly) in the The Vale of the White Horse, about an hour's drive from Oxford. It was a beautiful day here. Cold and crisp, but with a clear blue sky and hot sunshine. It really shows off Oxfordshire at its best, so we decided to take advantage of it.
I've put some pictures under the cut, although they can't really capture the atmosphere of the place. This is a prehistoric landscape, largely untouched by roads and towns, and The Ridgeway cuts a path through the landscape, rising above the Lambourne Downs and then carrying on into the distance, looking like some giant monster sleeping on the lower hills.
NB:
smithy161? I saw something today and thought of you... (see the third picture...)This is Dragon Hill, as seen from the White Horse Hill, with the horse itself in the turf to the right of the picture and the Lambourne Downs stretching away in the distance. You can't really see the horse from the ground, but you get an amazing view of the landscape around it. Dragon Hill is a natural chalk outcropping not, as I thought, part of the hill fort. Nobody's perfect.
I took this picture from on top of Dragon Hill, showing just how cold it was today! Where the sun shone, it got really quite warm, out of the wind at least, but whatever was in the shade stayed frozen. This was to our advantage during some of the muddier parts of the walk, which would have been impassable if they had melted. As it was, we had some trouble with broken stiles. The ones where the plank had just disappeared weren't too bad, since we didn't even attempt them, but it's a pain getting to the top of a high stile and realising the second plank that you need to get down just isn't there. The results were some jumps onto (hopefully frozen) mud. I think I can now officially say that my walking boots have been broken in!
This is Wayland's Smithy (not to be confused with our Smithy ;)), which is a neolithic long barrow, that has been thoroughly excavated and is now maintained by the National Trust. It turned out to be a lovely spot to have lunch on, even if I did keep expected Nac Mac Feegles to come swarming out to try to steal our sandwiches. The picture is of the barrow entrance, and it stretches about 50 yeards away from here, with another pile of stones on the top. The Wiki entry has got some lovely atmospheric pictures of it, and I can see how it would be a really magical place by night.
All in all, a lovely day. We walked through some real picture postcard villages, with thatched rooves, and a chalk-built church. I've never seen chalk used as brick before, but there were several houses built out of it. This was Tiffany Aching country, and you can really feel the age of the landscape, the 'Land under sea' feeling of the weight of centuries. When the mist was rising off the Downs this morning and we were standing on White Horse Hill with the castle behind us, you could understand why people would want to live there. It felt safe and secure, and solid in a way that only places which have been occupied for thousands of years can. They have a project every year to clear the weeds off of the White Horse, just as they've been doing for the past 3,000 years.
Here's to 3,000 more.