We knew beforehand that it would not be easy. For one thing, there were the premonitions. We had heard of a rave being advertised on various websites, there had been misleading articles in the national press saying that one had only to turn up at Stonehenge on the morning of the solstice and free access would be given to all. Its here the police will gather, here the decadence of another fin de siecle will dance its way to another missing doomsday, skipping stones across the pond of the silent dead, confusion of ripples run against each other, distorting perfect circles that the crows have now abandoned to the noise of helicopters, hierophants and hacks. No time to play, no room to expand on so few words snatched from the rubble of dreams, scattered gently like petals onto the surface of the ancestral pool.
Giants look on, a mixture of emotions and an age of distant longing furowing their mottled brows.
Long before we came, they stood, and after we are gone, they still will stand, welcoming the crows return, snake-hissing winds caress, and most of all, the wet familiarity of rain. At Emmas house in the evening we heard that buses and vans full of travellers had arrived at the Stonehenge car park. Still, it was hoped they could be persuaded to move and that the planned sunrise access could go ahead. A few hours later we heard that hundreds of people had descended on the car park and the road adjoining the monument. Still it was hoped that the access might go ahead.