The Longest Day

According to the BBC News this morning, some 30,000 people gathered at Stonehenge this morning to celebrate the summer solstice. Witches and wizards, Druids and assorted new agers gathered at the 5,000 year old stone circle to mark the dawn of the longest day of the year and they did it with a great deal of drumming and cheering as far as I could gather from the radio report.

Here in Silverton, we do not do much in the way of celebrating the summer solstice. There are no organised events that I know of and we dont have the local white witches dancing naked around the great oak tree or anything like that. I expect that a few in the village will be perhaps having an extra pint or two in the pub, but then again any excuse will do for some to go down that road. Perhaps there might be a barbeque or two but that would be about the extent of any celebration here I should think.

Anyway, whats really to celebrate ?. This is as good as it gets and give it a month and the nights will be drawing in again, then it will be street market and the end of the school holidays and before we know it christmas will be looming once again. The summer solstice only marks the time when you realise that half the year has gone again and you have achieved very little once more.

It just marks another half year of your life gone past.