The Letter "S"

This week I went to Scotland, Stonehenge and Salisbury...  of course, it is September

Scotland

First, I was in St. Andrews on business. It was what I perceive to be typical Scottish weather, cool, a "wee bit of a wind" and some rain...but also some sun so on a few occasions we were treated to rainbows. Of course I had a chance to experience all the delights (for one day) of The Old Course Hotel. It is a spectacular location and my room overlooked the 17th fairway. While it is late September, there were still golfers playing, on both days.

My room view

This shot was taken the day I arrived. The next day it was a very different weather, and yet there were still golfers playing. We had a meeting most of the day in a room on the ground floor, and all day, despite the rain and high winds, we could see foursome after foursome, heads down into the wind, umbrellas pushing forward fighting the rain.  I know now why the golf stores here sell so much rain gear!

On the day I arrived, we went for a walk about the town, and on the way back, about 7:30 it was getting quite dark. We were surprised to see golfers teeing off the 18th, in what was not the most optimal light. We thought that was extreme until we ran into two more foursomes coming behind them!

The beach in St. Andrews

 
On Sunday I went to Stonehenge and Salisbury with a couple of people from the finance department in Kohler. It was nice to have company, and navigators.
 

I was expecting Stonehenge to be bigger. The setting is spectacular, set on a rise in a large plain (the Salisbury Plain). They have understated all the necessary trappings for such a significant tourist site, and when you are actually at the site, you cannot see the car-park, the entrance buildings nor the ubiquitous gift shop. It is a great view in all directions.  They provide (free !) an audio player that explains what you are looking at, but they do admit that even to this day they really do not know why it was built. Of course we know that it can act as a calender, the sun plays in the stones differently in every month, the first rays of sun coming exactly on the center stone on the solstice and all that.... but why ?
 

Salisbury Cathedral

When I told Susie I was going to Stonehenge, she insisted we go to Salisbury. It was a good suggestion. Besides being a very pretty town where we had a nice pub lunch, the Cathedral is very impressive. In addition to being a significant building, having the tallest spire in Britain (404 feet), they have one of only 4 known copies of the Magna Carta, dating back to 1215.  Edward Heath, former PM is buried there.

One of the interesting things about this church was it continues to update its artwork and fixtures. Genya and I have toured a number of churches in Italy, France and England, and normally they are museums of the past, full of old paintings and memorial plaques of dead soldiers from ancient battles. Salisbury seems intent on allowing new ideas and new artists to contribute.  They continue to put up memorials of recent war dead. It feels like a living active church. One of the features that fascinated me was a new font installed in 2008. It is build in such a way that it acts as a reflecting pool. Of course this required me to try my hand a creative photography...

I call the one below "reflections of windows"

View from the nave up to the alter. Notice the newer hanging art, on the right side.

Cloisters


I hope you enjoyed the letter S.