Kent, Essex and now Wiltshire

I appear to be standing in the middle of the stone circle at Avebury in Wiltshire. This genuinely is one of the most spiritually invigorating places that I know. This stone circle is so large that there's a village in its centre. It's bracing, but the sky is a very faint shade of blue and a watery sun is trying to break through the high level cloud. It's all rather special, but then Avebury always is. 

It feels strange to be here, alone. This is a place to share with more than passing strangers, a tree filled with crows and a hovering sparrow hawk. Nevertheless, I've decided to walk in a full circle around the tall earthen mound which surrounds the site. This place is built on chalk and all the pathways are gleaming white against the pale wintry grass.

I stopped for a while at the Cherhill White horse on my way here and peered up at it in awe. This whole area is steeped in mystery. If only we had the ability to tap into the energy that prehistoric people felt here, we might begin to get a sense of how they created such perfect circles or hauled such impossibly large stones across the countryside. 

I spent this afternoon in an RAF base somewhere near the beautiful village of Corsham. I was rehearsing with a group of friends who belong to the Royal Air Force Theatre Association and are putting on a production of Much Ado About Nothing. I'm helping them with a bit of music. 

The place is like a holiday camp, with chalet-style accommodation, one assumes, for short-term use by RAF personnel. There were a lot of children playing in the grounds, many of whom had rather haunted, melancholy faces which appeared slightly old before their time. Perhaps this comes from a life of being dragged from base to base. 

The RAFTA group meet for a weekend once a month throughout the  year before staging a show in a small professional theatre somewhere like Oxford or Cambridge. Their shows are always of a very high standard and they must have an absolute ball coming together for their residential rehearsals at RAF bases. Some of them looked rather worse for wear this morning!