Southampton, England

“Land was created to provide a place for boats to visit.” ~ Brooks Atkinson

August 4, 2019

Oh my goodness! The days are flying by! I can’t believe a whole week is gone. Today we glided into Southampton, England in the wee hours of the morning and were tied up by breakfast. We scooted down to the Lido Deck for our scrambled eggs and sausages so we could meet the coach (read: “bus.” I’m trying to use the King’s English whenever I can!) that would take us to Stonehenge by 7:30 AM.

Our route took us through the New Forest, a national park. Contrary to the name, the forest isn’t new. It’s been a hunting preserve for royalty since the 1200’s. Now there are private homes within its borders and the residents have “commoner’s rights” to graze sheep, cattle and small pot-bellied ponies on the land. It’s quite a lovely place and, with all the deciduous trees, reminds me of the Mark Twain National Forest that surrounds our hometown.  

Then we drove through a number of little villages, one of them named Downton—no, not that Downton! However, there were plenty of picturesque cottages with thatched roofs and small but flower-filled gardens in front.

We passed through Salisbury and saw its 13^th century cathedral (sadly, just a drive by. I love to visit new sacred spaces.) Ever since I read Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet I've been fascinated by cathedral towns. People like to complain that the church spent too much on their buildings, but the truth is if a town was chosen as a site for a cathedral, there would be jobs and prosperity for several generations while the structure was being built. 

Then we were up on the Salisbury plain and began to see barrows in the newly harvested hay fields. 

Barrows are ancient grave mounds and there are more in this area than anywhere else in Britain. A few have been excavated, but doing so destroys them. Sometimes skeletal remains are found, surrounded by grave goods, but often cremated remains are interred in the mounds.

Then we arrived at Stonehenge itself. I have to admit the place is a puzzlement. There are plenty of conjectures about what its purpose might have been, but no definitive answer. One thing the experts agree on is that the people who erected this structure were highly organized and motivated, even though its construction took hundreds of years. Without benefit of the wheel, or even iron tools with which to dress the stones, these mysterious Neolithic people managed to move stones longer than 30 ft. a distance of 19 miles to use as the tallest trilithons, and the smaller blue sarcen stones from a quarry in Wales some 150 miles away.

Another thing I found interesting is that the “back” of the structure seemed to not have been constructed with the same care and attention to detail as the rest. These stones were thinner, not as well founded, and not dressed to the same smoothness as the rest of them.

They were also the first to fall.

It made me think of other human cultures which flourished and then declined. You can see a difference in Greco-Roman art from their golden era when the figures in sculpture were carved with live-like exactitude compared to the gradually sloppier later work when features became more stylized and less authentic. Or America’s space program. With just slide rules and toggle switches, we managed to put men on the moon. Now we can’t even achieve low earth orbit.

Do we start to take things for granted? Get lazy? Get tired? We seem to start chasing perfection with boldness and enthusiasm, and then fizzle to become satisfied with mediocre.

What makes us do that?

And without even realizing it, do we do it in our relationships, too? Probably. Life presses in on all sides and the tyranny of the urgent often pushes away the important. That’s why I’m so thankful for this time for the DH and I to take our collective pulse, to renew and rekindle. Every moment together is precious.

We sat on the balcony while the Queen Mary 2 wiggled out of her tight berth like a woman escaping a snug girdle. I continue to be amazed by the smoothness of this lovely ship’s ride. Granted, we’ve had slight seas, but it feels like we’re sitting in our living room! It’s so lovely to watch the soft green land slide away from us.

New tablemates joined us tonight—John & Joyce, Alan & Odette—all from Bristol. They are a jolly bunch and we were still talking and laughing when the maitre ‘d rang the bell, discretely reminding us that another sitting was waiting for their supper.

For the first time on this cruise, the evening entertainment was not to my taste. A female singer screamed at us for 45 mortal minutes, all the while signaling to the technical crew that she wanted her mike turned up even louder. The DH and I breathed a unison sigh of relief when she finished and decided we ought not to sit so close to the front and in the middle of the row. If we’d had an aisle seat, we’d have ducked out after the first assault… I mean, song. 

More soon…

PS. I'm so sorry I can't upload any pictures. The wifi on the QM2 is arguably the worst we've experienced at sea. I can't connect in our cabin and even in one of the common areas, I can only get enough band width to post my words. I promise to add pictures once we have better internet or at the latest, when we get home. 

Queen Mary 2 sliding out of her Southampton berth

PPS. As you can see,  I have been able to add a few images. A picture really is worth a thousand words!