The Longest Day

Well, that was it - the longest day of the year.  It's all downhill from here - the nights will start drawing in and, before you know it, we'll be back to Winter.  It always feels somewhat odd to me that the Summer solstice, equinox or whatever the right term is, what we like to call mid-Summer, comes so early in the season.  The reality is that we still have more than two months of what are classified as Summer to go.  More, if the season straggles into September, as it sometimes does.  Indeed, the hottest and sunniest days of the season often occur in July and August.  But this the day that everyone celebrates.  By everyone I mean, of course, that bunch of loonies who dress as druids and congregate at Stonehenge, despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that druids had anything to do with the site.  But that doesn't deter them. As ever, their self-styled leader, 'Arthur Pendragon', was on the local news burbling his usual bollocks about Stonehenge having been built by the druids as some kind of solar observatory, or some such cobblers. 

I wouldn't mind so much if these so-called druids actually did something interesting every mid-Summer's day, like a human sacrifice, or some naked dancing involving attractive young women.  You'd think they'd at least have some kind of fertility ritual involving wild copulation on the stones as the sun comes up.  But no, all they bloody do is wander around in their bloody robes and chant a bit.  Where's the entertainment in that?  As for 'Arthur Pendragon', he's just another one of those self-aggrandizing fantasists with no visible means of support.  He's something of a rent-a-quote on local TV news programmes, commenting on anything vaguely connected to druids and ancient monuments, regardless of his lack of qualifications.  I remember a few months ago he turned up prattling on about how displaying the excavated bones of Iron Age people in museums was disrespectful.  Really?  Have any of them or their close relatives complained?  And how does styling yourself as a druid and naming yourself after a mythical English king qualify you to comment on such matters?  The fact is that I know a thing or two about 'Arthur Pendragon' - which, unfortunately, I can't repeat here - which cast him in a very unfavourable light. 

But getting back to the point, every year I tell myself that I'm going to do something to mark the longest day.  Not running around Stonehenge naked, obviously.  Something less flamboyant - a trip to the coast, perhaps.  Or some other kind of outing.  But I never do.  And this year was no different.  As usual, I worked through it.  Still, next year it should fall on a Saturday.  So, maybe next year...