A Dog and the Real Horse

 Maya.

Tim, Tony, Kirsten, John, Chrissie.

 The view from the bottom of the hill.

 Zoomed in from the road.

 Aerial from a satellite.

The 1982 album cover.

Sunday, September 3^rd.

I know a lot of my friends will find this surprising, but I am going to miss Maya. She is a people puppy and seemed to enjoy hanging around with me.

It rained all through the night and was still raining when we got up. Today was John's mother's birthday and we all took her out for brunch to Harry's, a local restaurant. John, Chrissie and her boyfriend Tim, me, Kirsten and her man friend Tony. After the meal we toasted her with a bottle of Perseco.

Immediately afterwards, John and I left for London. It was a drizzly, misty drive mostly along the M5 and M4, two dual carriageways. En route we took a diversion north from the M4 to find the real white horse. It is in Wiltshire, due east of Swindon where the band XTC lives. The horse is located in a remote farming area on the top of a hill. It has been carbon dated to between 1400 and 600 BC. Although it was cloudy and misty, thankfully it had stopped raining. John and I drove around to a couple of lookouts, but because of the size of it and its location it is really hard to see the whole thing. At the top of the hill I could see the head and from the small hill in front of it most of the rest of it. As we drove away we got our best view from a road further away. That is the picture where you can see most of it. I have included an aerial view where you can see the whole shape of the horse. It is really beautiful and stylized. It begs the questions why any people 3000 years ago would construct something that you can only see properly from the air.  

From there we continued our drive to Great Missenden (where Dottie lives, just outside of London). We arrived just in time for dinner and a relaxing evening watching a bit of TV.