After lounging around in France for a few days I’m working off the pastis and wine by walking from Swindon to Salisbury. It’s about thirty-six miles so splits nicely into a three day hike.
It is, as you probably know, a very ancient part of the country. Robert and I took a taxi from Swindon up to Barbury Castle to start our walk. Barbury, which has no sign of ever being a castle, has signs of habitation going back to 2500 BC but was more permanently inhabited around 600 BC. The earthworks at this hill fort are impressive. The next excitement up there wasn’t until 556 AD when the Britons were defeated by the Saxons at the Battle of Beranburgh. Things have quietened down a lot since then.
From there it is a short walk along the Ridgeway to Avebury – another site of great antiquity. A large earth work henge is Neolithic and dates back to 2600 BC. Within this is an outer stone circle and two smaller inner circles, none of which are complete today. Wiltshire today is somewhat under-populated, in the Bronze Age it had a high population. Isn’t that fascinating?
Also in Avebury is a Saxon church with an early 12th century Norman font but we must press on. We stayed in a small B&B run by an excellent cook. Her assistant is the bee inspector for Wiltshire. There are 65 such inspectors in the UK. Sorry, there are 65 in the EU. The UK is the only country in the EU that has inspectors to check that bee keepers are not harbouring disease. They are paid by the EU but out of money given by the UK. I learnt a lot about the diseases that threaten bees. In some cases, but it is unusual, the bee inspector can administer antibiotics to the bees; a gentler treatment than cattle receive if they test positive for TB.
Then it transpired that this Renaissance Man has travelled the waterways of Britain, and was an accomplished opera singer. He had a part at the first performance of Death in Venice at La Fenice in the early 1970s.
Back to the bees. Never leave an open pot of honey in the open air. Most honey comes from mixed origins and will be contaminated with American foulbrood. This is harmless to humans but if a bee takes a sip the whole hive catches this plague.