The cliff hanger

 In between all the St John's Eve shenanigans, lunch at the Heron and a sombre visit to the Air India memorial, we also went up the hill to inspect the stone circle. About a month ago we walked up here and were surprised to find the stone circle roped off and archaeologists at work. We were told that conservation was taking place. 

The work seems to be finished and we were actually quite shocked - the stones have all been re-erected. The circle is an 11 stone one and only four stones were standing, the remaining seven prostrate.  Now they have been put, presumably, in their right places and its disorientating. We all felt a bit alarmed but not really sure why.

It came to me in my bath last night why I felt quite so uncomfortable . I was actually so amazed by my thoughts that I wrote them down - do skip if uninterested because this is a bit of thinking out of the box.
I saw the circle as an embodiment of the Crone, a triple goddess who crops up in many world mythologies - and here she lay as was fitting: ancient mysterious, unknowing, a little worse for wear, frayed round the edges, at ease in herself. Along comes the prof of archaeology, like a plastic surgeon in a vain attempt to reconstruct her youth and beauty, and he has given her a fierce and unnecessary facelift , literally hoiking her back to her maidenhood, youth and vigour. She is laid bare-  exposed, impressive, intact - but is she authentic?  Is she real?
Maybe she is, for the Crone is a triple deity and she can appear as maiden, mother or crone, so maybe she is behind all this.
As one well into cronehood myself, I think it is best to celebrate where you are -embrace the dodginess of limbs, the sagginess of flesh and all those imperfections that attribute to your history/herstory! Rejoice in who you are and what you have become, not what (some) others would like you to be.
So those were my thoughts! Nature will do her bit now, and soften it all and the circle will survive, although in a different guise.
What do you think? I know people will be divided by this. I've added an extra of what it looked like when the area around was cleared about a year ago - this we now know was the archaeologists' recce.