Uffington on a Friday

My Friday began on a bad note. A couple weeks ago Collier organized a trip up to Uffington to see the white horse and asked Cassie and me to accompany her. The white horse is this crater that mysteriously appeared on the mountainside that highly resembles the shape of a horse. Nobody knows how it appeared or why. They do know when it appeared but you can do anything with science these days so that bit of knowledge isn’t very impressive on their part.

Due to Collier’s magical connections with Dr. Forsyth she was able to get him to drive us up and take us around the country. Since Collier was the on who was excited about this and the most eager to go out of the three of us we just let her plan the whole thing out. Cassie and I were essentially just along for the ride and we figured, on the road up there, a combination of her and Dr. Forsyth would give us all of the cool information and little facts about what we were doing.

The night before Collier came over and told us the final details about when we would be leaving the next more. Basically, she told us to be at her flat at one so we could catch the U1 to Harcourt Hill to meet Dr. Forsyth and leave for Uffington by two. Well, that didn’t really happen and that would partly my fault but also the fact that Cassie and I our both girls. The night before I forgot to set my alarm for when I over slept by and hour and a half, only waking up after Cassie came into my room and 11:30 my morning did not progress so nicely. I am one of those people who require a lot of time in the morning, not only to get ready but also to just wake up for the day. Yeah, I need at least two and a half hours. High maintenance I know. To save time I opted to not take a shower despite the fact that I was going on day three without one, threw on some mascara, jeans and my High Point University shirt (which I never wear other than bed just so you are aware), layered up with sweaters and my rain coat, threw some my camera and water in my backpack and still made it out the door late. I should really work on getting ready at the pace of a normal human being.

We finally made it to Harcourt to meet up with Dr. Forsyth and Dr. Schweitzer, climbed in the car and immediately set off. While in the car Collier started to ask questions about the history of the White Horse and Dr. Forsyth responded by equating it to Stonehenge. Meaning, nobody really knows how or why it got there but they have continued to preserve it. Before he went on Dr. Forsyth interjected with a legal statement for all of us. “Now, just so we are clear on the legal side of things, this outing, I am taking you as my friends, not as students of Oxford Brookes.” With a smile Collier then said, “So you consider us your friends!”

The weather wasn’t too bad, but it was very cold, windy, and a little bit rainy. It was at the point were if it was even just a tiny bit worse no one would have wanted to deal with it. But since it was teetering on that edge it really wasn’t bad enough to really complain about. The walk wasn’t bad at all, it was only about a mile and it was a steady incline. Dr. Schweitzer and I were far back from the Collier, Cassie and Dr. Forsyth for a little because we were just standing, trying to get good pictures of the White Horse and the overlooking view.

Once we got up to the top we could see the horse, but not in it’s entirety, and a good photo was almost entirely out of the question. Despite it’s similarities to Stonehenge it was nowhere near as photogenic. The most interesting part of standing there next to it had to be looking at how well taken care of it was. The grass was cut nicely around it and the stone had a white chalk covering the help it stand out better against the green grass.

Sheep. There were sheep everywhere. So, being girls all there of us just had this intense desire to go up and hug a sheep. Wouldn’t you? They just look so fluffy and cuddly; you really just can’t help but want to give them a huge hug. Unfortunately, no matter how slowly you walked up to one, they would get spooked and run away. So after about our third attempt to walk up to the sheep we just gave up on that venture and came up with a new plan. As a funny comment Collier just turns to me and says, “Sarah, you should just go chase after one.” Before I could even respond with any sort of retort Cassie just takes off after the sheep, which in turn caused the sheep to take off running. That was probably one of the funniest things I have seen in along time, Cassie acting as a herding dog.

As the day went on the weather was getting worse instead of better so we decided to head back, Dr. Forsyth went to go get the car and the rest of us went to the mound were St. George apparently killed the dragon. Walking there was kind of slippery and at one point we had to play the “Don’t get hit by a car” game, we just stepped to the side. What I found most rewarding was the view. You could see so much and so far of this green countryside, it was beautiful.

Instead of going straight back to campus Dr. Forsyth was incredibly kind and took us back to his home for tea. It was lovely, and once we found out that Collier had never had tea before we all looked at her in awe and just told her to drink up. It was very nice, we mostly just sat and talked and after a day of being wet and cold it was nice to just sit and drink something hot and eat a little something sweet.

Dr. Forsyth took us back to Harcourt and in perfect time too because that bus was there right when we arrived, so we didn’t have to wait for it. We did get stuck in a little traffic on the way back which I wasn’t too happy about because at that point all I wanted to do was go back to the flat and just take the longest shower imaginable. Walking back down Pullen’s Lane, all three of us were practically running.

After my long hot shower I got some of my work done and then preceded to devour a pizza. Later, Collier came over and we planned out more of our trip to Venice, which translate to me trying to find the cheapest flights out there.

Unfortunately, my camera is being a little temperamental, so I can’t upload the photos onto this post but hopefully later on I will get it working and then be able to amend this post to include some pictures.