Heartland

Lay me down the long white line
Leave the sirens far behind me

En route to picking the kids up from my Mum & Dad's, I took the very minor detour to Uffington, up to the Ridgeway, to spend some time with my horse.

I grew up about six miles from here. The Ridgeway defined the skyline from every south-facing window in my secondary school. And I have spent hours and hours and hours walking, cycling, and running along the stretch of Ridgeway from Wayland's Smithy in the west to Segsbury Camp in the east. I've run along it in blistering sunshine for marathon training, and I've walked along it in pouring rain just to get things in my head straight.

That, and I have spent just as long stood, or more often sat, and sometimes simply laid me down, next to this the White Horse. Also a fair few hours slowly dawdling along her length, pacing her spine, her long white line, head to tail and tail to head and back again. The sirens left far behind me.

This place is extraordinarily special to me: the White Horse hill-carving is usually dated to late Bronze Age, so she's been here for around 2,800 years, and she'll probably be here for hundreds or thousands of years after I've gone, but whenever I see her I always think of her as my horse. I don't really expect that to make sense to anyone; it still doesn't quite make sense to me.