September 22nd - Day 157

Like me, you must have often wondered whether The Druids' Ceremony of The Autumn Equinox features music. Today I headed off to the Ceremony on top of Primrose Hill to find out. I have seen many London panoramas from the hills of South London, but few from the north, so the first thing I noticed about the view was that it was back-to-front. After I had got over the shock of seeing The Post Office Tower on the right and Canary Wharf on the left, I looked down the hill and spotted about forty druids, male and female, young and old, clad in white gowns ready to start their prossession uphill. A bevy of photographers tracked them as they ascended. It was some time ago that I begun to see the same buskers more than once on my quest - today for the first time I recognised a photographer from another day (can't remember which one). The Ceremony begun in complete silence, apart from the continous clicking of cameras. I myself was clicking merrily away when ten minutes in I realised that there'd been no music. Then a chap was handed a large horn that looked like a hunting horn to me and blew it four times, once to each corner of the compass. The Ceremony continued. The sun came out as a sword was presented to the sky. Fruit was scattered. Wise words were spoken about being positive, being responsible for ones choices and restoring ones integrity. After about half an hour the assembled crowd was thanked for coming along and invited to chat with the Druids on Druidy matters once they'd disrobed (the Druids, not the crowd). And off they descended back to the tree under which lay their possessions. Some late-comers wondered aloud if they were Druids. A passing woman said to them, "No, I saw them a few months ago - I think they're German".

And so to address the question, "Do Autumn Equinox Ceremonies feature music?" the answer, as much as I would like to count four blasts of a long horn as a live music experience, has to be "no". Not today anyway. So I ventured under the ground and found Egon finger-picking laid-back guitar under London Bridge Station. I watched him play a bit of Dave Brubeck and a couple of other things for ten minutes. It wasn't very busy. He told me it usually gets busy around four, which today happened to be the same time he was clocking off.