Well, here’s the story. For the last few years we have neglected this original Clonehenge blog, focusing instead on our presence on Twitter, Facebook, and eventually Instagram. Recently we’ve even dreamed of getting a cute animé 2-D avatar and becoming a Clonehenge V-tuber! Why not? We have to move with the times. 😉 Meanwhile we’ve let this WordPress blog fall into ruins, littered with broken links and humour that we (unlike everyone else) once thought funny but that is now super cringe. This past year we were even considering deleting the blog once we completed the mythical possibly never-to-be-completed Clonehenge World Map.

BUT things happen, plans change, often precipitated by unforeseen events. In this case the unforeseen event is called Mike Pitts*, or more properly a book written by him, set to be released in a few weeks, the book you see above entitled How to Build Stonehenge. Written by Pitts, well known archaeologist, journalist and Stonehenge scholar and enthusiast (he’s shown up on this blog in the past, I believe, bouncing on Jeremy Deller’s inflatable Stonehenge and saying he recognised every stone. Hmm, must check we didn’t say anything in that post we might wish we hadn’t!), the book talks about how Stonehenge was built including the accumulated scholarship of the past plus all of the latest research, with lots of interesting tidbits thrown in to create a uniquely comprehensive and fascinating look at how it came together along with other points of interest about the iconic monument. We think. Haven’t actually read it, since it isn’t out yet, but we will see soon enough.

Normally the announcement of such a book would simply be delightful, if potentially expensive, news. But on the 16th of December of last year the author tweeted out a few photos of his author’s copy including part of a page of the preface and Lo, there in the that image was the name Clonehenge! Our thanks to Tim Daw of the informative Stonehenge website www.sarsen.org for drawing our attention to it. The photo not only mentions the name Clonehenge but also the name of the one behind the curtain, who honestly would never even have guessed that the esteemed Mr. Pitts knew their name.

Notice however that this mention doesn’t name our Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram accounts. No, just this old WordPress blog which frankly we had stuck against the back wall of the garage behind some boxes, old sleds from when the children still lived here, and that former favourite no-longer-working lawnmower that’s just too good to throw away. I think some squirrels actually nested in this blog at some point and when we got it back out last month to have a look we had to dump nut shells, sticks, and grasses out of some of the posts from roughly 2013 to 2016. Yet when the book comes out and people become curious and look us up, this old abandoned wreck is what they’ll see.

So after lengthy panic (our area of expertise!) and a certain amount of contemplation, what we recommend for everyone who sees this is of course to buy Mike Pitts’ book How to Build Stonehenge, to be released 17 February in the U.K. and mid-March in the States, if you haven’t pre-ordered already, and not to look at any posts on this blog that are more than a year or two old. There aren’t any fleas but we can’t guarantee you won’t feel a little itchy after reading some of those old posts.

For our part we will start by writing brief new posts about Stonehenge replicas worldwide not yet added to our Large Permanent Replica list—there are well over 100 now and we need to catch up—and then eventually we’ll go back and improve old posts. There are well over 400 posts on this blog though, so it won’t happen overnight. Please bear with us. There’s only one of us and we have another blog on another subject with many more followers that also requires tending. If you run across any dust or nutshells in the meantime just toss them aside. Squirrels can be such a nuisance.

We thank you for being here, gentle readers, and until the next time, happy henging!

*Mike Pitts’ archaeology journalism blog can be found at Digging Deeper.