While we were across the water we stopped off at the National Memorial Arboretum, near to the almost unpronounceable village of Alrewas in Staffordshire. It's in the National Forest, although you wouldn't really know because it's built on land reclaimed from an old gravel workings; it's very open and flat. The main focal point is the Armed Forces Memorial; it's very interesting and when you're actually in it, it feels kind of like you're on the Eloi city set from the 1960s version of The Time Machine, and you're Rod Taylor. Only it's all a lot more serious and important. There's a split in both the inner and outer walls and at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the sun shines through the slots onto the central monument. Which must be quite a thing to experience.
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