There is a particular kind of optimism that goes into booking a Christmas outing in October. You picture soft lighting, gentle carols, a small child listening raptly to a story. You do not picture the bit where they refuse to go in because the robes are the wrong shade of green. But that is next month's problem, not today's.
The National Trust has confirmed that its festive events are returning to Avebury this winter, with story time sessions beneath the lights of the historic dovecote running on selected dates between 28 November and 20 December. St Nicholas, in green robes with a nod to the site's history, will read classic tales to children aged four to eight, each of whom gets a small gift afterwards. Tickets are £10 per child, booked in advance, with the dovecote's limited capacity meaning you need an exact slot, not a vague sense of the afternoon. Alongside this, Christmas markets return to the historic barn on six dates in late November and December, ten till four, free entry, local traders, carols, and a polite note that card machines exist but cash is still preferred.
In theory this sounds genuinely lovely. In reality, you are negotiating a 10.20am arrival with a child who takes forty minutes to locate one shoe, then threading a pram past several thousand years of standing stones while another child insists on touching each one individually, for research purposes.
The gift at the end of story time is small, we're told, which I interpret as a warning. Our eldest once turned a free pencil into a three day custody dispute with the youngest. A neolithic monument has survived this long; it can probably survive us too.
Brenda Pask, 72, of Old Town, who has lived there since before it was old, said she approved of the cash preference in principle but doubted anyone under thirty still carried any. 'Ron used to keep a ten bob note in his sock for emergencies,' she said. 'Nowadays it's all tapping and hoping.'
Would I book it? Probably. Would I bring cash, a spare shoe and lowered expectations? Absolutely.