A sunny day and visitors in the park
The musings of Dan W.:
With the sun shining through my window I awoke to a day as beautiful as the stars that had preceded it. Although rushed (as usual) with sun beating on my face, my mood was as happy as a dog's as I trundled through town towards Grosvenor Park and a day in the sun. Having whipped out Tiberius and my newly arrived trowel and his yet to be named co-worker on arrival, I hadn’t even changed my shoes when I realised I wouldn’t be in the sun for the morning, but the finds room.
I thought 'it won’t be too bad I suppose, last time was quite fun' but this time the sun was beating down with gay abandon and with the weather I was nervous about missing it, but I needn’t have fretted. As we sat in the circle again waiting for instruction I could feel the tension in the room with last times antics still hanging in the air - everyone eyeing nervously the seriously diminished finds trays wondering if another scramble was about to ensue. Fortunately, for the rest of my group anyway as I had already stalked about a potentially good bag and I wasn’t about to lose the fight this time, we were not going to need any new bags. Instead we were marking finds from ou previous trays.
As we whipped out our previous trays, thoughtlessly moved about by persons unknown, Julie conjured up ink and weird fountain pens. I saw eyes bearing down on me. This task obviously had a lot of scope for mess and I was going to be the prime suspect for any left behind.
Marking the finds was daunting to me as I knew it would require skill with a fountain pen, neat legible handwriting and a steady hand. I knew I had none of those skills and it was going to show. What seemed like hours later with several rushes to the sink to clear the ink before it dried, there was me still fiddling with what by now seemed like irrelevant clay pipe. However, it wasn’t going to beat me and after getting the ink on the table, floor, hands and somehow face I was triumphant until I realised that we had thirty minutes left and we were washing finds again. It was still a relief from what had just transpired.
Lunch was rudely interrupted by what I thought was a lost British tourist near the finds room, but on closer inspection it turned out to be Uncle Simon calling us for an afternoon dig. My baby trowels were ready and eager to get going. There was a snag - we were on 'public archaeology duty' and the park was busy. This meant I seemed to be climbing in and out of the trench more times than the amount of times I had run to the sink this morning. But, at least the public were curious and interested! Although I wished they wouldn’t roll their eyes so much when they find it out it isn’t Roman. Time is the harbinger of all things and perhaps in time we will be able to instil in them that medieval is way cooler than their puny Romans.
With the sun shining through my window I awoke to a day as beautiful as the stars that had preceded it. Although rushed (as usual) with sun beating on my face, my mood was as happy as a dog's as I trundled through town towards Grosvenor Park and a day in the sun. Having whipped out Tiberius and my newly arrived trowel and his yet to be named co-worker on arrival, I hadn’t even changed my shoes when I realised I wouldn’t be in the sun for the morning, but the finds room.
I thought 'it won’t be too bad I suppose, last time was quite fun' but this time the sun was beating down with gay abandon and with the weather I was nervous about missing it, but I needn’t have fretted. As we sat in the circle again waiting for instruction I could feel the tension in the room with last times antics still hanging in the air - everyone eyeing nervously the seriously diminished finds trays wondering if another scramble was about to ensue. Fortunately, for the rest of my group anyway as I had already stalked about a potentially good bag and I wasn’t about to lose the fight this time, we were not going to need any new bags. Instead we were marking finds from ou previous trays.
As we whipped out our previous trays, thoughtlessly moved about by persons unknown, Julie conjured up ink and weird fountain pens. I saw eyes bearing down on me. This task obviously had a lot of scope for mess and I was going to be the prime suspect for any left behind.
Marking the finds was daunting to me as I knew it would require skill with a fountain pen, neat legible handwriting and a steady hand. I knew I had none of those skills and it was going to show. What seemed like hours later with several rushes to the sink to clear the ink before it dried, there was me still fiddling with what by now seemed like irrelevant clay pipe. However, it wasn’t going to beat me and after getting the ink on the table, floor, hands and somehow face I was triumphant until I realised that we had thirty minutes left and we were washing finds again. It was still a relief from what had just transpired.
Lunch was rudely interrupted by what I thought was a lost British tourist near the finds room, but on closer inspection it turned out to be Uncle Simon calling us for an afternoon dig. My baby trowels were ready and eager to get going. There was a snag - we were on 'public archaeology duty' and the park was busy. This meant I seemed to be climbing in and out of the trench more times than the amount of times I had run to the sink this morning. But, at least the public were curious and interested! Although I wished they wouldn’t roll their eyes so much when they find it out it isn’t Roman. Time is the harbinger of all things and perhaps in time we will be able to instil in them that medieval is way cooler than their puny Romans.
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| Dan W (seated outside the trench) talks to people in the park. |
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