Hello there.

Well, I'm three weeks into my training to learn how to be a Civil Servant. How freaky is that? If they had suggested the Civil Service as a career move when I left school, I would have choked on my chewing gum, and yet here I am.
Not sure if I want to disclose exactly what I do, but I'm currently having an identity crisis, not being sure if I'm Robin Hood or the Sheriff of Nottingham, and although I wouldn't wish unemployment on anyone... well, almost anyone, the continuing recession does make an extension of my contract look probable.

Anyway, I'm enjoying learning something new, even if my head is being stuffed with more acronyms than can be safe for one's health, and everyone is really friendly and welcoming. A lot of people had been unemployed for ages like me, so we are enjoying the company apart from anything else. I've got a good feeling about it.

I've just found LAST year's new year's resolutions. How did I do?

• Make a pair of cut hose to wear at Kentwell
Yup, I did that.

• Revise and further my knowledge of hieroglyphs and hieraic
Nope.
• Revise and further my knowledge of Arabic.
Nope, I failed to get motivated on both these fronts. Idiot.

• Complete my Executive PA Diploma with Pitman.
Oh, so almost there! As of Feb, I've just got my speed typing to finish.

• Get rid of some of my debts.
Yes, and thank God I did, or I wouldn't have the overdraft limit with which to pay my bills (because the JSA isn't enough to even pay those, let alone eat or do any other bodily function that costs money. It went up by £3 this week incidentally, for which I am, of course, pathetically grateful).

• Clear the rest of the house with the aim of down-sizing my stuff for the canal boat.
I am getting there.

• Try and plan for the future, re: MA and career.
Yeah, right.

. Clear and organise the cupboard under the kettle.
I am so ashamed...

Well, the church bell has just clanged out the hour of 9 a.m. ('chimed' is giving it a little too much grandeur), as our present incumbent likes to remind us the church is still part of the general community. Once I got over my childhood instinct of thinking the Vikings were invading every time I heard the bell at a non-service time, I came to rather like this friendly milestone in the progress of the day. I note this morning that my Mac is in perfect sync with the vicar, and that a long with the possibilities of invasion, reminds me of another piece of amazing timing…

Back in the day when I used to spend more time wearing historical costume than modern garb, I joined my friends for a number of memorable summer weeks interpreting castle life for school children and the public. It was a tremendous privilege as we actually got to live in the castle for the duration of our stay and after the staff had gone home of an evening, effectively we had the place to ourselves. One evening the others were down the pub and I was sitting on the battlements writing my diary and it suddenly dawned on me that I had the place to myself! Whoooooowhoooo! Pull up the draw bridge! But that's another story.
The castle was built on… well, mainly castle, more castle and eventually solid rock with the sea lapping, swirling, and occasionally, thundering onto the rocks all around. We'd explored the rock pools at low tide with their small, but weighty reminders of several centuries of warfare and military occupation. I'd roamed the battlements in the late evening when the brisk sea breezes sliced keenly between the machinations, and the shadows, born shoreward on the ridged back of a swelling tide, crept silently over the parapets and sunk into the dark places: the German gun emplacements with their fog-defying seascapes picked out helpfully on the walls in peeling black, white and grey; the scurrying leafy spaces between the Magazine and the rising edifice of the Don John; and the silent, echoing depths of Prisoner's walk. We didn't go there in the evening.
One fine evening the boss, his good lady and some eminent dignitaries were dining up in the town and we were leaning easy against the parapet, sipping a nice cup of tea and watching the evening harbour below us. Looking back, the Don John stood proud against the paling sky, glowing in the soft warm rays of the bedding sun. It had been another exhausting day in the roasting June heat, but in this pleasant coolness of after-supper leisure time our energies were returning. Eyes wandered to the towering keep above us, and imaginations started to spin. Someone's thoughts escaped: 'I wonder what's inside?'
Three drained teacups cooled on the wall.
There was a long ladder tucked away in one of the lower terraced gardens. We had a torch. We weren't planning on breaking and entering or anything… just getting a closer look at those deep sunken shafts that were set so very high up in the West wall, and looked oh so inviting and forbidden. We just wanted a look, because it wasn't open to the public. The dusk was falling heavily as we filed round the base of the Don John and taking care not to tread on the plants in the flower bed, thrust the feet of the ladder firmly into the soil and swung it up against the stones. It was a long way up but luckily the flood lights helped the bravest of us to climb up safely to get a peek over the sill…

… and from the window of the reputable seafood restaurant our boss laughed heartily and glanced over his host's shoulder and out across the harbour towards the castle. His jaw dropped. Fortunately in the moments before he recovered himself and launched into another story, his jaw was closely followed by his dentures. This is such a horribly fascinating sight that no one's attention strayed further than the immediate surroundings.


'Morning all!'
'Morning!' We chorus around mouthfuls of cornflakes, porridge and tea.
The boss joins us leaning on the wall and looking out over the churning water as the ferry powers round in the harbour.
'Good meal last night?'
'Yes, not bad. Funny thing happened though. Tell me, you lot weren't up to anything… weird last night were you?'
The ferry blows it's rude horn sending gulls up in a cackling cloud and scaring a pigeon witless.
A fisherman's dog barks down by the Sailing Club.
'Nope. Why?' comes a straight answer.
'It's just I looked over here last night and there seemed to be this incredible, huge, grotesque shadow play going on against the side of the keep! And I thought: what the Hell? And then I thought it wouldn't be any of you. Would it? You, you weren't up to something were you? Hey are you alright?'
Cereal sprays liberally over the battlements into the garden below and someone kindly thumps me on the back. I come up grinning weakly, wiping milk from my chin.
'Cornflake down the wrong way,' I croak apologetically.
My colleague downs the last of his tea and heads for the house to get changed.
'Juuust a quiet night in boss. Just a quiet night in.'
'OK. I thought so.'

The last bread related tale was my last-ever teaching experience of the 16th century kitchen, and talk about going out on a high! As a favour to Mad Anna (it's amazing how many people have that prefix to their name in my experience!), I had agreed to do a one-off baking day with the school with which she has contacts and luckily the news had got round to Ian, who, although long departed from the staff, like all of us kept his ears to the ground.
'Has Anna told you about her school?' he asked on the phone the day before the event.
There was a pause as my self-preservation gene kicked in (rather belatedly):
'No… why?'
'Have you any reliable help?'
''Er… none of my people, but I wasn't going to get worked up about it, I was just going to wing it.'
'Uh huh?'
'Oh, god. What are they like?'
'It's Anna.'
I know, that's just sinking in. What are they like?'
'Next stop Borstal.'
I'm just plummeting to the bottom of this statement when he says those words that turn the tide.
'I'm going to help you.'

Extreme Special Needs on the behavioural front would have been a fairly accurate description of the boys that morning. This meant that generally they were very good lads on a one-to-one basis, positively pleasant company in fact, but sharing attention was a problem. A big problem. We set up the usual activities: bolting flour, mixing and kneading dough, and then preparing the dough for the oven and eating it when it came out. Spirits were 'high' We keep a very tight ship when it comes to behaviour with mainstream kids because if we all know the Way Things Are in This Place, then we can all relax and have fun, and seeing as we are the biggest kids in the class, this is usually worth the effort! This was more like damage control on a dodgy atmosphere re-entry and once we realised this we just went with the flow and enjoyed it. We'd made it as far as the second session and all was going well, if you disregarded the two fistfights, the minor incident with the pestle and the timely removal of the knife rack. I had half of them out in the garden bolting flour and we were basking in the beautiful June sunshine. It really was stunning. The sky was deep blue and the riot of meadow flowers in the border hummed with toiling bees. Swallows swooped low overhead and the Tamworths grunted their pleasure from across the track in the lazy shade of the threshing barn and cart shed.
Charlie was pushing it. He'd been pushing it all morning. By the look on his teachers' faces, he'd been pushing it for a lot longer than that. Right now he was bolting with one of his classmates. You bolt flour to relieve it of its one remnant of dietary usefulness: bran, (that's the brown coats wrapped round every seed). The bolting cloth is about 5' sq and has an open weave to allow the wimpy white stuff through. A few scoops of wholemeal flour are placed in the centre, the cloth wrapped carefully over it to keep it in and the cloth shaken vigorously like a big sieve. This can be done by one person with an end clasped tightly in each hand. If the person doing it is female and wearing a 16th century bodice, she can gather quite an audience. Alternatively two people with a certain gift of rhythm can do very well. We have our suspicions about bolting houses, but that's definitely another story. On this occasion rhythm was a definite problem and so was Charlie. He'd continued adding more flour to the cloth when he'd been asked to stop, so it was over laden and bulging ominously. He was also getting rougher and rougher in his tugging, much to the irritation of his partner, who, to his credit, was trying to make a good job of the task.
I saw it coming. In the split second before it happened I saw the whole scenario play out before me. I should stop it, I thought. And miss out on this wonderful lesson in consequences, grinned the side of me that had given in to the general trend of the day.
So I let it happen.
The last violent tug wrenched the bolting cloth from Charlie's poor partner's fingers. Everything went into slow motion as the loaded cloth arced up and started to relinquish its burden in a magnificent and powerful cascade of flour. Two teachers and half the kids caught it full on, amid a chorus of shrieks; the well roof, the lawn and the wildflower border looked like a freak case of snow in summer, and still the cloth arced up and up, followed by pasty, fascinated faces. It reached the peak of its trajectory and gave Charlie just enough time to lower his wide-eyed gaze to the assembly of grins-in-the-making around him, before the substantial remains of his own over-loaded cloth, deposited itself squarely and completely onto his head!
Five minutes later Ian and I were leaning against the well and waving the last of the teachers off with the reassurance that it was really no problem and we'd manage the clearing up while they were seeing how flour was ground and having their lunch. As the roar of the pre-medicated swarm died away, we braved a glance at each other and instantly collapsed in howls of gut-crushing silent laughter. By the time we managed to actually make a sound the tears were streaming down our dusty faces and we were both writhing around on the grass.

'Oh god, do you think we had better radio the Mill and warn them?'
I thought of all the occasions the Mill had had my quota of volunteers and I'd been left helpless and unable to function. I lay back in the sun and the flour.
'Nah, on the other hand, they'll be fully staffed. I'm sure they'll cope just fine.

What a teaching day to go out on, and thank the goddess for Ian. Give me kids on the mental and physical special-needs spectrum over most 'mainstream' ones any day of the week (because they are usually a pure pleasure to learn with: intelligent, receptive, inquisitive, funny, caring and supportive of one another and unhampered by the dreadful peer pressure of needing to appear totally uninterested in anything offered by the age of nine), but kids who have been screwed up mentally by their parents' lifestyle and the environment around them- I think I'll leave that to others on a fulltime basis! Charlie was unusually co-operative for the afternoon session.

My Tudor Kitchen had a bread oven. It sat in the corner, acting as a continual reminder of the startling ignorance of about 75% or more of the adults that walked through the door. Coming in from the garden they would stop in their tracks as the extreme low-lighting of my kitchen underworld blinded them, and while their eyes adjusted they would exclaim how dark and smoky it was (we had no chimney), making the standard remark about not needing cigarettes to get lung cancer in those days ( a comment which never ceased to make my lungs sink). Then they would recognise the oven and proceed to tell their companions or me about lighting the fire in the bottom…


It wasn't their fault. A lot of illustrations show wood being stored below and it's not an illogical hop from wood to heat, but as I explained to the women, that would be like turning on their bottom oven and putting their roast in the top oven/grill and then expecting it to cook! It surprised me that so few people knew even the basics, even the older folks and not just about baking! I started out thinking I was going to be informing people about Medieval to 17th century European food and cooking, but it soon became apparent that I was informing them about… well, about FOOD! With the reign of the Supermarket, in relative terms, so recent, it is truly terrifying how the sonambulant public have relinquished their knowledge, traditions and independence in this essential area of life so rapidly and completely.

My kitchen was the first experience many youngsters had of 'where-meat-comes-from'; an encounter, which always had to be handled carefully. Paul's chickens were 4 or 5 years old and had reached the end of their laying life, so he very kindly gave me one a week to pluck of a Saturday afternoon and boil up the next day. Tough old birds, but with a good boiling, boy, did they taste good!

One such afternoon I was sitting in the doorway, making the most of the single ray of sunshine slanting in from the garden, and plucking away and chatting as usual. A bunch of kids turned the corner and shrieked in pubescent horror at the scene before them. I brought the cries of 'Oh, my God, that's so gross.' 'I think I'm going to be sick.' 'That's so cruuuuuuel, how could you?' to a swift end by engaging their brains. I explained what kind of life Matilda hen had enjoyed three fields over and contrasted it with the cramped, miserable and horribly short life of the pink pimply blob of meat on the non-recyclable tray they might possibly buy from an un-specified Major Supermarket. I then asked them which they would prefer to eat and unanimously they pointed to Matilda! It was at times like that that I knew my job was worthwhile.


People loved bake days! Those were the days that I had dedicated and die-hard staff (volunteers) and the place bustled with activity. Dough and spirits rose together. Three days stick in my mind though and are worth the telling.

The first oven caught fire on two memorable occasions. It was kind of inevitable. Its construction consisted of a wicker domed framework with a thick coating of daub slapped onto both inside and out, which was then fired to form a hard clay coating. Essentially we had a wood and clay beehive shape with an opening at the front, a smooth tiled floor, and the aforementioned under-section for storage and safe disposal of hot ashes at different stages of the bake. We lit the fire inside, which heated up the walls and floor, and was then raked out and exchanged with the fashioned dough (placed straight onto the tiles), and the oak door was placed in the opening and plugged with more dough to seal in the heat. We had a problem: the oven cracked badly. This, according to several African visitors, was perfectly normal and ovens burning down was just 'one of those things'. Ordinarily we would have a bucket of clay to plug the cracks as we spotted the smoke escaping, but it's always the days when you're too busy to do that, that you find you shouldn't have been! The other problem, explained Johnny in echoing tones, from inside oven number 2 some months later, was that we weren't allowed to use cow dung in the daub and he suspected that it was in the original recipe for a damned good reason!

Anyway, one morning, we were trying to prepare a pleasant Tudor meal for two dignitaries who needed to be impressed, so they would vote in our favour for some prestigious building award. As per usual an unscheduled schools party had to be taught simultaneously and we were behind like the cows tail, with the dignitaries due at any moment. I glanced inside the oven and thinking the flames to be a bit high fetched the peel (a flat spade-shaped tool with a very long handle) to remove the flaming brands. I then realised it was extra bright because the oven roof was alight from within! The wicker inside catches if the cracks are wide enough! So five minutes later I had hot smouldering cinders all over the floor, creating a pall of smoke, and steam emanating in ashen clouds from the oven, as Joanna Lumley (AbFab fame) and some important Lady somebody or other arrived on my doorstep!
'Oh, don't worry,' I laughed encouragingly, 'had a spot of bother, but everything's under control now! Why don't you take a tour of the garden while we finish off!'
Bless them both, they took it all in their professional stride, and a pleasant dinner was, in fact, had by all!


The next occasion was terminal for oven number 1. We had special hands-on Baking Days for a carefully limited number of paying public to attend. They had the kitchen to themselves and we explored the techniques and recipes of the past. This particular day the carefully limited number of paying participants, plus the three extra the PTB had sprung on me without warning … and the two sessions of unscheduled school parties were all enjoying the very cosy environment of an overcrowded kitchen. My two helpers, who had been assigned the task of firing up the oven while I dealt with the historical and doughy bits, were having to deal with the school kids in the hall across the passage and make flat cakes with them, and stoke the fire.

I looked across the room and my eye was drawn by the roaring inferno beyond the black Hellmouth of my oven door. 'Oh bugger!!!' A rapid inspection from above confirmed my fears: the outer wall of the oven, around the cracks, was glowing! The wickerwork had caught and the fire was travelling within the oven walls! Children and bakers were evacuated under the guise of lunchtime, while we scraped the cinders into the hearth and called for help. It was decided, against my better judgement, that the oven should be extinguished by pouring water over the hot patches while the bake day continued. This was soon amended to pouring water over cloths that were slapped against the side of the walls because the water alone was merely opening up the cracks and feeding it more air! Poor Margaret and Vee spent three hours dowsing and still there were areas too hot to touch! What troupers! I love my girls!

The bakers continued to get their moneys' worth of entertainment. We got a full bake out of the oven itself before the back wall caved in, (damned if I was going to waste all that hard won heat!!) and then we baked bread in every way conceivable… without a bread oven, and a good day was had by all. The oven, it is important to point out, is merely inches from the wattle and daub wall of the kitchen so sadly there was no way I was going to either baby-sit it all night, or leave it unattended in its still burning hot state at the end of the day. Johnny and Paul carefully dismantled the smoking ruins before we left. Poor Johnny, he'd worked so hard to build it, and there it was: gone.

I'd been running on pure adrenalin for so many hours that by the time my friend Ann had finished her Rag Rug class ( and convinced her tutor that she was one of the rare people in the world to be capable of 'random'), found me in the Great Hall at the Arts and Crafts College down the road, where we'd arranged to meet before supper, I was curled up in the corner of a sofa in front of the huge inglenook fireplace snoring softly!


Rarely a dull moment!

It was NEVER this light!

I'm going to slot a few MySpace entries in here, just in case I fold that blog. These are some memories from Singleton.


Once upon a July afternoon I was sitting on a stool with my back to the warm worn bricks of my favourite early 17th century farmhouse, with a half-plucked chicken in the lap of my apron, chatting away to the public about my life as a farmer's wife in 1630 (as you do), when suddenly I felt a tickle on my arm and looked down to see a tiny uninvited black thing making a bee-line for the inside of my sleeve. I stopped him in his tracks and turned the coopy over to get a better angle for plucking, and froze. The bird was craaaaaaaaaaawling with little 'friends'… as was my apron and a good portion of my kirtle and bodice! What do I do? I have no idea what kind of crawly creatures they are, what they were likely to do to me and exactly WHERE in particular they were heading! I either completely FREAK and tear all my clothes off, or I stay professional, stay in character and carry on as if everything was perfectly normal. I went for the latter but finished the job as rapidly as was polite and hung my apron on the hedge. A hissed query to one of our 20th century interpreters and a swift radio call to the Assistant Education Officer put my mind almost at rest as to their non-malicious intent. Oh boy was that a loooooong and itchy afternoon! We hung all my clothes up in the outshot over night and early the next day Ian turned up armed with a big grin, a large can of budgie spray and after administering the latter, an enormous hug! We have been soul mates ever since!

He'd just been to the museum's weekly staff meeting and in answer to the boss's enquiry as to whether my group were settling in well for the week, he waves the budgie spray and announces 'Oh yes, very well. I'm just off to de-louse one of them now!'


Some eight months later I was working there full time and in charge of their refurbished Tudor kitchen. There are many tales about that I'll tell you, but not today. It does remind me of another sunny-day related memory though. The weekly staff meetings were largely loathed by many and almost totally failed to achieve any of the co-worker cohesion they were designed to inspire. The REAL meetings took place every morning on the bench by the Education department. When I think of them I picture those pinky-blue early mornings in the Autumn, with the mist rising Avalon-like from the lake and the sun gently flooding the woolly hill tops above with mellow rays and long shadows, while down below the steam boiled up from dewy dilapidated thatch on barn and cot. Every morning a most raggle-taggle bunch of misfits would be mystically drawn by the ritual boiling of the kettle and would gather on and around the bench to touch down with the day and the world in general. Ian the Assistant Ed Officer, an inspired visionary in unconventional education, a demon pattern maker, probable genius, fabulous chef and the man the volunteers would follow to the ends of the earth, sits on one side of me in his latest designer shirt, with a cup of builders tea, rolling a ciggy (the word 'fag' is not used in his presence unless you want to have your head beaten about with his latest Dolly Parton CD by his rampant decorating gene!).
On my other side is… well, I'm not sure Johnny has a title. He arrived a number of years ago, read, digested and transformed into useful knowledge, the entire contents of the entire library and turns his skilful hand to just about anything and everything with a quiet manner, forceful intellect, and staggering lack of self confidence. Occasionally they pay him for it. (He would vehemently deny most of that as it is, of course, a wild exaggeration, but it feels right.) I would trust his word over that of any of the academics, on just about any subject relating to the museum. He has the largest collection of axes I've ever seen outside the Royal Armouries, is a brilliant teacher and looks just peachy in a pair of tight hose and doublet.
I'm in the middle munching my cocoa pops. Paul our pig farmer-turned-gifted-carpenter is next to join us. A man, who prior to making the furniture for my kitchen was bored out of his under-worked brains making endless besoms for sale to the public and consoling himself with rearing the most wonderful red Tamworth pigs, a few sheep and chooks. Now he's so damned good he sells wooden furniture to Scandinavia! Throw in the later arrivals of the wonderful, loveable, overworked and menopausal secretary Chris, and her adorable pooch, (the office mascot and vacuum cleaner) and finally Diane, the sardonic, forward-thinking and inspirational Education Officer, who might not have done getting up at 'sparrow-fart' voluntarily, but like her assistant, was so good at her job that she outgrew the current capabilities of the museum (this phrase was severely censored and reworked for reasons of self preservation) and was sadly the first to leave in a long and painful transformation of our brilliant, successful and acclaimed department. She is now skilfully raising the profile of another museum across the border- as its manager! Go girl!!!
Everyone's plans were voiced, problems were discussed and resolved, (even if only theoretically!) useful assistance was offered and gratefully received, historical queries were raised from people's latest reading matter and inspired experiments, which either took over the day, or went on an intellectual backburner until they'd matured well enough to be REALLY explosive! No worry was too trivial, no subject too taboo… (in fact they were the favourites,) and in that precious hour before the rest of the museum was awake, real bonding took place. In the light of the strengthening sun we laughed, griped, giggled, smoked, slurped and occasionally screamed our way into the day. That was a taste of team spirit you only usually see in fiction.

Once tasted, forever longed for…

Hey there,

The year is jogging along quite nicely.

I have had my 2nd filling from the dentist at the HB Hospital emergency clinic and it seems to be behaving itself. One more check-up and then hopefully I can give the dentist a rest for a while. Can't complain about the price of these guys but it's costing me a fortune in lost working hours, (no sick pay until I've been with them for 6 months). This tooth was the one that's been gappy since I lost its old fiilling on Guernsey... yes, THAT long ago!!!

I have Andy and Carla's old washing machine coming my way when they're new kitchen goes in which will mean I'll no longer be putting upon Trace to to my laundry which is great.

Work is good, depite some hideous weather. All the new people are great apart from Mark the weirdo but luckily he's not on my plateau. I worked yesterday (Saturday), for some extra dosh, and one break with him was ample. The plateau 2/4 people are getting lots of extra fresh air as they can't stand being in the cabin with him. He says the strangest things, either provocative or just plain weird in this great booming voice. No social awareness and boring to boot. Odd chap, very odd. Everyone else is great. We all went out for a Chinese meal the other week to celebrate a few birthdays and to send Ross and Andy off to St Lucia for the dig Ross is running. So far the pics on line have been of the beech rather than any trenches, but...
Home on the Range, I spent ages on Tuesday trying to find some finds proof that a ditch was modern. I was willing a bit bit of 'blue and whites' to come to the top but alas nowt but medieval pottery and flints. Kirsty and I got pulled off P5 and sent to P3, out in the middle of nowhere to 'clean up' a couple of machined trenches to see what was happening with a strange dark charcoally layer in both. Bloody great things, a couple of metres square. The wind was so strong we could barely struggle over to them and it had sleet in its teeth. By lunchtime it was so bad we got sent home. It then DELUGED and the next day we had to start all over again as they'd been trashed!!! A quick job turned into a three day event or more, because we finished Kirsty's on Friday, I finished digging mine on Saturday and I've still got to record it. Snow is expected but I'm praying for fine weather until I can get it in the bag. Blue sky and skylarks on Saturday. Chris keeps the Thanet weather in perspective by passing on reports from her mum back in Canada, of the -40 conditions she has to face at the moment. The Swedes, Pols, American and Canadian members of our team think Britain is pathetic in it's inability to cope with bad weather. They're so right.

I'm planning a long weekend of relaxing, and as it happens, excavating Tilly the Goat at Ian's in a few weeks. Jade, his little niece, for some weird reason, idolises me (totally unprovoked!!!) and the whole archaeology thing and since she found a jaw bone in the garden, has been nagging to dig up more bones ever since. Tilly, who was buried when Ian was 10 seems to be the best bet! She HAS to be bones-only by now, surely? Will organise some activities around it to teach her some of the thinking behind archaeology if she's interested. Otherwise we're just digging up a pet goat, which is a bit ghoulish. She can draw some pictures and take them into school which will amuse her teachers I'm sure!! Hee hee.

I've said 'yes' to the role of Mary Hurst at the HRW St. Nics Priory event in Exeter in April. Haven't done it for so long so this will be a deciding event for me. Do I stay and be active or leave properly. Has to be done either way.

I'm thoroughly enjoying going through my substantial video collection which my TV licence now allows me to watch. Haven't quite got the hang of TV again yet: and have remembered to watch Lark Rise to Candleford but missed 2/3 Torchwoods! The former is gentle and I like the characters of Dorcus the Post Mistress, and Mr Timmings. It sort of touches a chord: leaving a lowerclass way of life and aspiring to something better. I've always done that and been very aware of where I've come from and while liking some aspects of it, hating others.

Tracey and Rob are having problems with their dog Poppy and at one stage thought she'd been poisoned. Not sure what the latest is but I'm thinking of them because it's been really tough.

Against all advice and common sense I joined up with Facebook because I was feeling lonely and isolated and all the guys at work are on it. As it happens, I've linked up with loads of friends from Uni so I'm pleased I id it really. Just hope my SPAM exterminator on Gmail can cope with all the increased advertising crap it'll be getting.

See ya.

2008

It’s been a somewhat challenging and, in some ways, rewarding year.

From January to June I was on the Thanet Earth excavation. This was a personal challenge, because the work was still new to me, and although I’d just spent three years studying for a degree in archaeology at UCL, let’s face it, I’m an ancient scripts person at heart, not a field archaeologist! Physically my knees and back just weren’t up to it and I suspect I might have some king of sight impediment because I found it almost impossible to tell the difference between context colours. I don’t think I’ll ever be quick or confident enough to really enjoy it, and the constant black cloud of paranoia induced by the ever-present possibility of redundancy that hung over us all, was too draining. Hardly a day would go by without someone bemoaning their fears.

At the end of November when redundancy finally became a reality, despite the floods of tears, in retrospect it was a huge release! True, I didn’t appreciate leaving the dig in the cellar in St Margaret’s Street on the Friday, with everyone directly involved thinking I was going to start an eight-week finds archiving job in Whitstable on Monday, to receive a letter from the boss on Saturday saying the money had fallen through and I was being let go in two weeks… And having to spend my Saturday phoning round informing Andy I wouldn’t be with him and asking Phil if it was ok to return to the cellar, because Bennett hadn’t thought any of that was necessary. Bastard! If I had a List, that man would be on it.

I’m in two minds. The possibility that my digging days are over is only just sinking in and it’s a very odd feeling. Not being part of the archaeological process is a very sad prospect, and the further I get from being able to continue with ancient Egyptian scripts the sadder it is. God, I miss it SOOOOOOO much! Sometimes it feels like I’m being punished for having found what I love and what I would really like to do, by being forcibly separated form it. I miss the structure of learning and my brain’s dead by the time I get home at night. I must fight back. Another part of me, the sensible part, is saying that I have to remember that the three years at UCL weren’t a means to an end, but a stolen season of stimulation and fulfilment in it’s own right.

I’ve retrained this year (after work) and the end of my Executive PA Diploma with Pitman Training is in sight with prospects in administration. I must be positive and see it as an opportunity to be sitting down and indoors! I’ll never forget that I was actually Good at scripts though. I don’t get to be good at stuff very often, but that was one I’ll always be proud of even if I never get the chance to continue.

So I’ll take the good memories of working for CAT: that gorgeous medieval jug I excavated with Ross in half an hour before the end of the day on Plateau 5, the numerous sherds of yummy pottery, the occasional smudge of green that turned out to be something more interesting; the iron age burned daub with wattle impressions left in it; recording the quarries in impossible high winds; the amazing vistas of Thanet; being in the flight path of the big planes for Manston; the hares racing each other; the sky larks and the sexy dumper trucks. The great people: Kirsty Smith’s 101 slapstick moments a day; Kirsty Bone’s ability to find phallic shaped features; Tasker’s cock henge and quizzes that kept us laughing; Ian’s hair and ability to moan for Britain; Shell’s singing and dancing; Dale’s excuses for not keeping to his diet; watching Shell driving across site at the requisite 10 miles an hour; Don’s stories of the secret bunkers in the war and of the lovely Iris; the argument between Bennett and Richard Cross that went on for almost an hour in the pouring rain; the red van; George; the bronze-age round barrow, until Bennett ruined it; interacting with the public and being appreciated on the open days; Ant moments with Jess at Wincheap; the small god Fat Bum and his Friday feast days of chips; preparing for the End of the World with Jess and Dale, and the team work and great working atmosphere of the cellar. I’m glad I went out on that dig as it was a real treat: fab team, great archaeology, amazing stratigraphy, superb music, and ten out of ten for quirky surroundings! No daylight, little air and fewer stairs!

The greatest achievement for me, and what’s kept me going for a lot of the year, has been Scribalings, my online creative writing group, which started out in March as an attempt to get my sister to rediscover some of her definite talent for storytelling, and ended up being supported by people from three countries. It continues to grow slowly, but steadily. We now have 2 challenges a month: one fiction, one non-fiction, and we have roughly 7 active members and a few people who joined and we haven’t heard from since. I designed it to be an inclusive, friendly, and supportive environment where people of any ability would feel they could put a toe in the water without fear of judgement or ridicule, and would be guaranteed support. For most people it has been just that, and I feel like I’ve done something good and worthwhile. I firmly believe that creativity is a ward against all manner of ills, makes us healthier in our minds and bodies, and is a definite tonic for the soul. I think it’s vital for our well-being and growth, and being able to help people on this path, quite frankly, makes life worth living. It’s been a very steep learning curve for me to realise that sometimes, no matter how good you’ve made something, people still reject it. They just aren’t ready to see what is in front of them, because their pain won’t allow them to recognise it for what it is. I have to learn patience, rather than feeling like I’ve failed, as healing isn’t always a quick fix, and there is always hope. I just have to keep the light on, and the door on the latch. Sorry, bit deep there, but I’m feeling a bit vulnerable at the moment, and I needed to get that one straight in my mind.

What other news? Mum continues to live in the home on the Downs and I visit her most Saturday afternoons. Her brain is getting more and more Swiss cheesy, and she forgets who people are if they aren’t immediate family, but she’s generally OK. Occasionally she’s away with the fairies, whereby we have them check for urinary infections, they put her on antibiotics and she’s back to normal in a few days. She’s chosen to remain in bed and in her room, rather than mix with the other residents. As she only hears the loons down her corridor, one can’t blame her for thinking they are all mad. Our relationship has improved tenfold from what it was, as we are no longer vying for dominance over territory. I think this was our main problem in the past. She rules her trolley, draws and windowsills with a rod of iron and I let her get on with it. Occasionally I query her growing collection of paper napkins, but everybody needs a hobby. I’ve made sure everyone knows not to buy birthday cards for people, because despite what she says, they have been taken care of! We have to go through the card box every week, and I have to tell her I have plenty of her money with which to buy her things every week, but it’s good practice in tolerance on my part. Compared with the agony of the last two years of her living on her own, this is peanuts! What the future holds on that front, who knows, but at the moment, she’s ok.

I remain at Hillborough, house-sitting for June and Dave. It’s expensive, cut off from any regular sort of social life, and cold. A lot of the time it has felt like a prison, as I can’t conceivably leave without causing them a major financial crisis, which might result in them having to sell it. At the moment I’m determined not to leave the area while mum is still ‘with us’, and I need to downsize my life’s belongings to the amount you could fit in one room, before I can go anyway, so it’s just my gypsy feet that are miserable. I am very lonely though,

Right, does that cover 2008? Got seriously into Doctor Who, and my biggest disappointment, that cut so deep I have to mention it, is not seeing David Tennant in Hamlet.

I’m finishing this in February, because I forgot I’d started it, so please excuse the slightly ‘down’ tones. I’ve been unemployed for a long time now, and I’m struggling a bit with the ‘stiff upper lip’. We are in a major recession at the moment, which is kind of exciting in a scary kind of way. Canterbury is beginning to look like a ghost town, with major shops closing down. We lost Woolworth’s as a chain. Wow, who would have thought they would go under? Good job I haven’t got any money, or I’d be pissed off for having nowhere to spend it, eh? Silver lining there, I think! Steve, my nephew said today that ‘They’ are saying that the whole scenario with the banks giving too much money away, and the time taken for things to develop the way they have, is an exact match for the big slump in America in the 30s. Interesting Times.

Happy New Year!

Travelling back from Kate and Brigit’s annual New Year’s party stuffed to the gunnels with fabulous food and good company. Everyone including Rose was here this year although a lot of us were suffering from bad colds, Tissy especially. My throat is sore this morning but I’m trying to ignore it.

Christmas was good. We had some delicious cold pork on Christmas day which was eaten in the form of a kind of picnic down at Mum’s. She was a little vague but not sure of it was another infection or stress from having so many visitors. Rooks the butcher did us proud again on Boxing Day with 2 free range chickens. I’d asked if anyone really liked turkey and no one did so we went for the tastier option. The cooking was a bit stressful in the way it always is for me as I really don’t enjoy it and it makes me bristly towards any male lazing about and watching dvds and grumbling when asked to contribute the slightest thing. It was great to see everyone and have a laugh.

Then it was a 9 ½ hour jouney by National Express down to Paignton to Ilke’s parents for recovery time with healing cups of tea, glasses of wine, Edelgard’s scrummy cooking and endless dvds!!!! These were mainly Alias Smith and Jones despite having spent the last 2 months watching precious little else. Got to play some poker too!

Edelgard has really come up with some amazing ideas for greetings cards. She takes her own photographs and then plays about with them on the computer with very individual results. I love them and I’m sure she’d find a market out there!

The other most-watched show was… and I can’t believe this, Top Gear. I am a complete convert and have removed Jeremy Clarkson from my Room 101, not that he isn’t still a power-hungry, insulting bastard. He’s just a whole lot more too and with the combo of James May and Richard Hammond, it makes for an hilarious programme. They just get so excited about what they do, it’s a tonic to watch.

Although I personally recognise the beginning of April as the New Year, most of you folks don’t, so HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! My tick list for things to achieve this year include:

• clear and organise the cupboard under the kettle
• make a pair of cut hose to wear at Kentwell
• revise and further my knowledge of hieroglyphs and hieraic
• revise and further my knowledge of Arabic
• complete my Executive PA Diploma with Pitman.
• Get rid of some of my debts.
• Clear the rest of the house with the aim of down-sizing my stuff for the canal boat.
• Try and plan for the future, re: MA and career.

Looking back, I realise that this last week is the first week I have really enjoyed working for CAT, and sadly the reason for that is that Simon was called away to do urgent work on the Tannery site, and James (whose site Keycol should have been) has come in to assist in it’s final digging stage. He hates Simon so much, well, his ways of doing things mostly, that even we found ourselves defending him! The atmosphere has lifted considerably, my confidence has grown in leaps and bounds and I’m actually enjoying it!

Looks like I’m heading for Monkton, a kilometre square site on Thanet (nothing between Siberia and the site to stop the winter winds!!), this week. Should have been Monday but James wants me on Keycol for one more day. The totally daft thing about it is that because at the moment none of the diggers are coming through via the Thanet way, they want me to carry on coming into Canterbury to meet the van, when it’s less than 15 mins drive from home! Desperately looking for a lift and nephew Andy says he can do Mondays, bless him. Trace volunteered a while back if I was desperate, but I don’t want to over burden her as she’s already being a life-saver with my washing!!! Another time when I wish I could drive!!! I couldn’t afford a car anyway but still. I’m sure once we all get out that way SOMEONE will be going my way.

Anyway, managed to get a lift to Sittingbourne Station from James and escaped for an agonisingly brief visit to Ilke’s in Devon. I feel like I only just arrived and here I am on my way home again! Every time I visit I’m tempted to stay, I love Devon so much and Exeter is so easy to have a social life in, with it’s late night buses and central venues. I could go and see Show of Hands several times a year, go to folk clubs, Tai-Chi with Angus Clarke, who’s the best teacher I’ve ever had, and loads more. I’m really torn between home and Exeter. I’d miss Trace like anything, I’d need a job, and I feel I can’t really live a long way off until Mum goes now. That’s not to say if someone offered me a job in Egypt, I wouldn’t up sticks and go, but you know what I mean. I get such wonderlust feet! I need a special someone with a cottage, Landie and wolfhound to make it worth staying in one place, but I don’t seem to be able to get the hang of that.

We met up with Jenny and Graeme at the Spaghetti House last night and it was so GOOD to see them both again! We had a great laugh and giggled our way very loudly through our meal! Love them!

Ilke got me onto the next ‘thing’ to have fun with: the film Hairspray. Great fun, great songs and great messages about a fat girl who is so confident she gets where she wants to be against a tide of opposition that melts in the face of her enthusiasm and abilities. Arm in arm with this is racial integration in 1960s America as the black community in her town does the same thing. Got to get the soundtrack and put one or two on my ‘UP’ compilation which gets played most mornings on the way to work. I know my mood is very easily influenced my music so I’m trying to use that positively now days. John Travolta, the second major love in my pre-teen life, played the overweight and psychologically house-bound mother, (yes, mother) in the film, which was hilarious, especially when ‘she’ danced, because you thought, ‘That’s John Travolta dancing under that fat lady suit!’ Love the irony! I am so looking him up on iTunes when I get home. I’ve got an album of his on vinyl and I’d love it on disc. A good shake-up weekend, where we all decided to sort ourselves out and do more than just work and travel and sleep. Time to take charge again.

You can’t stop the beat!

Well, three weeks into my trial month and there have been highs and lows and I still have no real idea how safe my position is. I’ve made silly mistakes like doing sections at 1:20 instead of 1:10, but I’ve pretty much cured myself of that now. Simon is always correcting my context sheets, which is fair enough, but seeing as most of his comments begin with phrases like ‘People always get this wrong’, or ‘ I don’t know why people have problems with this…’, so I shouldn’t feel alone. He is always reminding me that we only have ‘X’ number of weeks left so I should ‘Whack it out’, and if you don’t know, guess!!! but he says that to some of the others too, so again I shouldn’t feel bad. I shouldn’t but I do!

Had a particularly bad week two weeks back and having to cope with Simon and PMT was not the most wonderful experience I have ever had. I truly don’t know how I stopped myself from yelling at him. Paul (not the boss!) says I shouldn’t have held back. They all say he makes it up and after a particularly good case of digging out a Simonism, I’m afraid I have to agree. There has to be an element of his just being able to guess what should be there in a certain structure and being able to see minute changes in the soil colour or makeup because of his years of experience, but all the same. I was working on the base of a Roman building that had a later service trench dividing it up the middle. I’d taken the clay off the top of both parts and removed the layer below the west portion. He had decided there should be a soil infil abutting the far eastern side before the row of flints. I was trying to see it and he gave me his usual ‘We’ve only got 2 weeks,’ bit, as well as (actually rather kindly) saying it was difficult to get your eye in at first and it was a matter of confidence. I agreed but told him that this layer looked and felt EXACTLY the same as its western partner to me. ‘Ah, yes,’ he says, “but for different reasons’ (!). He’d scored the first part out so I merely followed that in a straight line and called him back saying, ‘I think I’ve got most of it out, could you have a look.’ ‘Oh, yes, that’s certainly where I expected it to be…’
Bollocks, absolute bollocks!
I like the guy socially, but I’m sorry, it’ll take a long while before he earns my respect.

My 40th birthday was surreal. Spent the day with Paul at the Tannery site in Canterbury taking the environmental readings for English Nature. Why we are doing it and not someone from EN I have no idea but it got us tasty bacon sarnies and hours of quality time in a metal lockup listening to ‘Around the Horn’, ‘Sorry I haven’t a Clue’ and ‘Punt and Denis’. Paul’s a ‘bones’ bod and a birder too so we get on well. Ian Charles is practising really hard to be a grumpy old git, but despite non-stop moaning, never quite manages it because he’s a nice bloke! Ian Anderson is quiet and gets on with it without being hampered or moaned at by Simon, probably because he knows far more about Roman coins than Simon could drink gin (and that’s saying something!!!!). Don is a volunteer and has been working with the Trust for years. He’s a sweetie and is always telling us of his formidable wife Iris (who is also a sweetie!). He worked in one of the nclear bunkers in the war and some stories to tell. Jake is our pre-uni gap year student who’s pretty quiet. Richard drives the van and has Simon’s ear. He’s very experienced and gets on with it.

Got away at a reasonable time and joined Tracey and Robbie for a wonderful birthday evening! They had lit 40 tea lights around the conservatory and it lit our meal very well (ahem!). It looked lovely and we had silver plates… primary school teacher style, ie cut out silver paper under our real ones. Awwwwww!
Trace had done us roasted veggies with home made hummus, a chicken and bacon white wine casserole dish and chocolate cake, fresh berries and cream to finish. Wow!!!! It was delicious and a fab way to celebrate my birthday! We had champers too, and my pressie is a head and shoulder massage at one of the salons in town. Mmmmmmm, looking forward to that!!!! Trying to plan it so I can have a relaxing day altogether to maximise the effect.

Saucepan cupboard and utensil drawers today. Trying to push on before I start work. All the jobs I haven’t got round to yet. I know it’s taken me ages but to be honest there’s only so much I and the dustman can take at any one time. I am getting there, bit-by-bit, cupboard-by-cupboard. I might even feel like I can invite visitors round to dinner one day, like it’s a normal house. One day. It’s been an oddly therapeutic summer in that regard. I’ve never known a time when I wasn’t embarrassed by this house and the evidence of distinctly dodgy taste it has always showcased! Not even when I was little. I loathed the mess, the dust, the piles of newspapers, the plastic bags, the front room carpet, every pair of curtains we’ve ever hung, every three piece suite we’ve ever owned apart from possibly the brown one that fell to pieces. I hated the poverty, the hoarding of broken implements, of appliance boxes, of hiding away the only reasonable stuff we had for a rainy day, so you never actually got to use them in your lifetime.

Don’t get me wrong. I like some of old stuff, like the enamel baking dishes despite their being black and gruesome, and I like the old fashioned waste-not want-not attitude. I applaud it in fact. What I could never bare was not making the most of what you have and never believing that it would ever be any different… thus never allowing it to change. This has been an opportunity to throw away physical and mental rubbish at the same time and given the house and myself a chance to breathe for the first time. It’s been good.

Also realising that I don’t know all the stories as well as I should and that I need to get them from Mum before it’s too late. She told me that the sideboard in the sitting room was probably Dad’s, the big chest of drawers on the landing and the smaller one in my room and the dressing table were all her mum’s (Hilda). I already knew that the table belonged to Molly Bate’s mum and was in London during the Blitz. Molly was the old lady who lived in Forge Bungalow with whom I used to watch cowboy films with our teddy bears. She also used to make me jellies, which I quite often didn’t like, and her sponge cakes tasted like ‘Old Lady’ cakes, but she was fun and I liked her immensely. She used to hide Midge the mouse and I had to try and find him. Good times.

Found something truly astounding to behold in the larder today!

SPACE!

Lifted the geraniums out of the tubs and into pots in doors today. A bit early I think but we are mid October soon and I don’t want them getting frosted.

Mowed the lawn! No mean feat with our mower! Luckily Doug had told me how to get the choke to work which is a right bugger and after I’d googled ‘Combustion engines’ and ‘Choke’ so I knew what they did and how they worked, with a bit of brute force and a fair bit of swearing she actually started and stayed going! My cutting isn’t brilliant, but it’ll improve.
Dug a new border and planted my wallflowers!!! I’m going to have wallflowers in the spring!!! They’re my favourite and mum wouldn’t have them so I’m really looking forward to seeing them.

At last! Canterbury Archaeological Trust contacted me for an interview and the director (who was a tough cookie!) accepted me for a month's probationary digging! It'll be just donkey work, down a hole in all weathers with no fancy stuff, but he said I would be able to work up to that and better pay if I stayed. Thank God! I was wondering how much more unemployment I could take! Mind you, I also got accepted my M&S last week, but who wants to work for the company that put the last nail in the coffin of the British Linen industry if they don't have to eh? Hurrah! I start on the 15th.

It’s been an odd summer. I’ve achieved loads on some fronts and it feels like nothing on others. Sweechbridge isn’t completely clear yet but I am most definitely getting there. I go at it in waves: a cupboard here, a shelf there. I could have gone all out and down nothing else, but I’d never have kept up with my job-hunting responsibilities and the hall, which has been acting as my “goods-out” would have become impassable!

I’ve been unemployed for 13 weeks this week and it feels like it! The woman at the job centre can’t believe it but I think it’s really because I’ve been going for admin. jobs with no qualifications to back them up. All my experience comes by way of transferable skills, which sound great until you try to get a job on the strength of them! I’m on about application no. 36 or something and that’s included retail work in the last month. After not getting a job in London that was very important to me, I lost most of my dignity and went back on my resolve not to revert to shop work (because it makes me so depressed). My interviews have been few. Apart from London (admin job in a commercial and home security company, which, although in itself wasn’t that exciting, would have provided me with contact with the world of Egyptian lectures etc I’ve just left behind and miss so much, a decent wage and the chance to work with what seemed like a REALLY nice bunch of people), I’ve had one for an archiving job in Maidstone, and last Thursday, one for the Estates dept at Kent University. I’m trying not to hang too much hope on that one as I’d like it a lot and my sense of self-worth is rapidly deteriorating. This week I also have an interview with M&S and WHSmith (Post-Office) and, finally, Canterbury Archaeological Trust. I feel guilty at wanting the Uni job over that but, HELL, the winter is fast approaching, it’s wet and I have no washing machine!!! I joined UCL to learn hieroglyphs remember, not to become a general archaeologist. Not that that wasn’t a pleasant surprise, but cold and wet muddy clothes are not my idea of fun as far as a daily job goes. What happens will happen.

A number of weeks ago, when it became obvious that the Jobcentre’s slogan of “the help you need, the job you want”, was complete bollocks, and I decided to take charge and have signed up to a Pitman ‘Executive PA Diploma’ to get this official recognition/fill in the gaps of my IT skills. I haven’t actually started yet as we were waiting for the 3 months unemployed milepost to arrive, so I could get a full loan from Barclays. Hopefully that will kick in before I start my new job, what ever that ends up being! In the mean time I’ve been doing a brush-up maths course with them for free (because of my low marks at O level.) Wow, has that been fun!?! At least now I understand why I left every maths lesson in tears and there with every homework took me for ever! I’m right there with the concepts: no problems. It’s the mental arithmetic. The sight of all those numbers on the page just freaks my dyslexic (or discalcliaic????) brain out. It gets bored and wanders off to find something more interesting! If I’m allowed a calculator I’m pretty much sorted. No matter how I try, I still make stupid little mistakes, which of course derail the whole thing. Again, this is a kind of relief, as I know WHY! I can now do currency conversions and for the first time in my life I know which months in the year have 31 days! The “30 days…” rhyme has never worked with me because basically it’s just a 3:2:1:3 syllable ratio, which works with several month combinations, but because I took it home and promised to come up with something I would remember, I did a bit of research. It’s not alternate months, and Wikipedia couldn’t come up with a reason why they were chosen in anyone’s calendar, so I went with a hunch and pinned the two months that surround, May and October, as significant instead. The most memorable hooks I could find were that they contain cross-quarter equinoxes, Beltaine and Sowhain***, so are the beginning and end of summer. October being my birthday month also helps because I know that has 31 days! The lengths I go to get something in my head! Bloody stupid calendar anyway: I’d go for the Egyptian one of 12 months of 30 days ending the year with a few days holiday! Not sure about the 10-day weeks though, and I like having 4 seasons, not 3, but nothing’s perfect.

Enough of that. I’ve just been to June’s and been to see Slava’s Snow Show! J&D were in Scotland, so Tom Rob and I went. It was just phenomenal! Nothing I say will in any way do this man’s art justice. He’s a clown and this in itself put me off accepting the invite last year, which I truly regret! His work is beautiful, graceful, surreal and truly WONDERFUL! We had a blizzard of paper snow and I mean wind machine hurling paper snow at you so hard you couldn’t see; a theatre full of bubbles and then these HUUUUUUUGE balls bouncing around the audience. By huge we’re talking about 16’ across for the largest. Massive! No one wanted to go home! When do adults get to play like that normally huh? Brilliant. I was just scooping up handfuls of snow and depositing them on the nearest persons head. This was mostly Tommy and Rob but a fair few strangers got them too. I loved the bubbles. When the scene had ended the lights went out but you could still feel the bubbles bursting on your face. Magical. He did a great arm in a hung up coat coming to life gag which was very effective. I know we always mock mime, but I’d forgotten that when it’s done well, it can be very effective. Trace and I used follow the Movie Picture Mime Show and they were brilliant too.

Friday and officially my last day as a student at UCL. Went into London for a late lunch with Andy (Rage), Andy Bell and Julie, and then on to the Institute to pick up our grades. I got my number and looked hopefully in the 2:1 section. I’d been praying I’d get there as I knew I stood a good chance of having flunked my Arabic and the second half of my Hieroglyph exam and Illustration was a loose cannon.
Not there.
Oh God… I scan the 2:2s, with my heart sinking.
Not there.
The 2:1’s again.
Nope.
My stomach is now in a tight knot. Only one place left to look.
Mouth drops open and jaw hits the floor. Shit!
I GOT A FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Julie was in the same boat and had to go back to check three times in case either one or both of us had gone temporarily insane or delusional.
There were quite a few of us, which made it more comfortable and… gods dam it, more plausible!!! I was in a state of numbing shock and although I kept welling up on the train down to Devon (heading for Ilke and Lucy’s), it really hasn’t sunk in.


A technicolour triumph.

I feel slightly guilty that Lee Mead’s triumph in winning the competition for the role of Joseph in the new production of Webber’s musical, which has been put to the public vote via a TV series, has taken priority over my own achievement. I honestly don’t know how to handle getting a first, but luckily, sharing in the well-earned realisation of his dreams has been easy. We have all been voting for him for weeks and tonight’s finale was so nerve-wracking we were literally sitting there on the edge of our seats holding hands and willing him to win with all our might!! We knew he was the man for the part, in voice, in acting ability, in command of the stage and in looks, but knowing his fate lay in the dialling fingers of the Great British Public was terrifying!!!!! Ilke and Lucy certainly did they’re best on the dialling front! The poor neighbours. When he won we let out this roar of delight and triumph. It was so exciting: our hearts were pounding and there were tears all round. I can’t wait to see him on the stage in Joseph… Oklahoma… Les Mis…
It was truly a Lee Mead weekend as we’d taped the show and all his past performances are on UTube on line. Yay Lee! I just love to see hard work, dedication and natural talent given the deserved opportunity to blossom and grow. It’s so damned exciting and assures you that Good still thrives in the world. Bless him!!!

Spent Monday to Friday at Ian’s in Sussex and despite it being a hectic week it was a time of replenishing the well. We’ve noticed that many of the people we try and help can be a tremendous drain on our energies as they are so ‘needy’ and tend to sap you, whether they mean to or not, but it doesn’t happen between the two of us. The energy goes both ways, which is such a relief.
We had fun doing an historical gardening talk in Fishbourne at which I felt all the old info flooding back from my museum days. This happened even more when we spent the day at Parham in a consultancy capacity, overseeing Gillian on her first schools day. She has some good ideas and is itching to set a proper programme in motion but the place is so set it in its ways we are worried that she’ll never be able to move them forward. They’re going to be in deep doodoos if they don’t, as the place is just going to rot without a serious change of attitude. Parham is the most beautiful house in the area and a vital rersource for the local community but it’s going to go under if the current owners don’t look out. They need to listen to Ian and look to the Museum to see what happens if you don’t! Ian says that Hannah, their current Interpretation Officer admitted they had no school bookings for the winter as yet, and when Ian had stopped choking, asked in a worried voice whether that was bad! We would have been booked into the following year!!! The schools are inevitably, but sadly voting with their feet.
It was so good to watch and listen to Gillian from a professional standpoint and know what was strong and weak and what could be done to tighten it up and make it an education programme to be reckoned with.
Went to supper with Amanda and Simon up at Whitelands. Lovely people and a fun, fun house. Their decoration is like one of her paintings, bright, vibrant and childlike, but created with style and a wonderful understanding of colour and pattern.
Made up a new lyric to the tune of the “Teddy bear’s picnic. ‘When you went up to the woods today, you should have gone in disguise.” I won’t say more for the sake of preserving reputations but you wonder how some people can play such a stupid game of Russian Roulette because of ludicrous denial of something that is so blatantly obvious.
Ian’s company is wonderfully liberating and I love him for easing light into the dark places that no one else can. I hope I give as much as I receive.
The animal cards puzzled us both. I got Turkey who sacrifices everything and gives everything away. I could only think it was encouraging me to continue whittling my belongings down and passing them on to the charity shops, but I’d asked about a job. First things first I guess.

Just felt like I’ve done my turn on the Flying Dutchman! The ‘final’ part of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy was a wee bit on the LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG
side! Very good, slightly surreal at times, but very good and so long we had an intermission!

The big news, of course, is not going to see ‘Pirates’, but finishing my degree!!! Louise Martin waved a magic wand and got me an extension on my last three assignments. My dissertation was a fraction of what it should have been content wise, although it was very hard to keep to the 10 000 word limit. I know I missed loads of pertinent points out but I just didn’t have time to cut my verbose chapter on the West Dean experiment down to free up the words! Never mind, it wasn’t awful. My Illustration portfolio was OK and the final essay for John Tait, ‘Is it really worth all the bother of publishing scraps of Egyptian texts?’ was enjoyable, if not brilliant. I just hadn’t got the time for the usual histrionics so I just got on with it and all went smoothly. I went to him for help on a book list because I knew I didn’t have time to prat around. I ended up using Stephen Quirke and Mark Colliers’ Lahun Papyri series mostly and topped it off by attending a lecture by Stephen and Paul Antonio in the evening. It was very inspiring and sent me off on a high to the big wide world of PACKING!!!!
Stephen’s lecture was on how Petrie had contributed much to the study of Egyptian writing although it’s not something he is associated with these days. The truly inspiring bit was the proposal that cursive hieroglyphs hold the answer, so he says, of Egyptian writing and that through calligraphy, something Paul has a great deal of knowledge about, we will be able to understand the nature of the glyphs. I got the feeling that very important things were stirring and I’d like to be a part of it. I’ve already promised myself to go on to do an M.A. in a few years’ time, probably at Liverpool because they are more language-based. Ian Shaw was down the week before and he teaches on the course there, as does Collier. I love UCL but the M.A. just isn’t language orientated enough for me. I have plenty of work to do on that front before I apply.
I am now at home (Kent), although it’s been a pretty surreal experience here too. Ian and Suzanne gave me a lift with all my stuff on Saturday, the sweeties, and June has come down to help me sort the place out a bit for a week. I’m unpacking stuff from London, unpacking stuff from Sussex and packing stuff up for the charity shop. I am determined to clear a huge amount and so far all is going well. Bags and bags of books are being added to the pile. Never thought I’d be able to do it but here I am!
June has done sterling work on clearing Mum’s trolley of a ton of paperwork. As she said we are in a very strange position of having to clear a house of someone’s stuff when they’re not dead! I think it’s actually an advantage because it’ll save the heartache later. June also defrosted the fridgefreezer which saved me a hell of a job.
Left the house looking as if a bomb had hit it and headed for Wisley for the weekend, leaving Sweechbridge in the capable hands of Snev. I’m saying nothing about the number of times we found he had left the fridge door open and the oven on!! Fingers crossed I have the place to myself when I get back next week.