Thursday 10 July 2008

Two women in a trench

A view from Powis Castle gardens again. The scenery around Welshpool is stunning.


Apologies for the absence, but the computer has kicked up its toes again and had to go to computer hospital this week. Mind you, it's surprising how much I got done because I could NOT go on-line and get my "fix"!

My eldest daughter and I are volunteering on a local archaeological dig this week. It has been very hard work, and I have to confess I have been betrayed by my body, which does NOT want to work quite so labour-intensively for 7 hours at a stretch. We are working in the Deer Park at Dinefwr Castle Park in Llandeilo, hoping to find Roman remains. In the ditch we have been excavating, we found a piece of mortarium (a mortar, as in pestle and mortar), a chunk of Roman roof tile and a small flint microlith from the prehistoric period. Apart from that the ditch infill only showed bits of charcoal and tiny fragments of pottery which broke into miniscule pieces when lifted. Here's a link to the Dig blog:

http://www.cambria.org.uk/archaeoblogdinefwr2008.htm

NOT the most flattering pics of me, but eldest daughter and I are working on Trench 8. She has the knitted woolly hat on, and I am the lump in either turquoise or a dark green polo shirt. To think I have lost half a stone too - you'd never know looking at these pics!!!

We were unable to work yesterday, due to heavy rain from dawn until dusk, and so we worked hard at home instead. I managed to empty the freezer a little more and made jam with a bag of last year's blackberries, and some pears and plums which needed using up before they went off. 9 lbs of Purple Jam were the result! We also made some home-made fishcakes for the evening meal, with enough left over for tonight. I don't like "boughten" fishcakes, which seem to be all potato, but home-made ones are totally different - ours had haddock, prawns and some smoked salmon trimmings.

Many thanks to Leanne for identifying my black poppy. The only trouble is I doubt if I could grow it here as it likes well-drained soil - not the waterlogged clay on shale we have here!

I will have an update of my recent travels when we have finished at the Deer Park Dig.

2 comments:

nancy said...

Wow. I'll bet those fish cakes were good. Especially with the smoked salmon flavor added. I'm sure the dig is interesting, but I hope you find some more substantial artifacts. What a marvellous opportunity for the two of you.
Glad you're back on line. I've missed you.
Nancy

Rhonda Jean said...

I would love to do something like that. Thanks for sharing it with us through the site and photos. :- )