12 July

We arrived this morning (admittedly a bit bleary-eyed) with a great plan for the day. We had fewer volunteers on site, but were going to use the opportunity of reduced numbers to finish excavating and recording Areas 1 and 2, and two trenches in Area 3. It was going to be great. Everyone arrived, amazingly chirpy after the previous long day, set off to site, and it was all dandy. I had a very exciting hour tidying up the cupboard/shed where we store our tools, successfully excavating the floor from old newspapers and detritus, and went out to site just before lunch to see how everyone was getting on, satisfied that I knew where everything was in true OCD style. Everyone was getting on nicely.

At lunch, Chris gave us a short talk on Environmental Archaeology. Then everyone else went back out...and then it started to rain. And rain. And rain. Eventually I called 'Abandon Ship' into the walkie talkie. Those who braved the elements struggled up the hill to the village hall. Others made a beeline for their cars or the hedge. The foolhardy stayed outside.

Suffice to say I don't have any pictures of archaeology today, and since we were on top of our finds washing, we didn't need to deploy anyone to that! However, we did start to take stock of the finds which have been washed and bagged. We're bagging our finds by type (pot, bone, CBM, shell etc.), so we worked through those which had been previously bagged to double check that they had all the right finds in, and logged the number of bags, by type and context, on a spreadsheet. It was a useful exercise in seeing exactly what sort of material is coming up, and several people commented that it was useful learning to identify finds once washed!

Sorting the finds. Paddy looking thrilled at being made to work inside!

So the plan for tomorrow is...the same plan as today! Try to finish off the trenches from last week, and move the influx of new people into the trenches machined yesterday. And pray it doesn't rain.

(btw, if you don't see a blog till Wednesday/Thursday, don't be surprised. I'm having two days off!)