Sleepy Hoolet Neuk

If you have to have a UTI, the worst place on earth to have one has to be on an archaeological dig.

When it came on, at the start of the week I was one of only three women on the site; the copse of trees I regard as being for my personal use was five miles away; and that leaves the ditches which, to be frank, are only useful if you are under three feet tall.

But, when you have to go, you have to go. So I went; frequently.
As did my concentration. I was still on my knees at one point when the site director shot over all enthusiastic about the burned bone I'd uncovered in the remains of Neolithic hearth - don't know if he realised I was about to chuck it in the spoil bucket. I had not even looked at it, and was too preoccupied to care anyway.

And for reasons too complicated to explain (and anyway, we have forgiven him) we'd had to leave the cars two miles from the site and hike in and out, and by the time I had inspected another ditch or two on the walk out I was mortified.

And the week got worse. Wednesday I "vanished" home; Thursday I got sent home.
Saturday I stayed in bed most of the afternoon, and today I was heading for the Kirk when another bout of incontinence changed my plans again.

And now I am bored. Last night I watched X-factor and this morning I have been on here fighting with the Concert Hall website to get the last two tickets for John Lill playing Tchaikovsky next Saturday rather than face an evening like that again. Assuming I am continent enough to go.

But I am giving me a couple of weeks off the digging until I'm 100% again.
An incontinent archaeologist is no use to anyone.

From 6000BC to 2000BC (no, not BCE; I'm politically incorrect.)

OK, the last couple of weeks have been relatively unproductive, but relatively is a big word given that so much mesolithic stuff was oozing from each metre in the first months that they were weighing it rather than recording every flake!

But he decided to keep us upbeat by moving us round the valley to the Bronze Age cairns. Thirty of them. I didn't want to budge but there you are. Or here I am. It stopped raining, finally, and the sun came out for the first time in seven weeks, and it took six of us a full five sweating hours to dismantle one cairn and my arms hurt with carrying rocks. Upbeat this is not. Gonna start a campaign to get put back into my trenches.

She is from California of all places, and her voice carried clearly above the wind and the rain yesterday afternoon: "Where's the loo?"

She is a realist, really. She was stuck without whimpering in a filthy trench in what passes for a Scottish summer, with the rain battering down and the ground underneath so badly waterlogged that the peat tries to suck off your boots every step you take.  The peat has protected this valley completely for at least 3000 years -  there has not even been a rabbit through it - but it has not allowed a single bush or  tree to grow either. The hillside is completely open. She was really just asking for vague directions.

Kneeling in a trench for six or seven hours is murder on your back and knees, the work is filthy, the climate is appalling, but I am starting to suspect that the lack of facilities is what puts people off.
 
And I am starting to dream of a shower block. Not just a loo, but a shower block. With walls and doors, and hot water, and soap and towels. And a hot tub. I can picture it vividly as I trudge exhausted up the hill, squelching up through the peat, mud caked in my hair, and everything hurting, a jacuzzi, with a little floating tray for a glass or two of wine and some nibbles, right there on the valley floor. Just there. Where the trenches are.

Well, it is not, not really. Seven hours cramped in a trench scraping through soil is back-breaking no matter where you try and put your legs, and there is dirt in every pore of me, with sweat trails running through the muck on my face by the time I crawled back into the car.
But I'm into my stride again with it now.

And this summer's treat is a beauty. A totally unspoiled valley, miles from anywhere, and untouched by man for at least three thousand years, with mesolithic leftovers spilling out from the soil in every square metre. And the weather, for once, is superb.

I'm a Roman geek but needs must, so I settle happily for a mesolithic site with hints of neolithic. Just so overjoyed to be out again. 

Someone has decided that it is spring; dunno why. But the farmer has been out ploughing, so today was fieldwalking. Raking through the dustbin of history. Looking for the broken things the Romans threw away.

It is hard to explain. It is certainly not treasure hunting. It is about knowledge; and maybe a brief connection with those who tried to subdue this land 2000 years ago. Actually, they did not try very hard. This place did not have a lot going for it even then, and standing in torrential rain, and being sandblasted by hailstones this afternoon, I am surprised the Romans hung around as long as they did.

Me and the guys (I'm choosing that as grammar today) had a good day though. We found pieces of pale blue fluted glass, the broken handle of some long gone water jug; shattered pieces of decorated samian- ware, shipped over from France or Spain; pottery from an amphora which once held wine brought in from Italy; pottery from what may have been the roof tiles on the bath-house; and even a piece of mottled window glass.

These guys lived in style at a time when officially my people did not. But I think the lines between "these guys" and "my people" are very blurred. Officially, serving Roman soldiers were not allowed wives. But I know damn well, you put 500 fit young men with their own food supply, and a carry-out of wine, into an area, and I bet my X-times great-grandmother was climbing over the ramparts with the best of them. Doubt if the fondness for wine is confined to this generation.

Anyway, it was a good afternoon and we found a lot. Could have found more, but heading back uphill for the last time with about a stone of clay attached to each boot, if I had seen the Holy Grail in my path I would have quietly kicked it out the way rather than fiddle with satellite co-ordinates and a waterlogged pen once more.

And now I have the washing up to do......millennia of muck to be scrubbed off each tiny piece...but not tonight. My own bath-house and a glass of wine beckon.  

Usual Saturday morning, church for coffee, red and white plastic gingham tables packed with folk, then he comes over to me and, in what was probably supposed to be a conspiratorial whisper, launches into "Can you come out tomorrow?  I think I have found the bathhouse."

I dunno whether he has or not. There has to have been one; every Roman fort had its bathhouse; and he has been looking for it for years.  I don't even care whether he has found it or not -  I'm going out tomorrow!!!!!

I have been fretful enough with this snow, and had not been thinking of fieldwork. With this one we get a tiny, tiny window in the year, the days between the farmer ploughing and sowing. Last year that amounted to two weekends, one stunningly beautiful with the spring sunshine warm on the fields stretching all the way down to the Clyde, and the next where we could hardly stand against the wind.

With the snow this year, especially this week, I'm amazed that the farmer has started ploughing. Tomorrow will probably be hell, but I don't care. Early morning February communion, then into boots, waterproof breeks, three layers of clothes, and OUT.

Just, please, don't let it snow again tonight.........