Summer hiatus

This summer has probably been one of the most action-packed of recent years. Back in the days of university and, in particular, the dreaded thesis (*shudder*), summer holidays were in short supply and I think I went about 6 years without one (not counting parental visits).

This year, though, I've been operating the 'change is as good as a rest' policy, as I've been travelling all over, but not actually having any proper holiday time. I left Newfoundland in mid June to return to my alma mater. This was originally supposed to have been to prepare for our fieldwork in Libya, but due to a hiccup with Visas we ended up organising a field season in Croatia instead. A week after I arrived in Birmingham I began the 3 day drive to Hrvatska, accompanied only by a vast array of machines that go *bing*, and a passenger with a great knowledge of Roman North Africa and early Christian churches, but no driving licence.

What followed was an epic catalogue of disasters. We should have known something was up when we were met in Germany by torrential rain and roadworks. It seemed the entire road network through Germany, Austria, and Slovenia was under construction. Still, we made good time and arrived in Split only to get horribly lost in the one way system due to the 'European' coverage sat nav - Mrs Miggins - only operating as far as the Austrian-Slovenian border.

The first couple of days we went out to Sveti Spas in the Cetina Valley, only to be met by the bura (the wind that is alleged to send you mad) and some rather wet weather. Whilst not generally an obstacle for the archaeologist, when 3D scanning it is generally not helpful to have your targets blowing over and the laser bouncing off of raindrops. Serves us right for having too much whizzy equipment. We left one scan short of completing the church.

A rare break in the weather

The rest of the fieldwork, though, consisted of work in the city of Split which was great, if a little difficult working through the tourist throngs and avoiding lightning strikes during one of the worst Mediterranean summers in decades. It also involved a fair degree of extreme archaeology, and my vertigo was a bit of an issue on a number of occasions.

It's higher than it looks.

Being so reliant on technology is also a problem when the processing software licences run out the day you arrive, and your colleague drops the hard drive on the floor causing a strong burning smell and smoke. The nail in the coffin, though, was the news that our GPR specialist had contracted swine flu and was unable to travel. This meant double shifts for the poor geophysicists who were already starting at 5am.

Aside from the various setbacks, the trip was successful and good results were had by all. The drive home was not too horrendous and I treated myself to a marvellous massage once back in Brum. I still reckon I could have charged it to the project.

There then followed 2 weeks of data processing and a huge number of curries, whilst I awaited the arrival of my new Canadian work permit. Lunching with the ladies every day was a real treat and gave me time to catch up on the gossip, and I passed my 32nd birthday with no major incident.

Staying at the Pinder-Wakelam Hostelry was a delight and I still can't believe they put up with me for so long. If only all B&Bs accepted DIY odd jobs and occasional singalongs as payment. I also squeezed in a trip to see the folks in Wales and also one to Bristol where I failed to go see the Banksy exhibition due to the extraordinary queues. I did go to the marvellous Windmill Hill City Farm, though, with my dear brother and nephews. It's sad to hear that the farm is in financial trouble as it's a top notch place. A quick catch up with Trish and Olly gave me my first taste of Settlers of Catan, and I can now safely concur that it is rather ace, especially as I won.

Then via London where I met up with the lovely Jo Weeks, soprano extraordinaire, and then abused the hospitality of published author and common-law-brother-in-law Mr Paul Herringshaw. What circles I move in.

Once back in the New-found-land I volunteered to go digging on the Signal Hill historic site. As a combination of climbing a massive hill every morning and not having excavated in about 8 years, it was a bit of a shock to the system and I spent most evenings popping ibuprofen and whinging to Liam. This is particularly annoying as I am also no fitter or lighter than when I started. It was good fun though, and a real change to (1) actually find stuff (being an historic site stuff has had less time to degrade and material culture is a bit more profuse), and (2) get back to basics after the technological orgy of the Croatian field season. There's certainly a lot less potential for catastrophe. An added bonus was that the site was well-placed for whale spotting, as I saw three (a single and a pair), puffing away just off the coast. I also apparently made an appearance on the CBC news, though lacking a television I was unable to bask in the glory such fame brought.

A long way above sea level.

Today was my last day as backfilling is tomorrow and, as a volunteer, I am excused duty. I am now back to my normal life of emails and obsessively checking Facebook. Posts after today will return to the usual inane comments on my latest knitting project. That is all.




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Tremors

Whilst not living up to the Kevin Bacon classic, Birmingham's earthquake last week seems to still be a fairly hot topic of conversation, which is bizarre given how entirely underwhelming the whole incident was in this area of the UK - a bit closer to the epicentre you could understand it.

This was my third earthquake, of which none have been particularly tremendous. The first was when I was living in Rome in 2000. It was obviously fairly small as it's been difficult to find any information to corroborate my hazy memory. According to one site it was 6 on the Mercalli scale (about 5 on the Richter scale - who knew there were so many ways of measuring?), but we were a fair way from the epicentre in Subiaco so didn't feel a great deal where we were. I'd had a hard night on the tiles on the Friday so at 11:30 the next morning was unsurprsingly in bed. Feeling the bed shake with a chronic hangover is an oddly disturbing experience.

The second was the Dudley earthquake of 2002 (causing millions of pounds worth of improvements as the joke goes...). I'd returned to Birmingham to start my PhD and was living in a shared house in Harborne. It was late night so again I was in bed. The house shook and caused general confusion. People were on the streets and hanging out of windows to see what had happened. One of our housemates thought there'd been a gas explosion so thought the best way to check this was to fire up the hob. Idiot! That's Physics postgraduates for you. What was more amusing was my other housemate. The week before we'd been doing some epic get-to-know-you drinking and I'd consumed a fair number of ciders. Strangely though I couldn't get drunk. I'd gone to bed sober but woke up in the middle of the night to go the the loo, but on my travels managed to pass out drunkenly on the landing. The night of the earthquake I was fairly offended to find out that she was convinced the earthquake was just me passing out on the landing once more. Apparently I am heavy enough to register 4.8 on the Richter scale...

This time there was very little confusion on my part. I'd only just gone to bed after a (non-drinking!) night at the pub and had only been there a few minutes when the bed shook. For a split second I thought it was my noisy neighbour who has been a pain recently but I soon realised that even he couldn't make enough noise to make my bed shake. After a second I thought to myself - "oh, it's another earthquake, I wonder if it'll be on the news tomorrow?" then promptly went to sleep. I probably won't even bother to wake up next time...