The House Husband

An example to all older ladies: I spotted a woman waiting for the same bus as me, intently reading a rather hefty tome entitled “Algebra: An Introduction“. I figure she’d have been about 70-80. Of course, it might be that she’s gone a bit mental and she thought it was an Agatha Christie. I’d rather think she just thought it was the right time to learn a branch of mathematics that uses mathematical statements to describe relationships between things that vary over time. Maybe she wants to figure out how much better it is shopping in small independent shops when compared with supermarkets.

Being a Tuesday, I rang mum and dad this morning. Whenever I ring them, I text first with a ten minute warning, just to make sure they don’t have a mouthful of something and that they’re just generally ready for the phone to ring. Apparently, mum said to dad that I was calling early which meant I was going to see Dawn today.

When they answered the phone (they have a handset each) mum asked why I was ringing early. When I said it was because I was having lunch with Dawn today she gave a self-satisfied chortle, claiming she was psychic. I can’t think of any other reason for it. It’s not like it happens that often.

One of the reasons I was having lunch with Dawn today was because today was our 500th blip and we wanted to blip together to celebrate. You can see mine here, and Dawn’s is here.

I introduced her to Blip (I’m sure she hates me for introducing her to something which has dominated her last 500 days) and, although she started after me, we have reached 500 together. The reason I missed a few was from when I had no camera during our trip to Oz in 2010 which allowed her to catch up.

So we had a lovely lunch, purchased from the small independent bakery in Liphook (I also had a piece of bread pudding which was about a million miles from my mum’s), before bundling Basil and Polly in the back of her car for a walk over Chapel Common, a place which features in quite a few of her blips.

Basil lagging behind a bit

We wanted to blip each other, blipping each other, which is why the photographs are like they are. Because Dawn is so fussy, we had to take about 20 shots. Of course, each time one took a shot the other had to follow suit, otherwise they wouldn’t be blips of blips. It took her a while but she eventually settled on the one I posted. As for mine, I wasn’t at all bothered.

After a coffee back at Casa Cansfield (so I could hornswoggle Dawn into witnessing our signatures on a document that needed it) she dropped me back at the bus stop for lovely (but long), scenic trip home.

And, finally, here’s a photo of Basil, especially for Mirinda.

Ok, ok, I'm coming. Don't hurry me!

And, just because I like it, here’s a very fast magpie carrying some sticks back to its nest, taken on our early walk this morning. He had about ten goes at picking them up but then, successfully flew off at great speed.

Travelling at the speed of light...almost

What a busy Thursday! It started with an early morning and ended with a late night with nary time in the middle for rest.

First up, we had a viewing this morning at 9am so I was up early, generally moving things around to make them more presentable, before hitching the poodles up for an early, freezing walk.

Actually the temperature was slightly above freezing until the wind hit up in the Avenue of Trees. I’m always amazed when winds from the frozen north (Russia) are still bitterly cold when they reach us. It was something like -20 in Moscow this morning and the wind hadn’t warmed up one little bit.

For all that, the park still looked lovely. As the real estate agent said to me, whenever she walks around the park, when she passes our street, she’s very jealous of our being so close. I’m not sure why she doesn’t buy our house then.

Our castle on a winter's morning

There were a few hardy souls up and about with their dogs but none of them within hailing distance so we wandered, more-or-less, unmolested, returning in time to meet the agent at the front door. I was fooled by the lack of two unknown cars at the end of the street, otherwise I’d have taken the girls around again.

The absent car was easily explained, however, when the viewer came out of the house. She is a friend or relative of a woman who lives a few doors down from us. I know because the friend or relative was with her and said hello.

The woman who’d come to see the house actually liked it very much (or so she told the realo) but wanted to think about it (not that that means anything, we’re still ‘thinking about’ houses we viewed years ago). The one thing she was disappointed in, and the realo thought I’d get a good chuckle out of it, was the lack of lawn. Yes, that’s right, she didn’t like the path. Our wonderful, magical path. How is such a thing possible? As Mirinda said, had the path not been there, she wouldn’t have seen a path so much as a swamp leading to the back.

I’m fairly sure I couldn’t sell to someone who didn’t like our path. If I had my way, I’d have it written into the deeds of the house that the path had to stay. It would be an awful waste for it to be dug up gain before it was twelve months old!

With that frightful announcement, the realo left and I quickly grabbed my stuff for the Talking Newspaper. By the end of 2011 I’d been swapped out of all my February recordings by other presenters with more pressing engagements so I guess it was only natural that I’d end up swapping some back in.

David rang me two weeks ago. He’d been given some work to do and couldn’t attend today so would I swap him one of my April dates. And so I was down for today’s Haslemere edition of the paper at 10am.

The group doing the Farnham edition were there, quietly beavering away in the editing room. As it turned out, it was but a short-lived quiet once Judy and I started gabbing away. Judy is one of the other presenters. Included in her team were the Evans’, who I’ve spoken of before. After their recording they told me they listened to our last recording with great joy because they love the sound of my voice. This is odd because I love the sound of theirs’!

After the Mutual Admiration Society had disbursed (by them having to go into the studio) I set to with my own presenter duties.

On my team (well, David’s team, really, though two of them had been swapped as well) were Ron, Lieutenant Colonel David and Christine, with whom I had so much fun late last year with all the stories about Christmas goats, something she still laughs about in quiet moments. Pete the ex-pilot was our engineer.

The recording went smoothly enough with only a few fluffs and nothing as serious as to warrant swearing. I even managed to read my own writing this time. The most interesting find was one of the Letters to the Editor which was from someone who was equally as damning about Neighbourhood Watch. Mary Stewart, the writer, went so far as to write to the theatre and tell them it was rubbish. Here’s a few bits from her letter:

As long term fans of the playwright we eagerly looked forward to this production and have since contacted the Yvonne Arnaud theatre to express our disappointment, also mentioning that we couldn’t decide whether the theatregoers who left during the play, or didn’t return after the interval, were bored or cold, as the temperature in the auditorium was uncomfortably cool.

I disagree with the last bit. If anything, the theatre is generally too hot for me though, in saying that, the fact that I didn’t notice the temperature probably means it was too cold for normal people. She continues:

It is appreciated that we all have different tastes, but despite the cast doing their utmost, in our opinion, the play and the set were third rate and uninspiring.

Go Mary! She also gives a reason for all the wonderful reviews the play received in Ayckbourn’s home town, where all his plays premiere:

Perhaps the glowing reviews received at the premiere in Scarborough, can be compared to the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

I must say that that cheered me up, considerably. Not that I needed cheering up particularly but it did put a spring in my step on the walk home. Apparently the reviewer in the local paper was also less than complimentary, which prompted Mary’s letter.

Back at home, I just had time to feed the dogs, shower and change because I was soon out again with Dawn. Weeks ago she asked if I’d like to go and see some guy called Steve Knightly at the Farnham Maltings and, having never heard of him, I said yes. Dawn’s taste is pretty much as eclectic as mine so I figured I’d enjoy it. At least I knew it wouldn’t be some of that awful punk stuff that Nicktor likes so much.

Well, it was fantastic. He is part of a duo called Show of Hands, the other guy being Phil who, apparently looks remarkably like the eccentric Marquis of Bath. Dawn looked him up when she arrived home and said he did. Or does…I mean, he’s not dead or anything.

The thing that struck me about Steve was his amazing stage presence. He has a natural charisma that is like a magnet. He came on at the beginning to introduce his support act and we immediately were transfixed by him. I should add that about 99% of the audience were already firm fans, hanging on every word he spoke.

The support act (a couple Steve had heard busking who he walked up to and asked if they’d play support for his upcoming tour) was a couple. Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin were fantastic. He plays (among other things) a mean slide guitar while she fiddles and, sometimes strums her banjo. They play, what I would call, modern folk music with a lot of wandering around the tune in a sort of jazz style.

Phillip Henry and his slide guitar

They are both incredibly talented and their love of music is obvious. I particularly liked Hannah’s song about her grandfather (The Painter) for which she played her banjo. (You can listen to it on their website – it’s the fourth one down on the left.) Her voice is also quite special. My only criticism (and it’s tiny) is that I thought Phillip’s slide guitar was a bit loud and overpowering. It tended to dominate a bit too much, as if the sound engineer (if there was such a thing) only had ears for the treble. Even so, they were superb.

And then, following a short interval in which I bought their CD, Steve came on. He was just brilliant. It has to be one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen. I’d compare it to Don McLean who managed to hold the entire Hodern Pavilion mesmerised for his entire concert, which was just him, his guitar and a chair.

Similarly Steve was alone on stage apart from a load of waiting instruments and he held us all gripped. He is not only incredibly talented as a singer, musician and song writer, he’s also very funny. I would recommend him to anyone who likes folk music and will definitely go and see him again if I get the chance.

Steve Knightly tuning up at the Farnham Maltings

And that was it. Dawn dropped me off at home to a couple of manic poodles. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Carmen was manic but Day-z gets very sulky if we go out more than once a day so she basically ignored me for a bit.

Tonight Dawn unfortunately accompanied me to see a production at The Mill. I say ‘unfortunately’ because it turned out to be an amateur production. I should say that she enjoyed it, so I don’t feel too bad about it.

Earlier in the day, I had to make myself scarce as we had another viewing. After an early start giving the place a good clean, I hitched up the poodles and took to the park for an hour.

Due to all the rain we’ve had recently, the park is quite squishy and muddy. The poodles are keener on the hard path so we took the big circle around the park. As the sun was shining bright (when we started) I took my camera and telephoto lens, trying to get some more birds in flight.

Almost a great photo of a crow in flight

It was very odd because although the air was full of bird song, there were actually very few birds in it. Clearly they were all in the trees having a big gas-bag between themselves. Possibly telling each other that there’s always plenty of food at our place. Still, I managed a few, including a rather nice magpie, which I blipped and a few which I didn’t.

I also spotted this little chap sitting high up in a tree, just waiting for me to snap his photo. Needless to say he was keeping his beady eyes firmly on the poodles even though he was about 20 feet up.

Mr Precarious Perch, the Squirrel

Not quite so well hidden was this wonderful Alsation that lay down as soon as he/she saw the poodles, wanting to make friends. They, as usual, wanted nothing to do with such nonsense.

Someone else's dog wanting to play with ours

Back at the house, there was no evidence that anyone had looked at the house and we sat down to lunch.

In the afternoon I took myself off to Guildford on a shopping expedition, something I rarely do. Nicktor had told me that a new branch of my favourite shop (TK Maxx) had opened in Guildford and he wasn’t wrong. Over three floors, it’s a bargain shoppers dream come true. I managed to get two pairs of trousers and two long sleeved t-shirts for (just) under £60. Of course, I realise the edicts of this house are that for every new t-shirt, an old one must go and this will happen tomorrow. Promise.

Dawn met me at the Yvonne Arnaud and we popped into the Britannia for a lovely salad for dinner before heading over to the theatre.

Passion is a one act musical by Stephen Sondheim (and James Lapine), which is why I wanted to see it. Last week I found out that it has just finished a short season at the Donmar Warehouse on the West End, which is a real pity. This wasn’t that production.

Sondheim wrote Passion in 1994 and it’s an interesting story based (very loosely) on an autobiographical novel called Fosca, set during the Italian Wars of Unification in the late 1800s. That makes it sound very dull (or very exciting) but it actually centres around a young soldier and his discovery that beauty is not skin deep and we have to look beneath the skin to find true love. It’s about passion.

Let me say at the outset that it is typically Sondheim in that there’s not really any ‘tunes’ that you come out singing (although we both came out humming a short refrain of about 16 notes that seemed to have been repeated throughout the piece) and it’s nearly all sung with minimal talk. Sondheim also needs certain types of voices (think Bernadette Peters and her ilk) to truly sing him well.

I was fully prepared to give Passion a proper review here until I realised it was an amateur production. In which case, I really don’t think it’s fair to be too honest. The cast all worked as hard as they could and, I think, really enjoyed themselves. In an amateur production, these things count for a lot. Also they entertained Dawn so it wasn’t a completely wasted effort. Oh, and the other 30 odd people in the theatre.

What I will say is that the girl who played Clara (Lauren Morris) was fantastic. A wonderful voice and an actor of great poise and natural talent. I could have listened to and watched her all night. if by some strange twist of fate, she gets to read this, I’d like to say thank you for a delightful performance.

Of the rest, I’ll just say that the guy playing the doctor reminded me of Nigel – the same size, the same voice, the same level of acting skill and the woman playing Fosca should really know not to wear black and white lacy knickers under her white Victorian nightdress. I blame the director for this, although it’s surely pretty obvious. Dawn, who tends not to notice the bad things, even commented on it. The only thing I’ll add to that is BIG WHITE PANTS, Jenny Moon – buy them, wear them!

I was quite impressed by the orchestra. Sondheim isn’t easy to play but they managed very well. I should mention the sterling job of the percussionist (Jon Stock) who was held up by a fallen tree and, running really, really late, rushed in and gave a jolly good series of drum rolls throughout the show.

One more thing – Passion doesn’t really have any humour in it (which annoys me) but the one or two joke lines were delivered extremely well by the guy playing the cook. Either that or we were desperate for a laugh.

I’ll just finish with a lovely picture of the Avenue of Trees…just for balance.

Winter along the Avenue of Trees

I had a lovely two Cansfield day today. Lunch with Dawn followed by dinner and football with Nicktor.

As usual I met Dawn at the Mill in Haslemere where I enjoyed a pint of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord with 23 members of the local WI. They were quite a boisterous lot who drank bitter shandies, red wine and orange juice before tucking into big plates of fish and chips.

Blue skies over the Mill

We then headed back to Castle Cansfield for a lovely lunch of fish cakes and salad, lovingly prepared by my hostess. While we sat, ate and chatted, the rain came, giving everything a jolly good soaking before Nicktor arrived home, resplendent in his new pinstriped suit.

The suit is part of his new job image change and he looked rather dapper and, dare I say, professional. Odd when you think that when we first started having Nicktor Nights, he went to work in jeans and t-shirt. I used to think he was a frustrated IT guy.

The boys then arrived home from school in their blazers, looking like a couple of scholarly chaps in need of some homework. Nicktor and I then left for Farnham.

We decided it best that we left the car at the house and hop on a bus to Aldershot so Nicktor could enjoy a few pints over a big, hearty pub dinner. I say ‘dinner’. He actually had a big breakfast.

It was then a leisurely stroll down to the Rec, turning up 10 minutes before kick-off for the game against Burton Albion. Much more civilised than last week’s early start. Even so, there was a healthy crowd on the Slab. Due, I’m sure, to the fact that part of the deal for the Man U tickets was that spectators had to buy tickets for tonight.

The mighty Shots played a fast and furious first half, netting two wonderful goals and leaving Burton standing still. It was a great half of football (well, for us, anyway) and a lovely display after winning last Saturday 3-1. Rather strangely, the referee wore the same colour shirt as the opposition. Clearly he hadn’t checked before taking the field. It made it rather difficult to figure out which one he was.

The second half saw us slow the game a bit while Burton became more physical, trying to break through. But the couldn’t and we went on to win 2-0. The referee changed his shirt at half-time so we could actually pick him out on the field.

Actually, I’m not usually one to accuse refs of having a bad game but this guy did tonight. It was all in danger of slipping out of his control and he made a few dodgy decisions. Still, regardless of his efforts to the contrary, we won and left the ground in a joyous mood.

Our original plan was to get a taxi home but Bill offered us a lift in his new car. How could we refuse?

Back at home we watched the delightful O, Brother Where Art Thou? which, I’m glad to say, Nicktor loved, followed by an episode of the delightfully silly Sorry. Then bed.

A delightful day.

Ages ago, Dawn introduced me to a folk band called Gigspanner. The main guy is Peter Knight who was/is part of the line up for Steeleye Span, a 70s folk/rock band and he plays fiddle. What an amazing musician he is!

And then Dawn discovered they were going to be in concert in Guildford (at the Electric Theatre) and immediately suggested we go and see them. The concert was tonight. It was absolutely fantastic.

Peter has with him two guys. Roger Flack on guitar and Vincent Salzfass on djembe and congas. They play a sort of free flowing (almost jazz-like) folk. They are all so in tune with each other that the invention and skill literally drips from their hands as the music ebbs and flows between them. Every song was a magical treat.

I’ve never been to the Electric Theatre before. It’s an excellent venue for this sort of band. It’s a very simple stage, flat on the floor, with raked seating. It reminds me of a number of school theatres we performed in when we were touring NSW. Not the bad ones, I hasten to add.

And there was quite a large audience to see them. The average age was about 60 – I’m fairly certain Dawn was the youngest there and I was about the only one without a beard.

While the entire evening was one long highlight, it would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention the pint glass holders attached to the microphone stands. Pure genius. And all three of them drank real ale.

Gigspanner at the Electric Theatre, Guildford

A wonderful night, thoroughly worth the price of admission.

After a solid week of house related (and Science Museum) work, I had today off and spent it with Dawn. I hadn’t seen her for ages and was really looking forward to it. Imagine my surprise when she didn’t cancel at the last minute!

The day, however, did not begin very brightly. The weather was pretty foul with strong winds, evil clouds and drifting sheets of rain. Add to this a frantic and fruitless search for Mirinda’s bank cards and the day was looking decidedly glum.

Mirinda managed to only miss one train and I saw her off to a very important meeting with a leading provider of hat robbing engineers. As I walked back to the house, the sun started to appear and the clouds gradually dispersed.

Dawn was in the highly unusual situation of having Nicktor at home to attend to all the usual duties so she could spend as much time out with me as she wanted. Generally when we have lunch I only get an hour or so before she has to race off to collect, feed and water the boys. But not today!

We started off by driving down to Winchester Uni (where she’s doing her PhD) to see Julie (one of our tutors at Surrey so many years ago) who was sorting finds from a student dig. Actually, she was washing oyster shells. There are an awful lot of oyster shells on the site and it looks like poor Julie is washing all of them. She had a room full of students washing various other finds. She was at her usual acerbic best. And I’m convinced she had no idea who I was. Still, she knew Dawn and that was enough.

She gave us a tour of a few of the better finds from the dig. Some tokens (used instead of money as I’ve mentioned a number of times in prior posts), some wonderful Murano glass fragments and a tray of very small objects which Julie asked us to identify.

We tried a few guesses but couldn’t work it out. Apparently they had to send them away to an expert to find out what they were as well. They looked like tiny little lead weights but were shark denticles (also called placoid scales). These form the sharks scales and are similar to tiny teeth. Shark was used a lot by Medieval monks.

We were also shown a couple of jug handles with faces on them. Brilliant finds! Exactly the sort of thing I’d never find in a million years of digging.

After spending a little time listening to how awful a certain staff member is, we left for lunch in Winchester. We went to the Bishop on the Bridge and had a lovely meal (and beer…except Dawn has gone off beer and enjoyed an alcoholic ginger beer instead which she justified by saying it had ‘beer’ in the name) before going for a short wander and coffee.

We went into a lovely little cafe but they didn’t want to serve us so we popped across the road to the much more accommodating Maison Blanc. we sat outside and enjoyed our coffee and watched people strolling around, cameras in hand, enjoying the gorgeous day.

We then left Winchester and paid an unannounced visit to the dig site. Dawn wanted to talk to the bone expert (to do with her PhD) and we really wanted to have a sticky over the site.

We both felt a very strong pull to get out our trowels and start scraping away but, fortunately, we didn’t have our trowels with us and I had sandals on. Instead we managed to get a look at an exposed skeleton which one of the guys was excavating (actually he was drawing the plan and taking measurements while we were there but it’s all part of the process). I managed to get a photo as we discussed what was wrong with him.

The site used to be a Medieval leper hospital so our assumption was that he (Dawn said it was a ‘he’) was a leper though a person on blip said he was probably misdiagnosed as it looked like he had psoriasis. Anyway, he look jolly happy, like most skeletons do. This is because the lower jaw falls down after everything rots away from the bones, giving the skull an eternal grin. Death and happiness. Maybe that’s where the crazy stories of heaven come from, the cheerful dead.

Possibly a leper but definitely dead

We wandered back across the field to the car and drove back to Farnham where we had a brief detour so Dawn could see what the storage unit looked like – she’d never seen one before – as she’s thinking of putting Nicktor in one. Or, at least, his junk collection. Her verdict was that it wouldn’t be even close to being big enough for him.

We then enjoyed a lovely coffee on the patio while fussing with the dogs before she left. It was a lovely day, improved by the fact that Mirinda found her bank cards at work and had an excellent meeting.

After Dawn left, I decided the grass was dry enough to mow (for any prospective house viewers) and set to it. It always looks so much better after a mow and much more inviting. I then rearranged the lounge room to make it look bigger – no easy task but I think it worked.

So, a full and very enjoyable Monday. Tomorrow it’s back to the house improvement programme with, possibly, painting on the agenda.

Even though I don’t work – well, in the traditional way, whereby I interact with other people while getting paid for doing something deemed worth paying for – my weeks are filled with ‘stuff’. Weekends, on the other hand, are a time when Mirinda and I can chill, enjoy the garden and/or visit other people’s, basically just enjoying each other’s company more than anything else. When she’s away, I tend to feel a bit lost.

Dawn obviously felt a bit sorry for me; with a vision of me sitting at home moping (not mopping, which is difficult when seated) and so invited me to join all four Cansfields at Millfest.

Millfest is an annual event held in the beer garden of a lovely, very English country pub in Milland, not far from them. Fortunately it’s quite a sizeable beer garden.

They have a number of (unknown) bands performing on the smallest stage I think I’ve ever seen, a fantastic beer tent as well as the bar, a food delivery service that is run with military precision and a massive crowd of, mostly, family groups.

I was very lucky. Nicktor offered to come and pick me up. This was lucky for a couple of reasons. Mainly because the trains were replaced by buses between Farnham and Aldershot, which would have been a pain. Also because I haven’t seen Nicktor for a few weeks so it was nice to have a catch up in the drive back.

While waiting at home, I managed to watch the first half of a rugby league match between Warrington and Wigan (a quarter final of the Challenge Cup) which, I can only describe as amazing. After the first 25 minutes, Wigan had played like a bunch of crazy people, building up an impressive 22-0 lead. Then everything turned on it’s head and Warrington scored some fantastic tries to go in at half time at 22-16.

I’m not the biggest league fan in the world but the game was incredibly exciting. It was like Warrington had been dazed and confused while Wigan ran all over them and then, shaking themselves, full clarity returned and they fought back. It was a pity the half ended because I reckon they would have ran away with the game at that point.

Nicktor arrived as half time drew to a close so I didn’t get to see the rest of the game. On Breakfast this morning, I heard that Wigan took the game 24-44. Without having seen the second half, I figure that Warrington just ran out of steam. The ‘pundits’, the sort of guys that dad hates, were saying at half time that if Wigan wanted to win, they had to not only defeat Warrington in points but also in stamina. They didn’t think they would, particularly after Warrington staged the sort of comeback that Spartans would be proud of. Well, Wigan showed them!

Anyway, we arrived at the Cansfield house in time to see the last few Indian wickets fall in the first test at Lords, before heading out to Millfest.

It’s not often that I get to see the entire family in one go, so it was a bit of a treat for me. As Dawn was driving, she wasn’t drinking, so it wasn’t as much a treat for her.

Interestingly, the acts we saw were very good with 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s covers but failed miserably when it came to trying Pink Floyd. One memorable performance for all the wrong reasons, was by a girl in black and white horizontal stripes wearing acid blue bedroom slippers, trying to emulate Clare Torry‘s wordless performance on The Great Gig in the Sky. She wasn’t very good…that’s me being generous.

A stage clearly not made for Big Bands

Still, apart from the Pink Floyd blunders, the bands were quite good. They performed some great medleys of songs that were strung together very well. I should add that we didn’t see the earlier bands which, even I, cannot comment on. I particularly liked the Led Zeppelin numbers they performed although the woman drummer, while in all other ways excellent, was no John Bonham.

While we were there, Nicktor seemed to attract an inordinate amount of female attention. As he greeted, what seemed to be his harem, I asked Dawn who these women were and she just shrugged, as mystified as me. After she asked him for the umpteenth time who they all were, he made sure to go and chat to a few males he claimed to know.

I managed to snap him with a couple of his floozies. Apparently, after I took this photograph, the woman with him was a bit concerned. I’m not sure if this was because she didn’t want to be seen with him or she just didn’t want to be seen. Regardless, I’m not big on showing mercy without foundation.

Nicktor notices my high powered zoom lens

Millfest ended for kids at 10pm so we packed the car with the boys and took them home. Dawn drove me to Haslemere station where I realised I was drunker than I thought I was.

With a great amount of effort, I managed to read the indicator board to find that the next train to Guildford wasn’t for three quarters of an hour. Adding this to the journey time and the fact that I would have to change trains then get a railway bus meant I wouldn’t be home until September. I went and grabbed a taxi.

And what an knowledgeable taxi driver I had! At one point, while classical music filled the cab, we were discussing the Russian novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Actually, I was talking about growing up in Australia and happened to mention the fact that in the Russian labour camps, if the temperature sunk as low as -42, they didn’t have to go to work, quoting Solzhenitsyn and he came back with “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich?“. We had a jolly good chat about how Russian literature developed as a result of a repressive rule.

At home I collapsed beneath the weight of over excited puppies and gradually drifted off to sleep with the television entertaining itself. At 3am I decided I should go to bed.

When you’re on a dig, you may get asked to excavate a post hole. This will be all that remains of an upright post – the sort of thing they once made buildings out of. A dig director or supervisor will generally see something on the ground that only a trained archaeological eye can spot, point and say “excavate that post hole!” I remember at the Minge last time, poor Tom excavated about 500 of them.

They show up on the ground as round (obviously) and a different colour to the surrounding soil. This is generally because the soil is made up of the rotted timber (among other things). So you half section it, which means you dig out one half. As you dig and trowel you collect finds (unless you’re me when it’s just going to be dirt and rocks) until you hit what you think is the ‘natural’.

At the bottom of really big post holes you are also likely to find the rocks that held the post in place before the hole was filled in and packed with earth.

Having completed excavating your half section, it is now time to draw your half post hole both in plan and in section, marking all the little bits of rock still stuck in the other half (or bits of pot if you’re not me). You then whack out the other half. Eventually you have a big round hole, slightly bigger than the post that originally stood in it.

Today I dug a post hole. It was three feet deep and extended about two inches into the ‘natural’ which, I discovered, is very solid clay. But this wasn’t your normal, garden variety wooden post hole. This one still had the post in it. And it was steel. And stuck very, very fast.

I was digging the ex-nettle patch bed, uprooting the nasty buggers and generally having a fine old time, when the tines of my fork struck what I thought was a rock. Using a small spade I attempted to find it. I found something but it wasn’t moving.

Generally I get a bit excited when this happens. I guess it’s the archaeological training. Anyway, I moved the earth away and found the top of the above-mentioned two inch pipe. I was already down about six inches. I figured it would be a good idea to dig it out, thinking it would only be a few inches long.

Three hours later I stood, triumphant, holding a three foot length of rusted pipe which had been bashed into the clay by two inches. It had taken a lot of effort and the introduction of the tools from my dig bag but I managed to dig it out. I have no idea what it was doing down there.

My best guess would be that it was left over from before the land was developed. It was agricultural land prior to 1900 and would have had a lot of earth spread over it before being subdivided into house plots. So this bar was either left over from the original farm (unlikely because they would probably have used timber fencing) or was a leftover field marker from when the original surveyors worked on it.

If the latter is the case (and I think it may be) then the line of our back yard is a bit off. The pipe was about two feet in from the boundary with next door. If it also marked the extent of the property then it was a good ten feet from the back fence.

All a bit mysterious but quite satisfying to be rid of it. Now, of course, the hole has been back filled and the post is standing against the compost heap waiting for me to show Mirinda.

After lunch (and as a break from post hole digging) I took the poodles to the park. Apart from Carmen repeating her antics from yesterday which resulted in her second bath in as many days, we wandered around the funfair to see what was happening. Here’s a shot of the Twister. I think it looks rather odd among the trees.

The fair comes to Farnham Park

And here’s a photo of most of the hot border with the plants I put in yesterday.

Hot border with the new (mostly) yellow plants

One other thing archaeology related from today. Making History is a Radio 4 programme in which listeners ask questions about the past and the presenters find out more, talking to experts etc. This week it featured Matt Pope, an expert on the Mesolithic period and a really lovely guy I’ve had the pleasure of working under. He was talking about a fantastic causewayed enclosure called Whiteleaf near Brighton. This just happens to be the focus of Dawn’s PHD and sounded fascinating. She has offered to give me a guided tour of it one day. I’m going to hold her to that.

If you would like to listen to Matt Pope, you can hear him here on the Radio 4 site. You don’t have to listen to the entire programme as he is the first person interviewed by Fiona on today’s programme.

What a difference a day makes! While the morning started a bit bleak, the sun eventually came out and the blue sky put in an appearance or two. The perfect day for climbing hills and looking at causewayed enclosures. Or one, at any rate.

For ages, Dawn & I have been trying to have a museum day but one reason or another, it’s not been possible. What with children, dogs and funerals, the date has been continually been put back until today. But, rather than go to a museum, we decided to go and visit a site that Dawn wanted to visit as part of her PHd.

Halnaker (pronounced Hanakah) Hill is just outside Chichester and very near to Selhurstpark Farm, where we dug for a few years. In fact, Dawn’s 2008 master’s trench was dug there. The photos are here.

On top of the hill is a windmill. It no longer operates but is a highly visible landmark, standing higher than anything for many miles around.

Halnaker windmill, East Sussex

It sits in one ‘corner’ of what was originally, the enclosure. Also on the hill is what appears to be a World War Two gun emplacement…or the remains of one. A wonderful octagonal brick structure with a round base for the gun to sit on.

We wandered around, looking for any evidence of the enclosure but the crops were high in the fields (wheat, barley, some sort of grain), obliterating anything that may have been apparent. A low hump of earth was evident in one area but this could have been from the time that the windmill was operational.

Still, it was a great chance to make guesses at the uses for the enclosure. The views are a full 360 degrees with nothing to block them. Breathtaking, really.

Fields looking roughly north from the windmill

We discussed the possibility that it could have been a market, open only certain times of the year. Being so prominent in the landscape would mean it would be easy to locate for traders. We tend to shy away from anything that may smack of ritual and religion but it could have been for ceremonial use as well.

It felt fantastic up on the hill. The weather was kind, the clouds tending to blow away, revealing glimpses of blue sky and we enjoyed the breezes as we wandered around the windmill. I’ve walked by it a few times, when I was digging at Selhurst, but this was the first time I’d visited. Dawn saw it when she was younger but hadn’t been back for many years.

After exhausting all possible explanations (and inventing a few new ones) we wandered back down the hill to the car and drove to a lovely little pub in Lavant called the Earl of March. It is claimed that William Blake wrote the words to Jerusalem there. I’m reading about Edward I at the moment and the Marcher Lords feature quite prominently, however, the pub has not always been the Earl of March so any references to my current reading is, sadly, non-existent.

We had a lovely pub lunch and a few pints of Harvey’s – always an excellent beer – before heading for home.

A wonderful day, in wonderful company.

I haven’t seen Stevie since November 3 last year. I know the date exactly because it was the Wednesday before I went to the opera when we unexpectedly bumped into Tom which was the Thursday before my birthday on the Saturday. So we had a lot of catching up to do.

As usual we chatted about everything under the sun after I brought him up to date with the medical situations in Oz. Nicktor has suddenly decided he wants to walk Hadrian’s Wall and I was amazed when telling Stevie that he’d never heard of it. The wall, not Nicktor’s new mania. So, of course, we then had a long chat about the Romans in Britain and the extraordinary wall.

Normally we start drinking in Sovereigns but we’re always chased out by the noise of quiz night (or “…eggheads at Sovs” as Stevie calls it) so this time we decided to go to the Wheatsheaf which is a nicer pub anyway because it serves 6X. Imagine my horror when I was standing at the bar ready to order drinks and noticed a sign which stated that quiz night was Wednesday at 8pm!

When I told Stevie about it he was shocked and horrified that the two best pubs in Woking were unusable on a Wednesday night. We sat, sullenly staring at our beer. This morose mood didn’t last long and we were soon chatting away again.

At about 9:30 I suddenly said “I guess the quiz night is cancelled tonight.” This was very pleasing. We sat and drank and chatted until the bell went and they kicked us out.

I staggered home and was greeted by two insane poodles at about 12:30. Bed was very, very welcome.

I woke up feeling decidedly seedy, dragging myself out of bed at 8am. But drag I had to as I had a lunch date with Dawn today. My second Cansfield this week.

After a lazy couple of hours I managed to stand up under the shower long enough to get clean and set off for Haslemere.

My first stop was the music shop to replace Mirinda’s missing capos for her guitar. Chamberlains is a wonderful music shop with lots of mysterious instruments that always look compelling. They have lots of pianos scattered throughout the first floor and today a tuner was sitting at one constantly hitting a single key, giving very fine adjustments to it before moving on to the next one. It was extraordinarily annoying. I mentioned it to the shop assistant who shrugged and said you didn’t hear it after a while. Fortunately I was only in there for five minutes and left hurriedly, capos firmly held in my hand.

I was a bit early for lunch so I wandered up to the Shottermill ponds to look for something to blip. The geese (there are many of them around the ponds that regularly attack dogs and small children) were all asleep or lying down gazing placidly at the seagulls. This lot were ignoring the traffic.

Not bovvered

The sky was nearly all blue today and the pond looked quite picturesque. An excellent blip, I thought, and took this.

Shottermill upper pond

I then wandered down to the Mill where Dawn was actually waiting for me. This has never happened before. Not that I can remember anyway. We went in and ordered lunch and beer.

We spent a lovely hour chatting about her PHD, Nicktor’s new walking mania, Blip, going on a dig this year and many other things. For lunch we decided on the Mill pie with vegetables. It was lovely but massive. The veg was very welcome as I’ve not eaten that well this week.

After lunch we drove up to Linchmere to look at the glass door in the lovely little church of St Peter. It’s amazing. It gives a wonderful view of the graveyard and across the valley. It brings the outside world into the church in a wonderful way. And then we spotted my blip for today.

On one of the walls there is a carving. It depicts the seven deadly sins with a row of little marble heads, each representing a sin. It was carved in France during the 14th century. The little heads are marble and the stone they sit in has been carved to look like monkish cowls around them. I blipped ‘envy’ because his face was pretty grotesque. You can see him here.

7 Deadly Sins

After taking a few hundred photos, Dawn drove me back to the bus stop at Shottermill and, after a wait of five minutes, I made my way back to Farnham in an empty bus. Well, apart from the driver and me. I felt a bit self concious as I’m reading My Family and Other Animals which makes me chuckle on almost every page. The driver did look at me rather oddly when I left the bus.