Just Don't Mention the Grail!

[endlessrarities]

They sent me out to get the post this morning, and I didn't get back for the rest of the day.

Now, we've been doing an intermittent watching brief in the middle of an Ayrshire town which has a major medieval abbey slap bang in the middle of it, so every time we go to get the post, one of us takes a foray down the Main Street.  It's a bit like musical chairs: everyone hopes that they won't be the one who has to hang around for hours watching someone dig a big hole.

Guess who drew the short straw today...  Thankfully, I'd packed the steel toe capped boots, high viz vest and hard hat, but I wasn't exactly dressed for it (I had the Craghoppers look, rather than the GI Jane look),  And of course I'd neglected to pack my sunscreen.  But fear not!  It's the West of Scotland, and it's June, and the poppies and paeonies have just come into bloom, which means that...

It's cold!  It's blowing a gale!  It's downright unpleasant.  Okay, so it wasn't raining, but it was bad enough.  I hunkered up against a nearby wall and watched the crew chase buried services all over the place. Old gas pipes were the order of the day.  They were nineteenth century, they were cast iron, and they stank! 

I wasn't in the mood.  I knew immediately that I had around a one in a thousand chance of actually finding archaeology.  And I'd just been getting into my stride with my outstanding site report when here I was, banished back out into the Great Outdoors. 

he random comments from passers-by didn't help.  Have you found any dead bodies yet, hen? [It's a Scots thing, this, and it bugs me big time!  No, I'm not a hen.  I might cluck but I don't have feathers or peck my social inferiors.  Someone else called me 'lass' which was an infinite improvement!]; Have you found the Holy Grail?  Etcetera.  Etcetera... 

In the end, I actually managed to find a short stretched of undisturbed subsoil, right outside the abbey gates.  This in itself was a miracle.  There wasn't any archaeology, but at least there'd been the chance of finding some.  And worse luck, they didn't finish up today!  I have to go back tomorrow and repeat the whole joyful experience again.  Gah!!

Alright, I admit it.  I'm a bookworm!  I've had it with fieldwork.  The novelty has most definitely worn off...

Anyway, I managed to finish up in time to get to horse-riding.  I was tired, my concentration was low, and Molly was behaving like a complete and utter bampot.  Just as I got her to settle, some dogs started barking from a nearby road and that was it.  Eyes on stalks, scuttling sideways like a crab, and doing right-angled ricochets that almost managed to unseat me. 

You can't fight them when they get like that.  You just have to remain quiet and be patient and persevere.  As the old Greek adage says, 'Nothing forced is ever beautiful.'  Most of the time, this approach works eventually.  I suppose it worked to a degree today, but one tiny loss of focus on my part and that was it.  She was off again!

I suppose these things are sent to try us...

Comments

[bellakara.livejournal.com]

What do you mean? We have lovely weather in Scotland! A lot of the time, anyway. I quite like the cold and the wind - too much heat doesn't agree with me. I sleep better when it's cold.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

That's true - it's been too hot at nights, recently.

But believe me - standing outside shivering to bits when it's meant to be the summer is just not fun. It's good in the office - when it's too hot outside, our office is dreadful to work in.