Balance

This week has been good. I’ve finished a report that was starting to feel like a millstone (and at 31,000 words, was longer by a third than my MSc thesis, and more than a third of my PhD), and instead of feeling daunted by all the things that were waiting for ‘after’ I’m looking forward to getting my teeth into something new.

I’ve not been running since I got back from my trip to the UK the other weekend. This was for two reasons;  firstly I upset my knees on fieldwork. I don’t think it’s anything major, they were just having a grumble, and I didn’t have a chance to rest them ’till now. Secondly, I’ve spent most of this week floored by some weird bug that never quite turned into the death-flu the initial symptoms portended. It seems to be on it’s way out though, so I am going for a run tomorrow and I’ll see how I go.

In archaeology-related news, my paper got accepted for EAA this year, so I’ll be speaking in a session about geophysical methods for studying later prehistory, as well as co-chairing our round table on methods for investigating rural sites. It’s going to be a busy few days in Pilsen, but has anyone got any sight-seeing tips for someone who’s never been to the Czech Republic before? I’d like to cram some touristy things in while I am there.

On a similar note, I’m off to Vienna for ISAP at the end of the month and can’t wait to catch up with the usual suspects. I’ve never been to Vienna before (or Austria for that matter), so, same question really! What shouldn’t I miss? We have an excursion to Carnuntum that I am quite excited about, but what about in the city itself?

I’ve just realised that all that comes off as a bit of a humblebrag, sorry. I love that my job lets me do all of these things!

This week has been about re-learning balance. About an aspect of the ‘simply do’ motto I’d overlooked, or got a bit wrong. The flipside is: or do not. I had a mini crisis at the end of last week, about all kinds of daft stuff, and my mum and dad reminded me that it’s important to be gentle with yourself. Do, or Do Not. But don’t beat yourself up for the things you don’t do. Don’t get stuck in a spiral of negative feelings and introspection. Sometimes it’s OK to be shallow and just skim along the surface of things. It’s how I got through finishing the report: I stopped agonising over every last bit, because it’ll be read and edited by the project team. I stopped hating that I needed to do it, and found that once I was actually doing it, I enjoyed it. I’ve had the same revelation about running, but apparently it’s an epiphany I need to have many times over. I’m struggling to pick a photo this week. I had fun taking pictures of the May fair in the city centre this weekend, I fitted into my old boots (and still LOVE them), I was outraged at/covetous of pink Darth Vader t-shirts, and my brother rightly mocked me for instagramming filtered screen shots, but I think it has to be my first picture of the week, which was a letter from the ever-lovely BrightMeadow reminding me I have wonderful people in my life, and that they need to remember to be kind to themselves too.

Kindness #project52 week 20

 

So, be excellent to each other, and yourselves! I am continuing this theme by spending a chunk of tomorrow being uncharacteristically girly and doing moisturising-type-things… I may or may not post pictures of the no doubt hilarious state I’ll be in while face packs do their thing….

Snapshots

I owe you all at least three weeks of  #project52 pictures, and at some point a longer blog about fieldwork and life in general but it has been a really busy few weeks! So, without further ado, here is week 16:

 

#project52 week 16 Birthday Cake!

I was home for 4 days before I went away to Italy again (this time with Matt, for my birthday) – I think I wrote the last blog just before I headed to Black and Bloom in Groningen to pick up the awesome cakes they made me to take to work. We have a tradition where you bring in cake for everyone on your birthday, but I was away for my actual birthday…. and besides, who really needs an excuse to eat brownies?!

Week 17 was spent in Italy with Matt. It was the first time he has ever been, and we had a wonderful time. At some point he’s going to put up the pictures he took, and I’ll post some here, or link to them, but he’s not had time to sort them out yet (over 9GB of images!!). I hardly took any; it was nice to be in Italy not working for a change, and I was too busy taking things in properly to be snapping all the time. I did get a few though, so my week 17 picture is of M at Herculaneum, which was amazing.

#project52 week17 Herculaneum

 

Week 18 contained many things. Again, I was only home for a few days before zipping off again, this time to the Uk for a wedding. It was also Queen’s day / the inauguration of the new Dutch King, and so I went for a wander in the heaving city centre with Olivia. Everything was either orange, or red, white and blue (or sometimes all 4). We went to a roof terrace overlooking the main square for cakes, and even the cakes had little orange crowns:

#project52 week 18 The last queen’s day!

I’ve been so busy for so long it has left me a bit run down, and earlier in the week, a bit blue. But today Inger (my friend and landlady), Steven and their wonderful daughter Oda arrived. How can anyone be sad with these three around?

#project52 week 19 Flying baby!

So I’m off to cook us all a tasty (I hope) curry, and hopefully things will quieten down a bit and I can post more regularly. I don’t go away again until the 27th now, when I head to Vienna for ISAP….

Gone digging (well, not exactly)

Just a short note as I am doing my last minute hovering about the house stressing about whether I have packed enough layers, if the cold weather is going to affect our travel plans tomorrow. We aren’t exactly digging on this campaign- soil research, geophysics and field survey are the order of business until April 16th.

The week kind of got taken over by little jobs so I’m also behind on work, but I guess it will give me something to do in the evenings. We’ll be up in the mountains, staying in a village called San Lorenzo Bellizi. This means that I’ll be unlikely to have even limited internet access so I’ll be out of the loop for a week, though I’ll try to tweet by text. If you need me, you’ll have to call.

Be excellent to each other!

#project52 week 12

Ice Age Art, CAA UK 2013 and even more hecticness

#project52 #week8

So, I’m still behind but I should get caught up by the end of the week. This picture I took today, but it is my #project52 picture for last week (week eight)… that may or may not be cheating, but I did a lot last week, and the thing I really wanted a picture from I wasn’t allowed to take a camera into…

 

So, last week… On Monday Matt and I ventured off to the New Forest Wildlife Park- we go at least once a year as there is always something new to see, and who could get tired of otters and owls?! This year they have added European Bison, and my goodness those things are HUGE! I knew on a logical level how big they are, but seeing one not 5m away was an eye-opener! On Tuesday I pootled over to see my folks in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight and me and my Dad went on a photography mission. I think I got some nice shots; certainly I am getting more of a feel for composition and so forth. The (unedited) highlights are on my flickr account.

Wednesday was a much needed catch up with my friend Cat- we did all the girly stuff I don’t normally do (and neither does she!) such as shopping and hair dye behaviour, then Matt cooked us dinner and we chatted about books and such. Thursday was another day to catch up with important friends- Scott came over and then we headed out for dinner with Stu and Tree. Again, lots of good talking about hobbies, books, plans. Friday I headed up to CAA UK, and live tweeted the conference, as well as curating a storify of the tweets floating about. It was another chance to see old friends and catch up on the cutting edges of my discipline. There was also epic conference swag, and QR-code cupcakes that led to open access archaeology papers! After things finished for the day I met Matt at Waterloo and we had dinner and drinks with our friend Den (who has just had his trilogy bought, so we had reason to celebrate!) and then trekked over to Greenwich to stay with a very dear friend who used babysit me, his partner and their 8 dogs (plus guinea pigs and birds)… As you can imagine, that was a bit mad but really really good.

Saturday was the second day of CAA and more tweeting, and cheering on Panda, a friend giving her first ever conference presentation (and doing a damned fine job)… I skipped the ArchCamp in the end because I was shattered, and met Matt in the West End for dinner, which was really not very good and made us grumpy. Then we headed to Pimlico to stay with Nix, who is practically my little brother, except he acts like my big brother, and his lovely other half Emma, and their very bouncy Labrador Loki, who has a thing about feet…

1 huge portion of jam roly-poly and rather a lot of wine later, we crashed out. Sunday saw us heading off to the British Museum, one of my favourite places to visit. We lurked around some old favourites and enjoyed some new things- like the gallery just installed about the enlightenment. This was a wonderful exploration of the 17th & 18th century flourishing of science and natural history, displayed like one enormous cabinet of curiosities. The current exhibition in the drawings and prints about travellers drawings from Greece was a good companion to this. I could have spent most of the day in there! We dived out to meet my friend Ish for coffee in the afternoon, before dashing back for our 4pm slot to see the Ice Age Art exhibition.

 

I was somewhat overwhelmed. It might have been the hecticness of the preceding week, and the amount of coffee, but I really had a bit of a ‘moment’ looking at the face of the woman from Dolini Vestonice, thought to be the first ever portrait of human being (as in, of a recognisable individual rather than an abstract ‘person’). The objects in the room included some of those that inspired me to study archaeology and helped me fall in love with prehistory. The Swimming Reindeer, inches from my nose. It was a moving, incredible experience. I think Matt thought I had gone a bit mad, but it was a wonderful hour and a bit communing with my ancestors. The cave installation was enthralling. I really liked how the exhibition was displayed and the information available. Part of me wanted more archaeological context- something about the environment, what we know about social groupings at the time, but that wasn’t the point: the objects were the point, and what they teach us about the arrival of the ‘modern mind’. If you get the chance, go. But book online- we were almost disappointed- by the time we bought our timed-entry tickets (at 11.30) we could only go in at either 14:40 or 16:00. I agree with the timed entry though- the figurines are tiny and numbers need to be controlled to give everyone a chance to see them very close. Even with the timed-entry some patience was needed to properly see all of the objects. Also, if you want postcards specific to the exhibit, you’ll only find them in the gift shop bit directly after the exhibit- you can’t get them elsewhere in the museum.

After that we headed home, and then I was horribly ill for two days….

 

Week 7: you can take a girl out of the North…

Last week was wonderful, and stressful, all in one big bundle.

I got back from Mainz late on Sunday night after fun and games with the German railways, then headed into work for three days, which was hectic and stressful because I missed a load of self-imposed deadlines and got rather cross about it all. On the tuesday night I held a ‘Shrove Tuesday / Pancake Day’ gathering and inflicted my cooking on unsuspecting friends, then on Wednesday I had all of my usual packing issues. My journey to the UK was ‘interesting’ – trains and planes all over the place due to snow, but I made it to my Grandmas house in Middlesbrough with Matt in tow by 4pm. I was pleased to realise that while I wouldn’t have found my way from the station, walking from my old house or primary school would have been fine. Memory is a funny thing; the distances were all smaller than I remember, but then I last did those walks when I was 8, with much shorted legs!

My Grandma was very pleased to see me, once she got over the surprise, and my poor Grandad was very relieved that the need for secrecy was over and he no longer had to worry about spilling the beans. We spent the evening being feasted in true Yorkshire fashion- pork pies (from Petch’s Butchers in Great Ayton, of course), sausage rolls, trifle and strong tea! The next morning, me and Matt went to look at my old house and school, my Grandad Tom’s old house (the one my Mum grew up in!) and visited with my Mum’s best friend, who is more like an Auntie to me. We went for lunch at Great Broughton, then for a walk along the Leven in Stokesley. It was Matt’s first trip to Yorkshire, but hopefully not the last! We headed back by train on Saturday, headed out to see friends in Sussex that night, then spent Sunday recovering in our local pub

Week 7 – Family

(Picture is, for this week only, courtesy of Matt!)