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June 27th & 28th
Wednesday and Thursday slipped away swiftly at the Arbeia fort in South Shields, where the weather persisted in remarkably wretched fashion. Though I mentioned my earlier intentions to sojourn today (Thursday, my dad’s birthday) in Edinburgh, plans changed Wednesday morning when we learned that the much-anticipated pottery lecture would occur at the fort on Thursday night, and the Saturday planned outing (a trip to York) was something we needed to pay for on our own. I enjoy labor on the site more than my down time, so I decided to stay and toil on Thursday. Additionally, though I spent a lot of time in lectures here (and I’m not always a tremendous fan of the lecture), the pottery talk holds significance for my Archaeology Colloquium (it’s a class I plan to teach) next year, so it could not be missed. The problem: my purchase of train tickets to Edinburgh needed immediate changing, something impossible to accomplish in South Shields. The plan: Katherine and I would sneak out of work as early as possible and go to Newcastle to change the tickets.
A sunnier day
Despite the dreadful forecasts, the weather did not approach yesterday’s appalling misery, and when half of us deconstructed a layer of clay that was bursting with finds, the previous day’s suffering seemed worthwhile. Katherine commenced the day of discoveries from the 2nd century with a tremendous Roman nail, something that is fairly common (I think all of us uncovered a few of them today), but this one enlivened the entire group. Fashioned from iron, Roman nails appear somewhat square shaped, and they are easily spotted because they are habitually encrusted with rusty-looking dirt. The metal alters the color of the soil, so rusty patches of earth often generate careful excavation.
Through a crack in the drapes, a lighthouse winks at me
Through a crack in the drapes, a lighthouse winks at me. It is 10.20 pm, but the sky refuses to darken. Similar shades of grey color the sea and the sky, as if neither relishes the inevitable fade to black.
After leaving the library this morning, I returned to the B&B only to discover that I had to leave the people in room 11 (where I had been staying) had arrived. My suitcase was already packed, so I lugged it down the stairs, turned in my key and took off for my home for the next two weeks, Parkside.
