Category Archives: Articles

Blogging for DigVentures

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I mentioned briefly before that I would be writing articles for other blogs and I can now reveal that I will be writing a series of 26 posts for the DigVentures blog! The first in my ‘Archaeology ABC’ series of articles is now up on their news page; ‘A is for Artefact’ is now online and ready to be read and you can find it here!

Keep tuned for the rest of the alphabet – you can find information about my other articles on my Other Articles page! They should be weekly posts!

As always, comments are welcome!

DigVentures

CALCH Day 9 – More Snow (the ‘it hurts when it hits you in the face’ type snow) And How Difficult Can This Really Be?

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We tried our hardest to ignore the weather – we climbed up the mountain (granted our cars did the actual ‘climbing’) and put on our waterproof and windproof layers, but alas! We could not overlook the weather conditions for long; the gale force gusts were attempting to knock us over once again and the snow was hitting us in the face at such a pace it physically hurt. So shortly after we arrived at the mountain, we left the mountain.

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CALCH Day 8 – Another Bad Weather Day

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The weather forecast suggested that there would be as much snow today as there was yesterday, so we decided that we would not risk the mountain for fear of getting stranded up there…

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CALCH Day 7 – Snow Joke!

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It looked like a lovely morning this morning – some of us arrived on the mountain early and had a cup of tea whilst waiting for the rest of the team to arrive. As we laced ourselves into our sturdy boots snow started to fall. We thought nothing of it; we are a resilient bunch (as it seems our volunteers are too) and we walked up the mountain to continue the previous day’s good work.

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CALCH Day 6 – Positively Balmy (and a little barmy too)

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The sun was shining and we were all happy as we gathered in the car park near Herbert’s Quarry. We donned our extra pairs of socks and commented on the presence of snow and the lack of an almost gale force freezing wind – compared with the windy conditions last week presented us today was balmy. Almost tropical in fact!

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CALCH Day 4 – Table, Tumble and Fall

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The start of Thursday 14th March marked the beginning of the 4th day of fieldwork on the Black Mountain. Menna and Sarah from DAT were joined by three volunteers – Tony, Joe and Brian – all of whom were wrapped up and raring to get on with more archaeological investigations on site.

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CALCH Day 3 Part 2 – If At First You Don’t Succeed

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Whilst Sarah and I were sitting in the warm in Llandovery, Menna and two hardy volunteers (Gaynor and Brian) had ventured up the Black Mountain to continue with the plane table survey. There was less wind and more sunshine so setting up the survey equipment and taking measurements was a great deal easier!

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CALCH Day 3 Part 1 – Fine Liming

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Today, Sarah and I went to Llandovery to deliver an educational workshop to a local home education group. The group consists of children and young people of all ages all of whom were very eager to hear about the CALCH project in advance of a field-trip to the site sometime next week (weather permitting).

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CALCH Day 2 – Plane Tabling, Not Plain Sailing (or; the day we turned into Smurfs)

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We woke up to sunshine this morning - bright, glorious sunshine – but unfortunately the wind was still blowing like there’s no tomorrow! Aware of how cold it was on the mountain yesterday I decided to add extra layers – another t-shirt, an extra pair of socks, an extra pair of gloves and some leg warmers. On top of this I donned my trusty trapper hat and headed up the mountain with a team of similarly well wrapped up volunteers and staff.

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CALCH Day 1 – The Bitter Wind

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I woke up this morning to snow falling past my window, and as I live at the bottom of a valley I knew that the weather would be even more inclement atop the Black Mountain. Nevertheless, looking forward as I was to beginning work on the CALCH project I jumped into my car, bright and early, so that I wouldn’t be late on site.

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