Second Year

Right I managed to remember my password for this thing so for all intents and purposes I’m back! Expect a regular update at least every Monday!

Second year is a bit of a culture shock, things actually count and my 9 hours a week contact time really does need to be backed up by 20 hours plus reading a week. On related news I think my dissertation topic will be on Mesolithic Scotland, possibly on settlement patterns but we will see.

A quick one as a start as the trip report covers most of the weekend. Until next Monday!

To the Lakes!

And so it became time to run the first weekend trip of the term. It was meant to happen a week previous but an unfortunate series of events including the blowing of a head gasket on a car and some very questionable meatball subs rather torpedoed the entire trip. So it was with great confidence that an intrepid band of Ben Lairigers assembled at the James college (that still feels so wrong) bench. This confidence was quickly evaporated when the captain was late to show up, it was apparent that Rob was in charge of all the money for the weekend and that the freshers were being entrusted to Carrig, Andrew and Rob....

Eleanor arrived eventually and the cars were packed to their absolute capacity just as the heavens opened. And open they stayed from York all the way to Langdale. As the fog came down the pace slowed and some members of the club found themselves on the wrong side of Scotch corner looking for a petrol station that only exists in fantasy. While this was going on the other group were cruising round Keswick, drinking beer and getting in trouble with the local Bobby! We all regrouped in Keswick and headed deep into the Lakes as the weather continued to hammer it down. There was a moment of uncanny good luck as the rain held off just long enough for the tents to be assembled, even if the Boltoro did make a bid for freedom a couple of times. At 1 in the morning our heroic drivers left for the comfort and warmth of Adam’s house and on realising the pub was likely to be shut the rest of the club went to sleep, praying that the tents would hold.

Morning came all too quickly and all too wet, with no cars to shelter in from the weather the quickest morning start the club has experienced in recent memory came about. I’m not normally one to complain but the weather really was filthy and it was decided that the easiest thing to do would be to climb Pike O' Blisco as it “was a good climb” “we’d done it before” and “if we want to there’s other things to do from it”. In the face of absolutely no opposition whatsoever we set off at about 9.20.

One thing that no one had taken into account is what all that rain would have done to all the little streams on Pike O' Blisco. There were some very very wet feet by the time we were half way up the mountain. However spirits were high and everyone seemed to be enjoying the great outdoors. Making a good pace we summited the mountain just as the rain backed off, and the mist set in. With some semi-competent navving and once we realised it was probably just easier to Listen to Andrew we made our way down to Red Tarn. At this point the group split up with two brave souls determined to bag another peak while the more sensible contingent realised they could probably make it to the pub for a late lunch.

As the group pulled into the campsite wet but happy our illustrious captain pulled up with news of Hospitality form Adam and his dad. No one was keen to try and dry off in the tents so the offer was took up with little fuss and a lot of gratitude. A refund was extracted from the campsite with very little fuss and we broke camp and headed back to Keswick to pick up some Whiskey as ‘accommodation fee’s’ and a thank you to our hosts.

And so came about the most pleasant night’s sleep on a Ben Lairig trip possibly ever. It was warm and dry and the company was good and we all watched Zoolander and Red Dwarf in our sleeping bags in front of a roaring fire. If this was manning down I don’t think I care! The next morning we were understandably a bit slower to move, reluctant to leave our warm sleeping bags and the comfort of an actual house. However the weather was considerably better and an ambitious plan was hatched to walk across the northern fells in a point to point walk. Just as we got out the cars the heavens opened, which to be honest is pretty typical by this point but we marched on and hacked up Carrock Fell in short order, then it was on to the Lingy Hill hut for lunch before heading on to bag Knott and Great Calva. As we came off the hills it was beginning to get a bit dark, this was 5 and half hours and 13 miles later. As it got darker and darker head torches came out and the whistling began. We rolled into Threlkeld a little before 6 and had a couple of pints while the cars were collected. Then it was onto Adam’s house to pack up and say our goodbyes before heading home to York via Penrith for a takeaway and all over the shop for road works.

End o'term

I’ve really been remiss in keeping you up to date with what I’ve been up to/will be up to. As I move out tomorrow, or later today as it is 1.30am as I write this and thus lose my internet for at least the next week this seems like a good a time as any for an update.

The short version and reason for my general lack of contact is the new job, its actually quite good fun but is also totally chaotic and has me working a lot of hours. Today for example there was just 5 staff in for my whole shift and only 3 of us for the last 2 hours. And I mean in the whole store, not even just 3 guys on checkout. Nope there was just me on checkout, running the kiosk as well! Not bad for 2 weeks on the job!

As I mentioned before we are moving out of C Block tomorrow, and I spent the first part of today before work alternating between helping Sophy pack up her room and stopping her crying. To be honest saying goodbye to all my mates who are graduating this year sucked. I basically spent the week with the guys from Ben Lairig; we went to the summer ball as well as the end of campus party before ending the week with a quiet drink in the Rook, our old haunt. I’ll miss those guys and as much as things will be great the next two years won’t be the same as this one.

Tuesday was the last Archaeology social of the year. People descended on the Kings Manor in fancy dress. I went as a Roman solider and partied the night away till 3 in the morning. Actually this whole last week has seen me get about 20 hours sleep since Tuesday morning, but then that’s the end of term for you.

Now a long summer stretches out in front of me. It’s off to Charfield for a beer festival next Friday then Portugal in August as well as lots of shifts at the store.

I know this is a bit sporadic and reading it back everything is out of order but I’m sitting in a bare room surrounded by boxes feeling a little bit blue so I hope that it can be forgiven. So here it is, my last piece of correspondence from C Block

Rob Signing off!

A trip t' the Lakes!

This trip turned out to not really involve backpacking but was fun non-the-less, but more on that later! With much joy members of Ben Lairig descended on Eskdale with the idea of walking a few mountains and then sampling some Ale at the Boot beer festival. The idea was to backpack our way from Wynrose pass and wild camp after the event with Sundays walk depending on numerous factors not in the least how hung-over everyone was feeling.

Of course this being the first trip that the new committee was fully in charge of, fate had different plans. The trip up was pretty eventfull for some of us and the long and the short of it was that one car arrived about an hour after the other. This was particularly distressing as not only had we navigated Hard-Knott pass twice with no real cause we had also missed out on seeing ‘some chavs’ do doughnuts in the car park. With the night closing in, the weather set to turn and no one actually that keen it was decided to abandon the backpacking aprt of the trip, a plan that turned out to probably be a very good idea.

Camp was set up and tinnies were drunk. 4 members of the club had decided that tents were a hassle for this kind of trip and that bivving was the way to go, this was possibly a mistake when it started to rain heavily especially as I had bet Bance twenty pence that it wouldn’t. The rain continued in the morning which really slowed everyone’s movements as well as dampening their spirits (and everything else as well)

When it became apparent that the rain just wasn’t going to stop it was decided to just ‘Man Through’ and walk

We ascended Grey Friar with not a huge amount of joy and I quickly fobbed off any suggestion of me navigating, citing the fact that the day could already be hard enough without us getting lost in the bargin as well, Great Carrs and Swirl How were bagged in short order before we stopped for what has to have been one of the quickest and most uncomfortable lunch breaks I have ever had. Be now everyone seemed to have been struck by a strong sense of ‘how much more wet can we get’ and the route continued to have tops added to it.

Brim Fell was decided on and then Coniston Old Man as it was so close before finally Dow Crag rounded out the set. As we came off down towards the tarn the weather finally took pity on us and we had a quick much more pleasant second lunch in the sun before setting off the wrong way round the tarn and back to the car.

People continued to dry out in the wind back at the cars as we settled down to eat a quick dinner, the slop that Carrig and I prepared may have filled a whole but looked like it had already been eaten more than once. After varying degrees of sustenance we headed off to the main (for me at least) event, the beer festival.

We dumped the cars by a secluded spot and then headed on to the first pub, which while it was pretty rammed had a fair selection of beers on and space outside. After a couple there the coldness and the general slog of the day had set in so we moved onto the second pub in the actual village it’s self. I’ll be honest my memory gets hazy surprisingly fast but I remember this, it was warm and dry and had some very good beer on. After drinking our fill and beyond we were kicked out at 1.45 and set up for what was probably a very good night’s sleep in t’ outdoors. Not that I remember it, at all…. But it didn’t rain and the weather was clear when we awoke, this was good, we could get a good walk in and I no longer owed 20p to a certain former captain. After suddenly being struck by a sudden case of common sense Carrig and me headed off down the road were he managed to charm the local landlady into cooking breakfast for them. We rejoined the rest of the club and set off to the base of Harter Fell. Everyone must have been very hung-over or still drunk as it fell to me to navigate, which I did ok at with only one or two extra bits and more bog walking than was possibly needed.

Harter Fell was summited with a bit of scrambling and then we lunched and then headed towards Green Crag which we climbed up the side as opposed to the long path round before hacking straight down to the car and home!

All in all it was a great trip even in the face of adversity thanks to Ben Lairig’s ability to Man Up, some bloody good beer and good times!

Another busy week

Firstly I might as well give you my latest extract of field diary. You might notice that it’s a bit lazy and that’s because I really am rather knackered after such a long week!

Week 2 Field Diary
Things are going really well on site; we have shifted through the top soil and have reached things that could actually be called archaeological. I have made a pretty good find and the rest of my group have found 4 cobbled standings that could actually be the standing for a small building. All of this happened in the last two days of this week, the first two days being important but quite monotonous clearings of top soil.

I have been working in the very corner of my trench, pretty much on my own remit as Alex has let me dig a trench through the topsoil to see what was going on in it. At the very end of it in the corner there is some kind of pit that seems to be full of roman rubbish but time will have to tell on what it is exactly and how big/deep it is as all we managed to do on Friday was shift the top soil once it was decided that it was all pretty worthless. This took the whole day but by the end of it we can see some features and interactions in the soil.

Right, on a social aspect things are ticking along nicely, I had my first social as Social Sec on Wednesday and it was a really big success. Everyone had a great time and more importantly told me that it was as good as they expected it to be!

People are also on board with my plans for the rest of the term so that’s good. I might add some more to this later on in the weekend but its very very hot here and I have had a very busy week!

A busy week!

Updates

Gosh, what a week it has been! It really doesn’t feel like that long since my last update to you guys but looking back I have been so busy and a lot has happened to me so I guess it’s just best to jump in and update on what’s been going on!

Field work wise things have been quite hard going but very rewarding. There’s nothing quite like going to bed at the end of a long day of hard physical work, nor the end of a week were you feel that you have accomplished quite a lot.

On day one we were briefed on general site safety, procedure and practice and got stuck into getting some of the topsoil out of our trench, not a lot was ‘found’ in he typical sense of the first day but I felt it was valuable non the less to get my eye in to seeing the difference in soil levels (which is difficult) and to spot finds in the earth (which can be frustrating) The first day ended with me feeling muddy and sore but with a real sense of what archaeology was about.

Tuesday morning however I felt awful! I was sore all over and was still exhausted from the day before. Despite this I actually learnt a lot more and also got a lot deeper through the loam towards the sub soil and the actual finds. On that front today I found a piece of worked bronze, possibly an old broken broach as well as a fair bit of bone and Samian ware, however I did not feel that we were finding as much as we could that day compared to the other group working in our trench, possibly due to the fact that we were slightly above them in relation to finding the top of the sub soil. Unfortunately we were rained off by about 2 ‘o’ clock that day menai9ng we could not finish our drag bit of the top soil

Wednesday was a field trip which was informative and interesting however if I am totally honest I was not at my best that day as the coach journey was enough to lull me both into lethargy and then sleep due to the strenuousness of the two days before.

However the evening of that day was important for a totally non archaeological reason. It was Ben Lairig election nights. I won’t bore you with a blow buy blow (and to be honest I don’t remember it all at all) but the long and the short of it is that I am now the Social Sec for Ben Lairig! This couple with me being general Secretary for the new movie society I founded this year means I will be very busy socially next year!

Thursday was a shame and a washout as we were sent home at 11 due to torrential rain having only scraped back about half of what we needed to do.

Friday was a good day in all although my actual personal number of finds was close to none, enough that my section was checked about 3 times by varying members of the department before it was classed as ‘just empty’. That coupled with the fact that it was about a foot and a half above the beginnings of the sub soil and well above the rest of the trench meant that by the end of the day I was learned to dig a sub trench through it to see what it did.

In the interest of full disclosure I was very tired and possibly a bit disillusioned by this point so it was not the straightest piece in the world but I will tidy it up on Monday and also have shifted about half of it. Although today not the most inspiring day of my dig I feel it was the most important as I feel that I now know I could do this, even when it is frustrating!

So a busy but great week for me, one that I feel I might have grown and learnt more than any other apart from maybe my first week at York!

Keep on ticking by!

Socially it’s been a good week as well with two very decent nights out on Wednesday and Thursday, Ben Lairig and Nick’s birthday respectively. It was nice to relax after some hard days work and both nights were just what I needed.

I also saw the Star Trek film on Wednesday as well. It was a good film even if I don’t really know my phasers from my photons!

A quiet weekend lays ahead before 3 weeks of excavation proper.

Sorry for the 3 posts when one would ahve done but as the blog originaly posted itself 4 times it was easier to edit it into 4!

Keep on ticking by!

Field Work Diary Day 5

Rounding off the pre-excavation work was a field trip to a cemetery to do some graveyard survey work. This involves taking down all the details of a grave and marking it off on a map. And I mean all the details ranging from the obvious like the occupant and time of internment to the type and material of the grave as well as the typeface of the inscription. It was an interesting and varied day if not a little sobering at times due to the subject matter.

One grave that stood out to me particularly was a family tomb as the dates really told a story. One son dies in the Somme in World War One. His brother is then killed in India during active duty in World War Two. The father of the family dies about 6 days later at home, seemingly from grief. 8 years later the daughter of the family dies, presumably unmarried and childless before finally the mother of the family dies less than 5 years after that.

Other than that it was a good day and it was also nice to see photography used as a backup to our records, especially as my sketches were a bit poor! !

Keep on ticking by!

First I’ll put up my field work diary, then I’ll add the more personal stuff at the end.

Field Work Diary Day 4

Today was the second day of survey work for me, focusing on using and picking up on the changes in the magnetic field of the earth to try and find features in the ground. Magnetometry is brilliant as it can pick up things that are not there any more but were at one time such as trenches and post holes.

The whole day was really good fun and very informative. I found that I had the knack of walking at the speed of the beeps down perfectly which was nice. Apart from spending the day in shorts while being up to my waist in nettles and thistles (due to the rule that you have to have no metal on you when you do the survey) the day was a good one and taught me that although survey can be a little repetitive in nature it can also be enjoyable as well as useful.

Not what I expected

So I’m actually sitting on my Uni bed at the moment, as opposed to the expected halfway up a Munro or in the Clachaig drinking an inordinate amount of beer. And while the next part of this extract may seem very upbeat (and it is) let me be very clear sunstroke is dangerous, sucks to have and I’ve never felt so ill in recent years. However today has been a very good day.

I woke up today feeling much better, to the point that I realised how ill I’d been the past couple of days. A drink in the provost’s garden to celebrate 40 years of Goodricke college followed by watching York crush Lancaster in Rugby but more importantly in the entire Roses competition!

So a good day, even if it was not the day I expected.

(Though it does suck to miss the Goodricke 40th anniversary Ball as I expected to be in Scotland and thus did not get a ticket!)

Quick, and lazy update

Here is an extract form my field diary as it is the easiest way to update you guys as I now find myself super busy

Day Two

I was at the church in Micklegate again today, weather was not as good as the first day and so while it was undoubtedly more productive as things were no longer new it was not as fun. Did some more elevations today, I found it a lot easier to get going on the second day as there was no need to learn how to do it. Finished our section early and then started theodolite work (laser measuring) as well as learning how to rectify a photo so that the angle that you took it at doesn’t affect the scale.

An update on the grave I was researching. William Watson had a shop on Micklegate itself so he would have worked very close to the church that he was buried in. However no other information has come to light and it looks like anything else will be much harder to find.

Day Three
Resistivity measurement was the focus of today, out at the Heslington east development. Weather was much nicer today. I found the whole thing very interesting and can see why it is a useful evaluation tool for an excavation. Once you get going down the lines it is very easy to just get in the zone and you can have done over a kilometres worth of results before you realise.

You can also get very sunburnt

So there you are, other news in my life is that MovieSoc, the society that Will and I founded is now all official and ratified. We had our first committee meeting on Tuesday after our final meeting with YUSU, so its all good.

Off to Scotland tomorrow for a weekend in Glencoe with the Ben Lairig chaps

Field Diary - Day One Buildings Survey

Went to A church in Micklegate in the centre of York yesterday.

My group was assigned to the cemetery section of the north side of the church. We recorded the positions of 3 flat graves and two table tombs. Due to the complex and raised nature of our area we had to plot a second base line using the methods we learnt for the first one as we couldn’t use the usual methods.

I very much enjoyed the mini lecture we had at the start of the day. I had no idea what buildings archaeology was like to begin with to be honest or what it involved. I found the whole thing very engaging and fascinating and it is a real possibility for my future career path at the moment.

The main thrust of the day was to draw a scale model plan of the churches north wall and its features by plotting their distance from a baseline and the drawing a scale model. As we were doing flat graves as opposed to other groups who plotted the walls all the grass made things very difficult.

After we plotted them we had a proper look at the graves, they were very old and worn but one was for a 3 year old girl, and it was a tiny tombstone as well. Interestingly the two table tombs were both for chemists and their families so it would be interesting to see what connection they had to the church and to each other. There were no obvious links from the inside of the church so i will look them up on the census data and see were they lived. One family, the Robinson's lost two children in 3 weeks so it seems there may have been an illness in the house. Also both graves contained elderly sisters of the main internee so it looks like spinsters lived long in York

In all a very good day!

An Update!

Hi Guys

I know that it has been a bit of a while since my last ‘proper’ update so here it is.
I have been back at York for just over a week although the rest of my corridor has only really returned in the last couple of days or so. The days I spent here by myself were actually quite cool to be honest although yes it did get lonely at times as well.

But the nose is well back to the grindstone now so to speak as work has kicked off in a big way and my timetable has been handed out

I’m now a very busy man but not in the way that I immediately imagined or probably briefed you on. I do have a fair few days of pure excavation but they are not for 4 to 5 weeks or so yet. However I do have a lot of other skills courses to take. Geophysics, graveyard and building surveys as well as field trips are the aim of the game before any excavation can take place. So it’s a lot more varied than I thought but no less busy to be honest.

Looking forward to it

Rob

Holiday

I know it’s been a wee while since I have written anything but that is about to change, the reason for a lack of any communication is a lack of any news to communicate in the first place.

A quiet first week staying at Uni chilling out and being attacked by geese in heat gave way to a couple of quiet days at home, all very nice but pretty sedate and not really news-worthy. There was the beer festival of course, always a laugh and this one was extra special as the Rook laid on live music each night. There was a mixture of the usual guitar based singing as well as some sea shanties and folk music. Good beer was drunk by all and a good time was had.

Then I went on holiday to the Lake District for a week with my mate Laurence and his family and it was awesome. We walked most days and on the days that we didn’t due to bad weather, this is the Lake District after all, we went to some of the towns in the area. This was good as it is something that I don’t really get to do with Ben Lairig much as our time in the lakes is always limited and full of walking so it was nice to see a different side of the lakes. The Ruskin museum in Coniston is worth a visit in particular.

Being in the lakes of course also meant that there was a lot of walking done as well, I have now climbed up Scafell Pike, the tallest mountain in England as well as knocking off numerous other small tops and peaks over the week. It was a nice change of pace to the usual extreme walking weekends I normally do. No less active but spread over a longer period of time.

The walk up Scafell was wonderful but the walk down was the single worst piece of walking I have ever done, it was so windy, misty and wet that it was a real effort and when we finally got back to the car we looked as if we had been swimming rather than walking!

It was a wonderful week full of good food and good company.

Field Walking and Mountain Walking

So it’s been a long while since my last update but once again that has been because I have been so busy lately. I am rocketing to the end of my second term of university and as I do my workload has increased by about 4 times! On Thursday and Friday we went out to the site of the new campus to do some fieldwalking. For the uninitiated this involves sectioning off a field into 10 by 10 meter grids and then methodically walking it and picking up the different things you see. This may sound a little boring and it can be but it also all becomes worth it when you fin a bit of Neolithic flint or a piece of Roman Samian ware pottery. The weather for both days was amazing so it was two days in the sun and was really worth doing. By the second day I really had my eye in and I was finding a lot more things, even if a fair amount of it was brick and ceramic derbies.

Tired from all of this hard work, and it’s more taxing on the body than you might think, it was time for the last Ben Lairig trip of the term, back to the Lakes again for what promised to be a hard but amazing trip. It was a small weekend trip, only 5 people going on it including me. We are all pretty fit and the weather forecast was very good so we knew we had to get something decent done. We settled on the Kentmere Horseshoe for the first day, a 12 mile stretch of 8 peaks dotted around a lake. The weather when we arrived on the Friday night was abysmal, wind and rain that made putting up the tents unpleasant and during the night kept us awake with the noise and the fear that the tents might actually fail. They did not and we awoke to a drizzly morning at 7.30 to get the most out of the day. After a quick breakfast of couscous we set off and by the time we had peaks our first mountain the rain had stopped. We knocked off another 4 before we stopped for a well earned lunch break after about 4 hours on the hill and then polished off the remaining 3 and dropped back to Bance’s car. The hills climbed that day were:

Shipman Knotts

Kentmere Pike

Harter fell (Eskdale)

Mardale Ill Bell

Thornthwaite Crag

Froswick

Ill Bell

Yoke
(12.2 miles, 1127m climb)

The whole thing only took us 7 hours so we returned back to the campsite in windy conditions and watched a few of the tents around us blow away! After a quick meal of pasta and some beer we ran to the pub that owns the campsite and settled in for the night.

While we were there we saw the weather forecast for the next ay and the view outside the pub windows cleared considerably. It was decided, in a slightly drunken haze, that we would get up at a similar time and then do the Fairfield Horseshoe the next day, same number of peaks but knocking in at about 10 miles, also if climbed from Rydal then all the major ascent is in the first part of the day. As we left the pub the night was warm and totally clear, so much so that Bance decided to bivvy, leaving me with a lot of room in the tent!
The weather the next ay was absolutely amazing, warm and clear so we set off. As we left the car park and started our ascent of Nab Scar we lost the path an soon found ourselves hacking our way up a 45 degree slope to get to the top, I won’t lie here it was a brutal climb that left us all beat and hurting but the plus side of it was that by not following the path we had peaked our first mountain in 30 minutes, leaving us a lot of time in the day. We made our way round the horseshoe in glorious weather; I was in a T shirt for 2 thirds of the day except when we peaked Fairfield itself and Carrig stayed in shorts the whole day. A great day was had by all and we decided at the end of the horseshoe that as we hadn’t come up on the path there was no need to go down on it and as we could actually see the car we would just aim straight for it. So we ran down a slope into the valley of the horseshoe and then hopped over a waterfall and down a path back to the car. Mountains climbed on day 2;

Nab Scar

Heron Pike

Great Rigg

Fairfield

Hart Crag

Dove Crag

High Pike (Scandale)

Many power ballads and ELO songs followed on a quick and uneventfull trip back to York and after the customary pint and Ultimate burger in the pub I slept for about 11 hours.

Happy Birthday Ben Lairig!

Last weekend I went to the Lake District, Langdale Valley to be exact, to help celebrate Ben Lairig (the universities walking club as I’m sure you have gathered by now from reading my blog) turning 25 years old. We left York at about 4pm on the Friday evening and after a nice journey to the lakes while listening to the Juno soundtrack arrived at the campsite around 7pm. We pitched a few of the tents that we had as only two cars had set off at 4 and then decamped to the ODG pub, famous among walkers for its friendly atmosphere and good beer. I had sausage and mash and a fair few pints of cider and over the evening people began to arrive, not just the other current members of the club but many of the people there for the reunion as well. Ben Lairg’s original captain even brought me a pint of cider while he told me all about the first few trips; it seems that not much changes over the years, even if the kit gets updated!

After 6 pints of cheap and powerful cider, good conversation and good food I stumbled back to my tent and had the best night’s sleep I have ever had in a tent.

The next morning I felt a wee bit fragile but we were up at 7.30 and on the hills at 8.30. As there will be a large shift out of the club next year due to a fair amount of graduation it was decided that all the people that would be left next year should walk as a group over the weekend, away from the committee so that we could bond and check our navigations skills, fitness and other things we will need to know when it comes to running the club next year. It was decided that we would climb Pavey Ark via the popular scramble of Jack’s Rake. This is a decent and steep scramble and I got to lead most of it, this involves more than simply going first, it involves picking out a route you know all your group can do an shouting out the instructions for it when it when needed, you have to be speedy without being to quick and very aware of the rest of your group, I very much enjoyed it. We were then up round the Langdale Pikes and knocked off Thunacar Knott, Harrison Stickle, Pike O'Stickle and High Raise. And then back down Pavey Ark towards the campsite. I got a bit dehydrated as the weather at the start of the day, and especially during the scramble was so hot that I drunk most of my water and the spring I was going to refill at had a dead sheep in it, but it wasn’t a huge deal as I had 6 pints of water in the pub before I had any beer at all.

It was back to the pub for the Rugby and the Reunion. My knee had swollen up to ludicrous proportions due to what it was decided was a trapped nerve as I was fine right till the last descent and was fine to walk 3 peaks the next day so don’t worry about me, so I had my leg up most of the night with an ice pack on it while I enjoyed my steak and ale pie. This severely limited my getting to the bar which was probably a good thing as it meant I walked the next day feeling fresh, even if we did stay up in the campsite drying room drinking beer after the pub had closed till 2 in the morning!

The next morning was a much slower start and a small group of us (all of us who were going back in jack’s car) decided to do Swirl How and its satellite peaks of Great Carr and Grey Friar. This is a long walk without too much ascent or descent once you get up the first peak and we had it all done and back at the car by 3pm, even with a one hour lunch break, however as we had been so busy the day before we felt that this was enough and high tailed it back to York, stopping at the Charles for a nice meal to end a lovely weekend.

I got back to discover that I am through the first part of an application process for field work in the alps and then passed out from exhaustion on my bed!

About Bloody Time!

Finally fixed trouble of the drier not doing its job properly when i do my washing.

Pressed the big scary button marked permenant press and boom, everything is dry.

Just thought you'd like to know :P
(also pub golf this wednesday, expect.....somthing to happen to me)

Hey It’s Been A While

So I haven’t updated this in a little while, mainly because I have really been to busy too. Last weekend I went to visit Ruth and her friends at Bangor University and it was a really nice weekend. The place is nice and quite, different to my life in a good way and it defiantly seems to be the right fit for Ruth. All the people were good fun and I like to feel that I was in my element of meeting new people and doing new things. It was also nice to catch up with mum and look around Carnarvon castle.

Things here are subdued as my housemate Will learnt that his dad had died suddenly. He has gone home for a bit and a sombre air is around both for his loss and the fact that we all miss him. Work continues to go well. I got a high 2.2/ low 2.1 on my last essay, which I am pleased with as I found it difficult. Unfortunately I did lose marks due to poor referencing and that was because I had run out of time to proof read it. Thus the next essay that I am doing, which is not due till next Friday was started today, just to give me that little more time.

Battle of the Bands has taken up a lot of my time and my finances recently and the final is tomorrow. Its been good fun and my mate Matt from Ben Lairig got two bands into the final, so that should prove to be a riot.

Will try not to leave it so long next time!!

Snow Lakes

I went to the Lake District yesterday, and experienced some of the best snow weather that the Lakes have seen in about 20 years apparently. We saw the weather forecast on about Thursday and decided that we had to take advantage of it with a quick day trip. So at 6.30 on Saturday morning 5 proud Ben Lairig members set off towards the lakes.

We arrived at about 9 ‘o’ clock and kitted up, aware that we would need Ice Axes and Crampons to get the most out of the day. And what a day it was, we cramponed up a snow slope onto Catstye Cam and followed the ridge around. Then did Swirral edge which about 25 times better in winter with ice everywhere to summit Hellvellyn. Then round onto the Dodds and did Raise and then down via Sheffield Pike.

In the end we were on the hills for just over 8 hours and walked 10.98 miles (Jamie checked) bagging 5 peaks which allowed me to double my Wainwright count to 11.

It was a lovely day, made all the cooler as it was an unofficial trip and was really just a bunch of mates messing around on hills. We got a lot of walking and a lot of messing around done, taking photos and the like. Then it was off the hill for an expensive pint and then home to York for a cheap pint, a cheap burger and 14 hours sleep.

I Can Has Snow/House?

So once again it’s been a wee while between my updates on my life, but for once this has not been because I haven’t really been up to much, it has been because I have been so very busy. Firstly there is the usual rigmarole of working towards passing my degree, funny how much time that seems to be taking up this term as the work gets interesting and the deadlines get closer. Archaeological Theory, unless you actually want to dedicate your life to it, isn’t that useful to the day to day archaeologist as it is deeply rooted in academia and opinions and can be hard to get your head round. Add to the fact that not are we only studying theory but also the history of theory and it does end up requiring a lot of reading.

I also went on a pretty big bender last week, not through any misguided sense of fun but just a lot of my societies/friends all had things on last week and the long and the short of it was that I was out partying each night of the week and then making it to 9.15 lectures. However I cut it out for the weekend to give my body (and liver) well deserved rest and may not even go out tonight, Wednesday will be a different story as it is Ben Lairig committee elections!

Then on the Saturday we finally found the house that we want to live in next year and on the Sunday we signed for it. 7 bedrooms, 4 toilets, 3 showers, kitchen and a living room with a garden in a house that (according to the previous tenants) is cheap to heat and has a good landlord. The rent is cheaper than what we pay now for living in good ol’ C block so it’s a real find and is in a nice area. On top of and beyond all this I get to live with people that I really want to live with, so yaaay!

Then on Monday it snowed, a lot so we had a campus wide snowball fight, then a smaller one with the provost’s kids. Life is good!

Winter Skills!

I guess this may be quite a long one (just got to the end of writing it, it is), as it often is after a weekend away with Ben Lairig, and this was certainly the best weekend away yet. As you may be able to tell from the title of this, it was the weekend of the winter skills trip. This is were we go up to Fort William and pay for a course of guides to teach us the vital skills needed for safe walking in winter conditions.

We set off at about 2.30 pm on the Friday afternoon, luckily I have no lectures at all on a Friday so I didn’t have to skip anything and also had the morning to pack. There were 27 people going in all, 12 on the course and a few others taking advantage of the trip who were already experienced. I rode in Adam’s car as I have many times before with a car load of people I really know quite well, being a regular member of Ben Lairig is beginning to pay off as I know the committee well and thus was spared the torment of riding in the mini bus, which is limited to 62 miles an hour and this is limited on the time it takes to get anywhere.

We arrived in Fort William just after 10, having stopped twice on the way up including a stop at the BBC number one takeaway in Britain. Once again being ‘in’ with the committee allowed me to sleep in the main cottage with them as apposed to the bunkhouse, which was nice. Other cars and eventually the mini bus arrived eventually and we all settled down to sleep.

With a 6.30 start the next morning we met the guides and got our boots and crampons fitted. It was then off to the mountains to learn. We would be climbing Aonach Mòr as it has a gondola that takes you straight to the snow line, allowing us to learn the skills without having to climb there first. It was snowy there, very snowy. I have never seen so much snow and there was an avalanche warning in the area (more on that later). We split into groups of 4 and were taught how to spot safe routes, how to fall on snow, how to stop ourselves with an ice axe in numerous positions, without an ice axe and also how to spot avalanche risks. We then were led up one of the steeper sides of Aonach Mòr and told to use our skills to climb it safely (with supervision of course). Unfortunately the girls in my group were not finding it very easy at all, meaning two things, one the guide was rather pre-occupied with them so I had to pick the route (he always double checked it) but more importantly I had to spend the whole day breaking trail through snow that at times was up to my waist and had to do it well so the girls could climb up safely and confidently, which is tiring. In the end we met up with the other groups and split into two groups, one who summited and one who went down and did more skills.

I was in the summit group, we did so (I got my beard frozen in -13 wind chill on top of minus 4 ambient temperature) and then began our descent. On the way down we heard that there had been a large avalanche (the one on the news) which was quite chilling as it really wasn’t that far from us and a large part of the course had been lectures and tips on avoiding avalanches.

We returned back to base, watched total wipe out, and then made a huge meal of chili, bolognaise and risotto for the vegetarians all washed down with lots of cans of Tennants Lager.

Another 6.30 start beckoned; today we were going to use the skills we learnt the day before on a normal walk in icy conditions. As is traditional with winter skills Stob Bàn was chosen as the mountain of choice and we set off to meet it in the dark and in the pouring rain. 3 people on the course opted out before the day had begun, having not been used to the kind of demands that a days walking and climbing can take on your body. On the subject of that half way up the side of the mountain I began to cramp something terrible, all up my left leg and was falling further and further behind. Being in pain and with bad weather setting in two things became apparent I wasn’t enjoying the climb and I was beginning to slow my group down. A quick consultation followed and it was decided that it was best that I descended before we reached the snow line and joined the people waiting in the bus. With a heavy heart (and heavier legs) I did. I got to the car park, took off my pack, checked a map and decided to head out on the walk that Bance and Adam had told me about the night before, I knew there was a waterfall very near by and that it was on a National Trust for Scotland footpath so I wouldn’t get lost. As it was only 10am by this point I knew I had at least 5 hours before the main groups got back to the bus so I told the ‘didn’t tryers’ my plan, none of them wanted anything to do with it and off I set.

And I had a lovely day, walked for and hour and a half up the path and the waterfall, came to a lovely valley surrounded on all sides by snow-capped mountains, only accessible by the waterfall path and had my lunch, I then returned back in just over an hour to find that one of the two non-wine skills groups had returned due to bad weather so I finished the day drinking Tennants in the mini-bus with Matt while listening to how boring it had been being sat in the mini bus all day. The winter skillers turned up 40 mins later also due to terrible weather and the final non skills group 10 after that. None of them had summited and all had got soaked so although my day started a bit crap it seems I had had the best day of them all, being too low for the rain and cold to be an issue and also accomplishing my objective for the day.

With us all done early we went back to the base to drop off gear and set off at 4.15 stopping at the legedary Freddie’s Food Club in Glasgow on the way back. Seriously a kebab that at the end it feels like your heart is digesting it and a deep fried pizza are on the menu. We rolled into York at 11.30 at night were I had a beer with my housemates and then passed out from exhaustion on my bed till 9 the next morning.

Sorry for the length but it was quite a weekend!

Ummmmm

Archaeological Theory is Bat-Shit crazy

That is all

Holy Crap! (But Still a good walk)

I went to the Peak District yesterday and had a really good time. It was only a day trip, not our usual full weekend malarkey as this is the last bit of time we have to practice before winter skills roles around this coming Friday. It was a really, really good day out as the weather was fantastic, if a little cold and it didn’t rain all day, only spitting at us as we got into the car. Unfortunately for no reason right at the start of the walk I fell ill for a little bit. After scaling a waterfall, which is always fun I began to see spots and then was sick and then fell over. Luckily Trish has just finished the unis first aid course and realised I had just over exerted myself and would be fine, she asked all the right questions and knew exactly how I was feeling, giving me water, making me eat a sandwich and even giving me pain killers for “the pain that will soon appear behind your ears” which duly did!. Once it was obvious I was going to be fine we continued and did a good 10 mile walk and I really did feel fine. It was just a bit scary and there was no real reason for it happening.

Everyone on the walk was great though, checking I was fine every so often without being condescending or patronising. I found out at the meal after that I had gone green and my eyes had unfocused and that everyone was quite worried, but after the first 2 minutes of this thing it left as quickly as it had come on.

The meal after was good as well, I had a giant burger and a pint and then went to bed for 12 hours. I am now refreshed for the first in my new series of lectures. Expect updates on them later!

I Feel Old :(

Well, not entirely, but I have just been out and about on a 90’s theme night, when did the decade of my birth and formative years become long enough ago to become a source of irony and a theme. Still I knew all the songs and it made for a pretty cool night. Was just scary when someone said to me that “technically next year the 90’s started 20 years ago”!

Oh I also got a 2.2/2.1 on my end of term exam depending on what the overall calculated boundries for the term are! Not a Bad Start!

Hey, let’s just have a quiet day.

Well its now midweek here at York (and everywhere else I suppose but that is beyond the point) and I’m having a quiet day, watching some T.V and generally just chilling out. I haven’t been up to much this week, hence the quiet here but I will be off to the peak district on Sunday for a day trip with the chaps from Ben Lairig.

Its very quiet here as all my housemates went out on a rather epic bender last night and are all now asleep or looking like they should be. I for once did not join them and instead got an early night, which unfortunately changed into an early morning as well when I was woken up by the bin men and then kept awake by the ducks to the point were I just decided to get up at 5 this morning.

So now I’m a bit sleepy but staying awake ;P

Back at the Homestead!

Well I’m back at the place that I like to call my home, most of the people trickled back by the end of today and we are slowly getting back into the swing of communal living again. I don’t have any actual lessons until next Monday so I’m just chilling out at the moment, corridor football has started up again in earnest and a couple of pubs have already been visited. Its nice to be back, expect semi regular updates once more as there was last term!