Another Day In The Fields

The glorious sunshine of the weekend continued over into Monday so what better was was there for me to spend it than by getting out with the detector again. When I lived in Southport I would often get up at six before heading up the M6 to detect fields in the Yorkshire Dales or Cumbria. Here I have the luxury of a lie in and a decent breakfast and I can be out in the fresh air swinging the XP Deus ten or fifteen minutes later.

I've been going back to the same field for a few weeks after finding a couple of medieval coins on my first visit and a Bronze Age gold fragment on another. After four visits you might think that I had covered the whole site but in reality I have barely scratched at the surface as it is an enormous field. I wasted the first three hours yesterday carefully going over the area where the gold turned up although it would not have been a waste if I had found more. When I was sure that I had covered the area completely I set off wandering across the site pretty much at random and the signals started to appear.

And this is what turned up. It's not a particularly exciting collection but it's almost fifty more small metal items and any one of them could have turned out to be something good. Although there's nothing spectacular most are interesting and all have their own story.

They show us that people have hunted in the field for centuries (which is hardly surprising as there are signs of a healthy rabbit  population.

About six or seven hundred years ago someone's belt came undone. It was probably a mundane and simple bit of wear and tear  that caused the buckle to break but what if it was the result of amorous liaison and passionate rush to disrobe?

  
In the 1800's these lead bag seals were taken from bags of flax and hemp. Some of them came from as far afield as Russia. I've found a lot of these in this field.

The usual selection of near unidentifiable copper coins turned up. A couple of these are likely to be Scottish bawbees which is hardly surprising being a Scottish field. One is Victorian, one is from William IV and the others are anybody's guess.

This knob came from a 17th or 18th century tobacco jar. 

I've no idea what this tiny link was for.

These scraps are effectively bits of rubbish but I think that one could once have mended a pot and the others must have their own stories too.

And then there was my favourite find of the day (no I haven't got some strange skin complaint, I was wearing rubber gloves to save my hands getting ingrained with mud). It's another cut half penny. As yet it's not identified although it has been tentatively suggested to me that it is from the realm of King John. It was definitely minted in London. Now it may look like a tiny scrap to you and I but to the person who lost it it was a true loss. As a percentage of average earnings this tiny coin was worth the equivalent of over £25 in today's money and I can imagine a poor medieval farm worker scrabbling around in the dirt  looking for what really was a needle in a haystack for someone without a detector.

I love finding these tiny coins and imagining the circumstances in which they were lost. I hope that I can get another visit in before the field is re-sown.

A Glorious Weekend In St Andrews

We got back from Suffolk at midnight on Thursday after our latest flying visit. We've got a few weeks before we return down south so we're going to make the most of our wonderful temporary home town of St Andrews. The weather could not have been better this weekend and it even tempted Marion onto her bike for the first time in months. 

We headed to the iconic landmark - the cathedral - and then rode along the equally iconic sands and paid a quick visit to the regular farmers' market to stock up on some of the glorious local delicacies - it's a good job we aren't on that fasting diet anymore. For your information the diet didn't work for us. Perhaps we ate too much on the non-fasting days but we we didn't enjoy it and didn't lose any weight.

After the farmers' market we headed to the famous Old Course and watched a few minutes of the Dunhill Golf Championship - it was free admission on Saturday and I had a look at the trophy.

In the evening it was back into St Andrews to use some of our remaining Pizza Express vouchers and then a walk at sunset to the Jigger Inn at the Old Course Hotel for a few glasses of (frighteningly expensive) wine and a chance to do some celebrity spotting. Everyone was having their photo taken with a very tall guy. "Who is he?" I asked. "Dustin Johnson" the response. None the wiser I added "Is he a golfer?" and was almost hounded out of the home of golf for my ignorance - seems that he is.

After the wine we enjoyed the most spectacular firework display courtesy of Dunhill. It started with a lone piper on the little bridge on the course shrouded in red smoke and built up to a fabulous crescendo with wonderful backing music. It was a fantastic ten minute display enjoyed by hundreds of local people and a marquee full of famous faces.  

Framlingham Update

We got up at 5 a.m. and arrived safely in Framlingham at 2.45 p.m. today. We had arranged a meeting with the builder and architect to bring us up to date with progress.

The sun tunnels have brightened up a very gloomy landing and filled it with sunlight. This small dingy corridor was one of our major worries with the house and we're really pleased that we agreed to go with the Velux Tunnels. They are fitted with internal lights too so when the sun sets they can be used as straightforward lights but in this photo the electric lights are off.

The house is a lot smaller than our old one and I wanted some space to sit and write and also to keep my metal detecting stuff so we went for an office in the garden. The office from Finnish Log Homes is coming along very nicely and should be complete when we travel down south again in a couple of weeks.

The corner of the house has been removed to make way for the sliding folding doors and the builders are closing up a door and opening up a window to make way for a new window and French Doors which are due to arrive on 22 October.

They are making good progress on the kitchen diner too. It's going to be a lovely bright room. Tomorrow we've got a day with the interior designer and the kitchen designer and before we head back up the motorway to the caravan the interior design should be virtually finished. 

Next time we visit the property we're meeting a landscape designer to plan the garden.

It's unlikely that we will manage to move into the property this year but we hope that we will be settled in by the end of January. We'll have to as the caravan site closes in February for a month.

On The Road Again- Again

I think I've used "On The Road Again" as a title before which is hardly surprising considering the amount of time we've spent in the Prius in the last three months. This time it's another flying visit leaving St Andrews in the early hours of tomorrow morning and aiming to be back in the early hours of Friday.

We're seeing the builder to check on progress at the house in Framlingham. I'm hoping that the garden office will be built although it won't be finished for a few more days and I'll be interested to see how the space for the sliding doors is progressing and how things are going with the bathrooms. We'll be seeing the interior designer and the kitchen designer on Thursday and hope to finalise a lot more of the interior details. Next week the new wooden windows are being fitted throughout the house. This is a major part of the project costing around 15% of the full budget and we can't wait to see the results. the only problem is that seeing those results will entail another 1,000 mile drive and we don't fancy that prospect next week so will have to rely upon others to check the work out for us. 

One of the benefits of retirement is being able to plan your leisure activities around the weather forecast instead of being stuck with what the weekends throw at us so I took full advantage of a fine forecast for yesterday and spent the day out with the detector again. I visited the field where I found the small gold fragment last week and went with high hopes and a pile of small grip seal bags in anticipation of all the finds. The field is due to be planted again soon so I don't have much time to search it again this year.

I had a wonderful day with beautiful crisp autumn weather and had plenty of exercise criss crossing the field for more than six hours. Sadly no more gold appeared and this was the contents of my finds bag when I finished. It wasn't a totally barren day and I was happy with the following bits and pieces.

Not Quite Sure What This Is May Just Be A Bit Of A Buckle

Very Early Button

Medieval Silver Penny

It's Edward I Minted in York

I never consider it a wasted day if I find one of these ancient coins. They aren't valuable but they are tiny and it was over seven hundred years ago that someone managed to lose this.

I did my bit for the environment too and safely disposed of this assortment of bottle tops, tin cans, foil and other scraps.

Today I was given the wonderful job of baby sitting Rose for a couple of hours. We had a great time together. When Sarah got back Rose tried on her new hat and gloves in readiness for the Scottish winter.

Very stylish I'm sure you'll agree.

My Granddaughter The Photographer

Well they say it's never too young to start and, at fourteen months, Rose is showing a keen interest in photography - well, let's say that she likes things with buttons. I was babysitting for her the other day and we got around to experimenting with my phone. Here are her first efforts.

I think you'll agree that she's starting to show an artistic streak. And talking of artistic streaks, Marion treated me for lunch at the wonderful Seafood Restaurant here in St Andrews for my birthday today. There was a bit of a mix up with our reservation - I messed up by using Twitter and not getting a confirmation, but all was not lost and, despite a full reservations book, they managed to find us a table by a window (not difficult really in a building that is constructed of glass) and proceeded to serve the most delightful of meals. Each course not only tasted fantastic but was a work of art on the plate (no wonder they were turning people away). Here are just a few of the amazing courses we enjoyed.

A delicious crab starter. Now I can't remember how the dish was described on the menu but I can only say that the pale yellow ball which was like a cold sweet corn puree was fabulous.

Our mains were equally grand and I enjoyed a decadent half lobster while Marion had the monkfish wrapped in parma ham special which was amazingly good (I know because Marion left some). There was no let up with the chef's imagination with desserts and we shared our panna cotta and dark chocolate puddings.

You would be hard pressed to find a better lunch and the beauty of celebrating at lunch time means we won't miss the X Factor! (Although from what I read, nobody is bothering to watch it this year) . It won't be long before the live stages begin and I can place my annual bet which has been successful every year except the one when I lost by backing Cher Lloyd. I quite like the personality of a girl in a duo with a rapper and think that's where my money will go this time.

We headed to Edinburgh yesterday to take my Bronze Age gold metal detecting find to the museum. The good news is that it's still Bronze Age gold and the curators agree with my identification but all will be revealed when the results of tests on the metal are carried out. They liked everything else I found too and I've left it all with them - I wonder when I will see it again. Whilst in that lovely city we seized the opportunity to go and see "Untouchable". "You do know it's in French?" the young woman at the ticket office intoned as we bought our tickets a bit like the way that they said "You do know it's silent" when we went to "The Artist". I suppose you can't blame VUE for making sure when they screen something that is a bit out of the ordinary - they don't want unhappy customers who were expecting to see Elliot Ness (you need to be fifty plus to get that reference). It's as good as it says on the poster. An unemployed no hoper somehow manages to land the job as carer for an incredibly wealthy Parisian quadriplegic and starts a life changing experience for them both. It's funny, touching, gentle and totally watchable with a wonderful performance from Omar Sy as the carer Driss who just oozes cool and personality. Based on a true story I worried that it was going to be too sad but it avoids that pitfall and is a total joy.

I'll leave you with photo's from today's lunch. Another year on, retirement still seems to be suiting us both.