Ensconsed at the Twice Brewed Inn

The weather in northern England is ridiculously, intoxicatingly good.  Sunny with brisk warm winds, the curlews making a ruckus and the lambs skipping about the fields.

I made the long journey without incident.  Maybe air travel has imperceptibly relaxed a little with the long awaited news of bin Laden’s demise.

No real digging news yet, I am perched in my room at the Twice Brewed Inn, the sun has been up since about 4:30 but no breakfast until 8, then first day of work at 9:30.

I did walk over yesterday, it was just too nice to not do so.

Current excavations are really starting to show the centuries of occupation of the place.

In archeology you always start on the top.

The Dark Age inhabitants circa 500 AD probably had a vague notion that the crumbling buildings they squatted in were once barracks, back when their grandfathers were nominally Roman soldiers.

But I wonder if they had any idea that under their feet were successive layers of previous barracks going back at least three centuries.  And below that?

I will try and post pictures tomorrow, but sometime in the Second Century a bad design decision was made. And from that day forward successive tiers of nicely planned buildings and roads started sinking and buckling inward.  Heck, they are still doing so.  Patching, filling in low spots, building special drains, nothing ever fixed it.

And soon we will get a look at what caused all the troubles….

Enough about old stones for one day.  Great to be here with many of the old crew on hand or arriving shortly.  Pints have been quaffed, politics discussed, hands shaken. 

Quiz night tonight at the Twice Brewed Inn.  It has been voted the worst pub quiz in the UK, and deservedly so, but is still great fun in a chaotic, arbitrary way.

Cheers!