Here, and Here, and Here....Memories of Vindolanda

March.  It's always a month of transition for me.  The Robotics Campaign culminates in competitions and spins down to a lower RPM effort of outreach and recruiting.  The weather warms up, with the occasional slap across the face of brief cold snaps.  And on the warm days, when the sun shines bright and actually seems to be conveying a bit of both heat and light with them photons, I think of excavating in England.

Sometimes I just call up the Google Earth map of the area and use it to virtually "walk" up from the train station to my home away from home, the Bowes Hotel.  And then over hill and dale to mirror my daily walk to the site.  And as for Vindolanda proper, I look at the map in a fashion most reminiscent of what Jupiter, or more plausibly an eagle would see the site.  And I remember things. 

Below is the site from a better than Google Earth perspective.  Probably taken by "Steve the Drone".

 

Here's something from one of the early years.  2009 as I recall.  It's a simple wall stone that some bored soldier engraved with a, well in the UK we'd call it a Willy.  Found by a very nice, very proper woman who seems to turn this sort of artifact up regularly.  Cheers, Phallic Liz!

One year we had snow, or at least lots of mushy hail.  Just enough for my pal Pete to make some impromptu snow men.  Probably 2015.

My brother Fred came over a couple of times.  Here we are posing with our Dutch pal Pierre, on a wide main road of the fort we'd been uncovering.  Pierre later married a woman he met on site.

Probably 2014.  At least that's the date stamp on the photo.  Oddly I thought the origins of The Anaerobes band was earlier.  Pierre, by the way, actually plays guitar.

2022, the year I got to spend an entire month on site and was there when my Welch friend Dylan found a truly remarkable carved stone.  An insult for the ages with a graphic element for those who are visual learners!

Date uncertain, possibly 2013, The Year of Much Rain.  I'm wearing the yellow rain jacket I favored in earlier times and there is a stone aqueduct behind me.  I'm pondering something....

 

Just some random memories of green fields to keep me warm on a night when a late spring blizzard is coming through for a bit of mean spirited action.

Apologies if my arrows designating locations are a bit off.  The supervising archaeologists sight in everything with gps mapping systems.  I don't.

About 10 weeks to boots (Wellies of course) on the ground.