June 18 Day 5 Maryport

Up at 6, had a coffee and left for the cottages at 7. After breakfast left for the site at 8. Had an overview by Tony of the work being done in the field next to our site by the excavator. They have dug two smaller sites and intend on digging a large trench. All theses are hopeful that they will reveal some of the ditches that go under the Roman Temple closer to the museum.

Today we continued to work on our features. I am looking at what appears to be a post hole that may intersect a ditch that runs the length of the west side of our site. The idea is to remove the fill (topsoil) from the features. Each one would have two contexts; the sides of the feature where it was dug in and the fill. It was still quite cold and windy. After lunch I put on my raincoat over my jacket and it seemed a little warmer. We had to collect several samples of the fill from the features in buckets for further sieving and floatation to determine what biological items such as seeds, small bones and charcoal that might provide evidence of habitation. It is all a very logical process but labelling the material and placing the information on context sheets can be a little tedious. We finished up at 4:30.

You can see that most of the fill has been removed from the feature. The ditch is quite obviously the large depression and the post hole is sectioned and cleared only 50% so we will be able to see the cross section in profile.
The kneeling pad gives an idea of the length which is about 4 feet.




Note the string along this line that was placed here to guide the cutting of the section. The post hole (half) is on the left.






During the afternoon I had been able to connect by phone with Carol and let her know I was probably going to try and come home on Sunday. I think she was thrilled and I am glad I made the decision to do so. Now all I have to do is change my reservation, book a train from Maryport to Glasgow on Saturday and find a hotel for one night.

Getting back to the Ship I was miraculously able to regulate the shower temperature so I had a shower. Les came to pick me up at 7 for a Rotary meeting at the Waverley Hotel in Maryport . He bought me a pint of beer and we put in our order of 3 choices for our meal. I had soup, battered cod and a creme broulee. It cost 10 pounds which I paid but the treasurer refunded it to me because they get so few guests from away that they didn't want to charge me even though I tried to insist. At the end of the night I donated it to 3 members who were doing a fund raising bike ride event next week. I also bought 2 tickets on their weekly lottery and told them to donate it to one of their charities should I be the winner when they draw next week.

The President John Shanks and one other member said they had seen me on ITV Border News at 6 from a filming that was made on Tuesday. Here is the link. There are 3 items, a picture of volunteers on the site, a video of Tony and another of three of us. Here is the link if you care to view:
http://www.itv.com/news/border/story/2015-06-18/roman-dig-in-maryport-nears-conclusion/

The meal was great and since it was a business meeting for them with the ADG David Collins in attendance who gave them a bit of a pep talk. They have 22 members and are not growing. They are a jolly bunch but don't accept women in their club and are being encouraged to do so. They will certainly have trouble surviving if they don't change this aspect. One of the members came up to me afterwards and said he travels to Alberton PEI on a semi regular basis as he has in-laws who live in that area. That's pretty neat considering my Mother comes from Piusville, near Bloomfield 20 kilometres away.

Les drove me home at 9:30 where I bought him a pint at the Ship. He new everyone there. Off to bed at 10ish, wrote up my diary and read for a while before going to sleep. (My usual habit|)