Archaeology and wild swimming

In my last post I said that these current two weeks are very busy and I was not exaggerating!  Friday morning was Crochet Club but I could only stay a short while to show my new blanket:-

Detail of the blanket

The lovely yummy colours

The pattern is from 'Little Woollie' using my lovely colours bought through the Wool Warehouse on behalf of Attic24 and I think they are a lovely combination.  Can we have a collection of pinks, mauve etc. please?

Straight from crochet club to another archaeological dig that I told you about back in June. This is the site of a Roman cemetery and all sorts of artifacts have been found.

A reminder of what the site looked like

Small Roman coin

The coin is of small value because the poorer Roman villagers would have bartered their goods.  For example this coin might have been  bartered for a chicken and used to make up the value.  It is not some poor Roman's weekly wage!!

A broken millstone 

This hole is the butt end of a ditch with animal offerings on the pile to the left.

A similar butt end was found at the other side of the site with more animal offerings.

This a medieval peg tile.

There are Roman walls, a blackened hearth and the most exciting items I can now tell you about - Roman skeletons.  This site was a Roman burial ground and 20 skeletons have been found to date ranging from children (buried together) to full grown adults.  I have photographs of them but am not allowed to show them on the internet.  The adult men were nearly 6 foot tall which surprised me.  The millstone above was used to line the grave.

Yesterday I drove to Norfolk where I went Wild Swimming on the River Bure and it was something I had always wanted to do but will not repeat!!  We had a crowd of other canoeists watching these mad 50+ Adventure people swim.

With our canoe man to rescue us, we set off down river trying to avoid the weed that wanted to entangle us and the water was bitterly cold.  My hired wet suit prevented me swimming on my front and seemed to want to drag me down so I did everything on my back.  Even the swans swimming up river wouldn't pass us, as we shouted encouragement to each other, and seemed bemused by the whole thing!!

Since I was a child I have had a fear of finding a dead body in weed and this was at the back of my mind the whole time and after we had been going a while it was suggested that we get out at the next activity centre and have a hot drink and get warm at the fire.  This sounded like a good idea and after a hot shower at a Girl Guide Centre we all felt much warmer. But we had swum over half a mile so we didn't feel too bad about it and when I swim next it will be in a pool where you can see the bottom and the water is clean and warm!!