Not so much digging as scraping.

Back at the Norton dig again, and still trying to define the edges of a ditch - chalk walls, soil infill. Except for where the infill also seems to be chalk, because the wall slumped. This time it was "just" cleaning rather than major soil removal, or at least this was the plan. So, an hour of scraping, break time (half an hour to walk to the loo at Bickerdykes and back - no, they can't have a porta-loo, anything left on site overnight gets vandalised), another hour of scraping. Trouble is, my wrist isn't really strong enough for this very hard, dry soil, and because I'm sitting on a stool, not kneeling, I can't properly apply what strength I've got. I'm not convinced I achieved anything very useful. No, I can't kneel, even with a kneeler. Well, I can, but most of my concentration is on getting the pressure back off the lymphodaemic shins, and not screaming, and this isn't helpful.
Keith has a panorama of the site, and there I am in the front right group, back to you, wearing yellow.



I'd only planned on working the morning anyway, and a good job, I was tired enough by the end of that that getting up a one-foot step was hard work. So, afternoon, I was on to paper-work. Registering all the finds that were coming in, each in their own neatly-labelled plastic bag. Most were the exciting "flint", "bone", "snail shell", "CBM" (ceramic building material i.e. brick or tile), but one, registered out of order because of the excitement, was a tiny Celtic coin!
Keith's blog for the day tells the detail

But then the storm clouds started heading our way, and since paperwork is one of the few things on site that will dissolve in rain, we packed up - everything in bags, bags in boxes, boxes under tarps, now weigh the tarps down. I'd already got my waterproof on - well, my lightweight animal-print shower-proof. This is going to be a light summer shower, right? Wrong... it got heavy. The thunder started. It got really heavy - right, pack up all tools. Not a lot I could do to help with that - a bit of light folding and packing, but I was well beyond heavy lifting by now.
Important and non-waterproof things stayed under tarps for as long as they could.


The rain then turned to hail, and I realised that my shower-proof was not even close to being proof against this. Nor was it as good as I'd hoped at being wind-proof, or capable of keeping me warm. My back, already unhappy, decided to lock up. Time to beat a retreat, stopping under a tree to get my bag into a carrier bag, since canvas wasn't up to this, either. It's about 15 min walk to the car, partially across fields, with less butterflies on view than yesterday for some reason, and as I suspected then and confirmed when I got home, the "waterproof" had done such a good job that every item of clothing, protected by it or not, was wet enough to need wringing out.

Warm dry dressing gown, hot soup, and the return of Dave, were all good things, but in the absence of immediate hot water and given how tired I was, I decided that a short nap in a Warm Happy Place would be a good idea. Short nap... right. Three hours later, Dave woke me with a kiss.

Taking cooking easy - ur doin it wrong

 I'd originally planned on using up spare rice noodles tonight by making pad thai. It's an easy enough dish, TBH, it takes a bit of veg prep to start with, and making a separate omelette, and quite a few ingredients, but it's not hard. But, I was tired. There was a ready-WW-pointed readi-meal in the fridge. Why not just pop a curry in the microwave?
The trouble with most readi-meals, and this was no exception, is that they have apparently never heard of vegetables. There's the meat bit, the carbs bit, probably a sauce, but that's it. I usually microwave blat something green at the same time - cabbage, courgettes, anything where the cooking method is "chop it, blat for 4 minutes".
Curry doesn't really go with that sort of very simple veg. Saag paneer, or something like that, yes, but you do need to dress it up a little bit. I didn't have enough fresh spinach left from last night's saag paneer to do that again, but I knew the frozen needed using, and there were mushrooms. Mushroom saag. That'll do. Dead easy. Cook it while the readimeal's in the microwave for 4 minutes. 

Chop some onion, and some garlic
Spray pan with frylight, start those softening.
Add garam masala powder - I'm taking this easy, not mixing spices.  Last night was chicken madras, I wanted a spinach dish to cool things down and be creamy - tonight, it's chcken korma, and I want something tomato-based and spicy as a contrast.
Frozen spinach in boilng water, then in the microwave.
Chop mushrooms, into the special microwave mushroom dish that doesn't leave mushroom stock everywhere.
Spinach out of microwave, mushrooms in, 3 min blat.
Drain spinach, use a little of the stock to stop the garlic and spices burning.
Spinach into pan. Turn heat back up. Taste, add more garam masala. Open pot, realise why not much is coming out when shaken, get some out with spoon.
Drain mushrooms, add to pan. Heat down.
Readimeal into microwave, 2 min.
Open carton chopped toms, pour about a third in. Heat back up, stir, start to think "reduce" about the sauce. Note to self that tomorrow's breakfast will probably be Tunisian Eggs so as to use this up, along with the ends of the loaf that aren't fit to be sandwiches.
Readimeal gets shaken, given second part of blat.

Beep... turn it all off, serve.

Why didn't I just cook properly in the first place?