Day 203 - July 22nd

Today was European Day at Lara's school and she had to go dressed in the national costume of France or in a costume to signify some aspect of French life. She decided to do as a french painter complete with beret, scarf, paint pallet and miniature Monet painting. Yesterday whilst out shopping we saw a T-Shirt that said 'Bon Jour' on the front of it so a last minute purchase was made and also worn.

Day 202 - July 21st

This afternoon we paid our third trip to the cinema this year. We went to see 'The World's End' - the science fiction comedy written by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg and the third in the Cornetto trilogy, following Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007).

The film was shot last summer and much of it was filmed on location at Letchworth Garden City where my husband was raised as a child and a place that we often visit. It was strange watching the likes of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Martin Freeman running around a town where we regularly shop.

Day 201 - July 20th

It is so hot! With temperatures touching 30 degrees the fan is getting a lot of use.

Day 200 - July 19th

More craft today. I made this card for a very special couple who have just moved house.

Day 199 - July 18th

A few years ago we visited Cadwell Farm at Ickleford the home of Hitchin Lavender  When we visited we bought a pot of lavender for our garden. The lavender must have liked this years weather because the plant has gone wild with lots of flower stalks.

Day 198 - July 17th

A few weeks ago Lara completed a 'Bikeability' cycling course at school. She achieved level 1 & level 2 and today was presented with a certificate and a badge.

Day 197 - July 16th

Today is my Mum's birthday so I had to make a birthday cake.

Day 196 - July 15th

After 25 years, we are replacing the gates at the end of our drive. The old wooden gates have seen better days and so we have bought some new metal gates to be hung from new brick gate pillars. Wayne has been painting the gates and they are now ready.

Day 195 - July 14th

Lara's guide company served cakes at the parish church today as part of their annual challenge.

Day 194 - July 13th

After days and days of hot sunny weather we decided to fill the pool today. Lara was in her element floating around on the inflatable crocodile.

Day 193 - July 12th

I spied this bumblebee this afternoon. He'd dived headfirst into the spray carnations and was getting his fill of pollen.

Day 192 - July 11th

I've been scrapbooking today. A layout with a vintage feel to it with flowers, buttons, trim and bunting.

Day 191 - July 10th

Clematis 

Day 190 - July 9th

Lilies

Day 189 - July 8th

Since picking strawberries the at the weekend we've made Strawberry Ice Cream, Strawberry Flan, Strawberry Trifle and Strawberry Jam, What a nice way to start the morning - Toast and Homemade Strawberry Jam for breakfast.

Day 188 - July 7th

At the moment Lara is obsessed with cartwheels, handstands and walk-overs. Every opportunity she practises her gymnastics.

Day 187 - July 6th

Today we went strawberry picking. It must be 5-6 years since we last went and how things have changed. The strawberries are no longer grown on the ground at the PYO farm. They are now on raised beds which makes picking so much easier. There were quite a few other families picking berries but because there are so many strawberry plants spread out over a huge area there was no getting in each others way. We came away with 2 baskets and 1 punnet. I think we are going to be eating a lot of strawberries!

There are also pigs at the farm so we helped feed them.

Day 186 - July 5th

Beautiful Variegated Spray Carnations in the garden.

Day 185 - July 4th

Lovely sunny day today and the flowers in the hanging baskets are looking a picture (apart from those few deadheads!).

Day 184 - July 3rd

Bit of a cheat today - no photo - a picture from the Internet instead. Lara went to see the Horrible Histories Terrible Tudors stage show at St Albans with her school today. I don't have any photos of the event to post so this picture will have to do.

Day 183 - July 2nd

The tomatoes in the greenhouse are coming on  nicely. These are green but there are two or three red ones nearly ready for picking.

Day 182 - July 1st

I think this will probably be the last photo I take of the building site because the building site is now a small cul-de-sac of houses ready and waiting for their first occupants.

Day 181 - June 30th

Today was another hot sunny day and the digging continued. We had several visits from the Access Cambridge Archaeology team again today to give us a few tips on the dig and to see what we had found. Corenza Lewis (C4's 'Time Team') paid us a visit...

... and Alex Pryor (Cambridge University) .....

... and Paul Blinkhorn (C4's 'Time Team' C5's 'Pub Dig'). They were all so knowledgeable and friendly.  Having someone on hand to tell us exactly what we had unearthed was great.

This is 'Slipware' but I don't remember the age of it. 17th century maybe?

The grey pottery in this photo is 12th-14th century (Medieval) Hertfordshire Greyware and the tiny piece of green pottery was (I think) of a similar age.

 The digging and sieving and washing and sorting and recording continued until about 3.30pm when we reached 60cm. We hit really heavy clay which made digging extremely hard and ran out of time to do any more. We gathered up all the finds, made our last notes in the record book and handed all we had found over to the team from Cambridge. The pottery will all be re-examined and dated and we hope to have a complete pottery report in the coming week. Then, in a few months time the team will provide a full report of the whole weekends activities and a summary of what it revealed about the village.

Although hard work, we thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and it has certainly renewed my interest in social history.

Day 180 - June 29th

We couldn't have asked for better weather! After a very, very wet Friday we woke today to a hot, sunny day for the start of our weekend of digging funded by a Heritage Lottery 'All Our Stories' Grant and overseen by Access Cambridge Archaeology.

These photos probably aren't in the exact order they were taken but hopefully they give a flavour of our day.

The pit had to be excavated in 10cm increments (contexts) and each context had to be cleaned and recorded before starting the next.





 Anything we found had to be washed and kept in trays for later identification.



This perfectly round object although not archaeology was of interest. It is a hollow geological object which formed naturally. We found two more later.



We also found lots of bone....



 ... and of course lots of pottery.

All of this came from just one context and among all the pottery is a piece which the archaeologist identified as a piece of 17th century German pottery from a drinking vessel.

By the end of today we had dig down 30cm.

Day 179 - June 28th

This weekend we are taking part in a project to investigate the history of our village.  Up to 30 archaeological test pits are being dug by householders in the village and we have decided to dig one in our garden.

This afternoon Christopher and I have been measuring and marking out the 1m² where we will dig and marking out where it is in relation to buildings, property boundaries, etc. We have a record book which we will be using over the weekend to record what we find and have found all the equipment we need. 

Roll on tomorrow! Let the digging begin! 

Day 178 - June 27th

I've been putting together a scrapbook page today and used a photo of my grandparents on it. I needed some ribbon and lace to add to the page and it seemed quite appropriate that I reached for a box of ribbon, lace and trimmings that I inherited from my Nan over 25 years ago. My Nan was very much of the wartime "Make Do and Mend" mentality and I'm sure much of the contents of the box came from old clothing whilst some was bought in sales, etc at haberdashery stores. 

Day 177 - June 26th

I was just about to take a photo of this bird box when a rather large creature of the non-bird variety appeared from over the fence!