We got off to a bit of a shaky start today as we'd had an overnight visitation from a herd of escaped cows, who decided that they'd investigate our tent and trailers. The trailers survived, sadly the tent didn't:
A great shame as it had been doing really well, especially considering that I'd missed out a large bit of the central pole and a couple of ropes when we put it up originally (note to self - check all the bags for bits before putting it up next year). Apart from the tent the only other casualty were our site benches which had all been knocked over but were undamaged, and they also left us some presents so we have to be a bit careful where we're stepping.
Once on site it wasn't long before Elvire did it again, finding another Iron Age glass toggle bead, again from the subdivision of the Iron Age roundhouse, to go with the one a few weeks back.
They're incredibly rare so having two turn up in the same area is unusual to say the least and joins a list of other finds all suggesting that our site was a very important centre of craftworking in the Iron Age. The bead turned up in the last bit of digging before a final photo clean prior to backfilling, everything was looking its best, even Alan leaning on the wall was looking very dapper:
I did say that I seem to have an awful lot of photos of him leaning on things or staring into the distance, so he compensated for this by doing his best 'catalogue man' pose for me, although I'm not sure what it is that he's selling
Everyone's very sad that we're coming to the end of the dig and we all have to go back to the real world, so Star's been in great demand as site therapy dog, she does give good hugs:
Whilst the photo clean was going on the rest of the team were hard at it moving all the sandbags we've filled into position nearer the trench ready to go on Tuesday after our day off:
Then it will be a final frantic four days of hell as we haul several tonnes of rock, not to mention the aforesaid 1,500 sandbags, into the trench to protect it over the winter. I'm aching all over in anticipation, but at least the fridge is well stocked with Guinness.