I wanna take you to an Open Day!

I believe I can write a few thousand words on the open days at Plas Brynkir and it still won't be anywhere near a conclusive description of the rush. The 14th of August was THE Open Day- when all members of the public, interested in the project, would come and want a guided tour of the site and finds. The day started off early with Mark's instruction as to how we would proceed during the tours. The unfinished work from the day before was still waiting for us on the drawing table and as we were working the first eager visitors came at about 10.20- 40 minutes before the official start of the Open Day. The weather was still indecisive as to how to behave and we were all feeling the growing realization that this was the last day. If I recall correctly Rosie started the first tour, while Alex, Stephen, Kate and I were finishing the remaining work. After the first tour was begun the day took on its own pace. More and more people were coming and only by faith's sudden whim I was at the front door of the hostel as a special guest walked in and Mark wanted me to give a private tour of the site. At about the same time Alex was giving a 2-hour long tour of the site to Michael Tree( Gosh, I do hope I am misspelling this name!). At the end of the official part of this day a sufficient part of us were gathered at the bbq spot at the back of the hostel- enjoying the warm caress of the sun and comforting company of people who had seen your worst- well, my worst in all cases. We finished the day together with Mark, Adam and Linda at a restaurant in the house where the last member of the Brynkir family had died. It was a fun evening indeed. But enough with the sloppy, tedious storied of our days. I want to get serious now! And what is being serious anyway... Spending what was almost a month with this group of people wasn't amazing, it wasn't surreal, it probably won't be a once in a life time experience. It was what happens when a weirdo, such as myself, finds a place to fit in. Arguing, sharing, getting to know others in a way reserved for just a few is a privilege that demands appreciation. We didn't only fell in love with the hostel and the site; we fell in love with being there, touching the stones and unraveling a forgotten story. And I believe whoever goes back there next year will feel the same, time and time again. White hats, yellow hats, and no hats at all we laid out the pathway for the coming years of the project and hopefully Mark won't forget the devotion we showed to Brynkir's story any time soon. Mainly because no one likes being forgotten. And Mark... Oh, that wonderful person! As I look back on that month with him as a project director I see that most of all he taught us how to be ourselves more than anything else. Goodbye, Brynkir, my first archaeological love!

It ain't over til' it's over

Monday the 13th of August was a very gloomy day! What was probably the best thing about the whole day was the spa treatment Kate and I indulged ourselves in the night before. All the team had to finish whatever they were working on and the stressful mood of work-loving students was filling the air with that iron taste of impending failure. And in that atmosphere of rushing, while Stephen and his team were doing final measurements; Kate was working on the final ground-plan of the Lower House with Alex and other people were doing important things, I am sure, I started doing a mega-schematic drawing of a 11-meter long, 6-meter high external elevation. Not fascinating at all but a very time-consuming endeavor indeed. This was our very last working day at BK12 and for the time here we did establish a fairly easy and enjoyable working environment. With every minute closer to the end of our working hours I could feel the insistent waterworks getting ready to poor out my eyes. How can a cry-baby change? It can't. So 22-year-old or not I knew I will be too emotional over the end of the dig. I almost forgot to tell you about the site-walk the whole team took before lunch that day- we all went together to the Lower House and talked about what we found about each and every room during our surveying. And as we were walking around, making jokes and actual, important remarks about the chronology of the building, I could see how we had become a family, albeit a very dysfunctional one indeed. Needless to say I didn't cope with finishing that big-ass drawing that I had started and I do believe the ground-plan needed more work- but that was Kate, Stephen and Alex working on it so I trusted they would cope. So there you have it, the second-to-last day of Plas Brynkir:Building Investigation and Recording was over. And I'm still nowhere as cheesy as I am going to be when talking about the last one.

Get out of the Training room if you can't stand the heat

Only 2 days before our coveted day off the Three Diggatiers were working indoors. Wait...we were bound to stay in there until all the paper work for the structures we surveyed was finished. That is exactly why Friday as well as Saturday were my team's days inside- in the training room. I tell you this, dear interested in the Brynkir project people, respectfully all the people involved in it who are reading this as a reminder what happened - with only 5 days left for us to spend here the end seems to be coming closer and it stressfully enough feels like the end of an era. Luckily I get to share all my worries with fellow white hats- Kate and Stephen. We have come to the conclusion that this experience was so "when I come up with a word for it I will tell you" that we all feel like there is now nothing beyond the reach of the Brynkir estate. Every breath here is both precious and unwanted. If Fraiday went by quickly and reasonably easy, Saturday was an Open day at Plas Brynkir and my intial group was to be evaluated on the tour we were giving around the site. Long story short when the Open day was over and the crowds of cute elderly people interested in history was gone we continued with the work. I can't imagine the evenings at Brynkir without the company of Kate and Stewie(Stephen, people-keep up with the story)- sometimes I like to think of us three as The Diggatiers, because we shared so much during this experience. And the weirdest part of it all is the fact that sharing the stories of BK12, regardless of how passionately I look to share them here, are hard to understand if you weren't there to see it all. Only 3 days to go. Only 3 more stories to share. Hope you are ready for the waterfalls!

Draw me pretty!

The 9th of August! Room number 4 at the Lower House for my team- Kathy & Co as Mark sometimes refers to us. To be completely honest, by this point of the week I feel so tired and ready to give up on my fruitless efforts to be helpful that the morning seemed as crappy to me as no day before that. We had to survey the Drawing Room at the Lower House- a beautiful structure with a bay window on its N/E elevation. And the Drawing Room did indeed grow on me. Alex was already so excited about going along with our work that his enthusiasm sweeped me in an imaginary stream of obliviousness to fatigue. After we measured the walls and I did my on-site sketches for the schematic drawings of the internal elevations, we headed back to the Training room at the hostel were we had more work to finish from previous days. At this point of the day I am going to stop my narrative and let you in on some secrets about the life at a four week dig. You win some new friends, you may somehow lose a closer look in your older friends' lives or you may utterly and totally cut the ties with some. However, no matter what happens the agenda should always be clear that here everything comes second to work. And if you live with people you thought of as close friends you start to discover more than ever exactly how much we all are imperfect. One thing a first-year absolutely needs to learn is that archaeology, especially field work, is never just digging. It is the necessity to mobilize yourself and to be able to work with whatever and whoever you have to. It seems almost bizarre to me that I am wasting time and space with all these pseudo-profound insights. Maybe archaeologists should just stick to their own filed of expertize and leave the complexity of reality to itself. Then again, why would I be writing this blog? It all comes down to the fact that neither one of us gives up easily.

Tell me where North is!

The most frustrating part of surveying a standing structure, such as the Lower House at Brynkir, is that instead of learning more by looking at it, I sometimes feel like I know less and less with every day. It feels like I'm playing pictionary with an alien and we have no common ground. Luckily I have Alex, my Number 2,(patronizing Kathy strikes) to always remind me that we are here not to be frustrated but to try and build up a logical picture of the chronology of the house in our minds. I figure if there was ever a conscious moment at which I started looking at the project as not just a university task but as a personal interest, that was the 8th of August. My team and I were working in the library room and it was the measuring of elevations of the internal walls-time, when I slowly grew aware of my internal ambition to try and make sense of the stones that were standing around me. The only trouble was, it is hard to describe simply where North is, when doing a schematic drawing- if you are using the archaeological way that is. Seems like archaeology itself has come such a long way it is impossible for the discipline to be self-explanatory. It was a godsend when Mark took the director's decision to use the architectural way of describing inner and outer elevations. All we need to know now is just where North is! As we come closer to the end of the dig I can feel how the days start rolling faster and I don't really want them to anymore. I want to stay longer and listen to the stones so maybe they can tell me the secrets of this house. Does that make me crazy?

All the flowers of all the tomorrows...

The 7th of August is a day some of the readers here might have heard of. That was the day of my birth and the team at Plas Brynkir helped make the day special, exciting and full of surprises for me. During the day, however, my team and I had continue our work on the surveying of the Lower House at the Brynkir estate. Our mission for the day- the supposed staircase hall/morning room had to be recorded by the known procedure. Only trouble was there are barely any still-standing elevations in that room. However, as the dream team we are, Alex, Warren and I succeeded. It didn't quite help the occasion that we had no solid ground to step on but were instead treading on huge piles of demolition rubble, but we are not complaining. It was quite interesting for us to continue diving in deeper into the sealed secrets of the Brynkir houses. The day ended around 6pm but on that day I had promised myself- no after-hours work. The evening promised to be even more endearing than the day. As I was getting ready to go out to The Goat- a cute pub nearby the hostel- I looked through the cards I was given over and over again. A crazy party cat was stalking me from one side, demanding from me to have a good time- with the names of all my fellow students on it. Linda, our lovely host during our stay at the hostel, surprised me with a card too. And then it was Mark and Adam that utterly flattered me with making this a noteworthy occasion: "Such fun!"- in the words on Mark himself. Let me not forget David, our guest specialist at the dig, who is going to create 3D images of the Brynkir houses- and his Cylon card. Proved you can never go wrong when you go sci-fi. Although the evening of nice food, drink and company at the pub was pleasurable, the highlight of the whole day was our little star-gazing adventure. Stephen and Kate came up with the idea to go up one of the hills nearby and watch the meteorite shower. I, of course, instead of putting decent shoes was still in my indoors slippers...Not at all surprising really. yo

And let me tell you something truthful and honest: There is no better end to a birthday than seeing a shooting star and making sure you have enough strength to fight for what you want.

Welcome to the bog!

On the 6th of August my new team of fellow diggatiers went not only down to the Lower House, we were sent to survey an outer-building, that had a 20 cm bog instead of a floor. One would imagine how can be an obstacle in the way a survey-hungry archaeologist. We made it somehow, with a lot of mud and even more swearing on my account. It is not easy to have a white hardhat at BK12(the dig site code). Wining about the necessities of life aside it was a pretty good day, except for the bog of course. For all of those unenlightened in the procedure of surveying a building I will now explain it, for those of you that are-just bear with me. First thing we do when we go to the allocated to our team room, structure or building is to asses the risks lurking from behind the wonky old constructions. We do some clearing if necessary, highly needed or even possible. Afterwards every wall possible has been brought into a presentable sight we do a running measurement of the walls- clockwise for interior, anti-clockwise for exteriors. That is where Alex is the master-creating a ground plan of the structures we survey. The camera and tripod are always down on site so photos are in order- more work with the spirit level and we have an even fuller record of the site. What follows that is my job and that is to first sketch the walls- the way rocks were stuck together into a structure, whether or not they are worked, the complexion and presence of mortar and so on. When our work on site is done we go back to the Training room and then I turn my sketches of every elevation into a scaled schematic drawing. The whole process is not all that glamorous and fabulous, however I find it fulfilling and rewarding to stand in the Brynkir house and take care it won't be forgotten. We are all good.