Back from the World Archaeological Congress in Dublin and back on site at Silchester. And guess what? The rain followed us We finished early on sunday, half hearted digging on Monday and noone was in the trench today. Better not be a repeat of last year!

Dublin made me really happy. It was a fab place with loads to do and see and made me feel homesick for Glasgow - they seem so similar. It was just another thing that made me realise I probably don’t want to stay in the south for long after this job ends, I’d like Yorkshire at least I guess if a great and exciting job came up then I’d stay though.

The conference was mostly cool, a lot of interesting papers and people but a few odd and a few really boring ones. The Digital Age ones had the usual GIS papers etc and nothing really struck me as revolutionary, but maybe I was just hungover a lot!

Guinness would be a lot cheaper in Glasgow too! It was at least 5 euros per pint! I’ll be going back to Glasgow for a while in August - really looking forward to that

I know! Shocking! Roz has decided not to drink or smoke for the next few months and instead have a mini RozJohn baby! Lola and I will be aunties! I am still in shock, despite having known about this for a good few hours now. A baby! Like, a real life baby. This sort of stuff ain’t supposed to happen in the Trinity. It’ll have to be Ribena in wine glasses just so she doesn’t feel left out and less green fairy cake all round.

Still, tis yet another licence to go toy shopping and buy little cute dinosaurs in time for December. Hooray!

Three days until the first lot of staff arrive to set up camp on site. Debackfill commences on Monday, Portacabins and computers on site on tuesday and the big staff training day will be on Thursday. Eeeek! Haven’t quite got all the training manuals in place yet, will do by Friday but this responsibility stuff it getting to be a bit scary. Daunting. Also, I’m currently writing an article for Lucerna, the roman finds group. Something else I never thought I’d do - not to say I’m necessarily proud of this shift towards romanism that I’ve been undergoing lately!

…means fun fun fun! Or, being at work till an ungodly late hour. With lots of link checking and button clicking fun awaiting me for the next few hours whilst Mat toils away and does the techie bits. The only good thing is it gets me out of going to the gym tonight!

I caved and bought GTA4 today. I got hooked at the weekend when in Loughborough and thought I wouldn’t need it because Indiana Jones lego is on pre order for a week today - 2 games in a week!

I’m about 5% through so far, and haven’t yet seen much gun action or ladies of the night. This is probably because I still haven’t managed to get the driving thing down yet and crash all the nice shiny cars I steal. I only stopped playing tonight because I’m stuck on a driving mission trying to chase down a man who hasn’t paid protection money to the mob - nice

It is such a cool game though, and the weather and lighting effects are really really pretty. I don’t get what all the fuss is about the violence and so on, its just a really well thought out, pretty, open game.

The other really cool thing is the car radio - apparently, Iggy Pop and Karl Lagerfeld do the voices for some of the DJ’s and Iggy chose all the songs. Cool. I’ll rate it when I get it, but right now its running at about a 7 out of 10

I had my staff photo taken today for the department board and website - interesting, as yesterday I came across my staff photo from the Archaeology Data Service so less then two years ago. How different! Not sure which one is best though

Only 4 weeks until week 0. This makes me happy, stressed and excited in equal measure. Whilst writing up the training preparations and manuals for the wee students and staff, I must also remember to stock up on gin and tonic and an uzi. Also, I need to work out a system so I don’t have ridiculous archaeology tan for the wedding of the year in Oxford, only 3 days after the dig ends!

I realised today, as I was baking in the sweltering heat of the office, that I really miss Scotland. More specifically, my nephews. I was up there last weekend and it was so much fun. We went to the Kelvingrove, the park, ate dinosaur shaped cake, had endless battles with Decepticons and other baddy robots and the most epic water pistol fight I’d had since primary school.

Now, back in sunny Reading, I have the office approaching 30 degrees, lots of work, talks and conference papers to write and university politics to deal with. Hurrah. Not the happiest of bunnies. A water pistol fight would have been just the thing to cool off earlier but I don’t think that the cleaner lady would have taken too kindly to gallons of water all over the allen lab.

I like my job (most of the time!) but the south just isn’t appealing. I love my friends down here and we do have the odd bit if fun in amongst work but something is missing. Not sure what that exactly is but I didn’t feel like this in York. I loved York, and its currently rising up the list of places I want to try and find a job come next year.

Also, you can buy potato scones and decent black pudding in York!

I did it! 100% notes hit and a 596 note streak! The lucky song? ‘My name is Jonas’ by Weezer. Go me!

I have been given the task of comparing prices for hiring and or buying GPS equipment for the Silchester project this year. Why is finding out prices and product specifications so difficult? I don’t want a hi tec magic machine with a black box, just something simple! I’ve spent the last two days calling and emailing people, having meetings and generally stressing.

Then, I find out through someone who knows someone that the department has a Topcon FC200, brand new and never used. Why never used? Because noone knows how. Possibly, because noone knew it was there. Arrrrggghhh! Manual reading for me tomorrow!