With four days packed into two, work wise, my holiday seems like a distant memory but I have still been managing to make the most of my weekends.

The weekend just gone saw Mark and I heading up to Bishopstone to the archaeological dig that Mark has been working at. He's been drawing plans of the site along with two other guys, and he seems to be doing really well at it. I spent the day on Saturday cleaning finds with a toothbrush and bucket of water whilst Mark kept on with his drawing. Cleaning finds sounds pretty boring I guess, but it was actually quite interesting as practically all of the finds come through there before being bagged and tagged. Everything except for human bones and things that need to go to a lab - like the complete pot that they found, stood vertical in the ground and placed in a hole that had been dug into the bedrock and then the hole filled in with daub or something like that around the pot. It has to be sent to a lab for tests that need to be done on the soil inside and whatever else they may find in there.

I was cleaning heaps of bones from various animals - they think it may have been an animal 'graveyard' - and lots of pieces of pottery. Some sort of terracotta mix, quite coarse, and I found one piece of a top of a vessel of some sort with circle decoration imprinted on it. Quite pretty. It's strange to think about the people who lived there when your working at these places (not that I have worked at any others!). The pots we found could well have been made by a famous potter of his or her time, but then who'd know? After a while it doesn't matter what you've been or done do you, the only whisper of a memory that will remain is that of the society you lived in, if you're lucky that is!

It's in really pretty countryside, not too far from here - about an hour drive west. Here's a picture - saves me babbling on!

This is the church next to where we were digging.

This is the coast line near there, and similar to what it looks like here.

The are a few small patches of woods around that way too.

So a week off and I returned to work feeling pretty refreshed and ready to get back to the hectic demands of the office.

Our holiday began before we headed of on the Sunday as we went to the classical music concert held in the Battle Abbey. I went thinking it would be somewhat like the classical concerts they hold in the Sydney Myer Music bowl in Melbourne, but I was in for a surprise! It was a concert called 'The Proms' which apparently is quite an English thing, they hold it every year around the country and the English National Symphony Orchestra tour the country putting on these concerts. We went along with our picnic basket (a good one I'd picked up that day at a really good price at a 2nd hand store) and found a good spot to sit and watch the concert, but Mark decided that he wanted to get a little closer to the stage so we headed down the hill closer and ended up laying out the picnic blanket in a bit of a bowl in the slope and couldne't see a damn thing! Still it was good sound. They orchestra began with some classic war movie themes like Dam busters and the like and as they played a hurricane airplane from the 2nd world war flew over the crowd for about 3 tracks doing loop the loops and wowing the crowd. It was a bit frightening at times as the down slope of the loops he was doing we're straight towards the crowd, and all I could think was 'If he doesn't pull out of this we're all dead - DEAD I TELL YOU!!' But fortunately he was a good pilot and we all survived the evening to listen to some more relaxing classical sounds. At one stage they played the theme music to Star Wars, and as we couldn't see anything I turned to our mate Tony and said 'You know the conductor is dressed as darth vader and the whole orchestra are dressed as Star Troopers.' He got really excited about it and was on his way to standing up when I had to break the news to him that I was telling fibs. Funny ones, but fibs all the same.

After the concert we walked back to the closest pub for a few more beers and then on to Tony's place to drink most of the night away.

After waking the next morning and making our way home we finished packing and headed off to Lyme Regis which is a small town about 3 or so hours drive west of Hastings right near the border of Dorset and Devon. So we camped at a lovely little camping ground in Devon, but went back into Dorset the next morning to look for fossils on the beach in Lyme Regis. That part of the coast is quite well known for the excellent specimens of Ammonites you can find lying on the beach. We found quite a few good ones and then headed across to another beach where you are supposedly able to find fossilised starfish and prehistory octupy type fossils as well. Unfortunately we weren't quite so lucky there and only found more ammonites. The weather was really nice that day, and if the sea wasn't absolutely freezing here I could have almost gone in for a swim. But it is, so I didn't and we got back in the car and headed off to Cornwall.

We drove through part of Bodrim Moor and stopped to take a look at the Hurlers Stone circle, which actually turned out to be two stone circles in line with each other and surrounded by various ruins of castles, old tin mines, chimneys and buildings of other sorts that we weren't sure of. Not all clustered together though, spread out along the countryside. After the stone circles we went back to the coast and found a camping ground at this sweet little town calle Looe. The harbour and town there is really pretty, but we didn't spend too much time in town. We headed straight to a camping ground and set up tent. As I got dinner going on the little BBQ we have Mark headed into the camp ground to find a toilet. Being Mark he walked straight past the shower/toilet block and found a toilet in a bar at the camping ground. When he got back he let me know that he'd found a bar! Good news! We could head up there for a cold beer after dinner instead of persisting with the now warm Kronenburgs that we'd picked up on the way there. And so we did.
I was expecting a small bar, not much in it except some tables chairs and old blokes sitting around supping their amber fluid. So I didn't bother getting changed and headed up with a woolen jumper on with a singlet over the top, my old grey cardy over the top of that and my Thai fishermans pants. Not a good look really, but then who's gonna care at a camping ground?? We got there, opened the door and the first thing that hit me was the heating and a thousand bright lights. We walked in the entrance towards the bar and as I looked around my eyes took in something that I could only assume was an alternate universe. The main part of the floor was something like a huge bistro from a pub, packed full of young families with kids no older than about 8 or 9, grandparents and blokes that looked as though they'd just been releaseed from prison, everyone was dressed up as if they were off for a night out at the Commercial in Warragul and then maybe onto 'The Club'. Below the bistro type area was a stage and a dance floor where a whole lot of pre-pubescent kids were doing their utmost to look cool and trying to pick eack other up. The bar stretched the length of the room, and behind it was another room, even more brightly lit and full of every immaginable arcade game.
As we got our beers and went to find a seat a voice came booming over the sound system 'Annnd NOW it's time for the KIDS TALLENT SHOW! Let's give them a round of applause....' Next thing you know there's an 8 year old girl on stage belting out her rendition of Madonna's 'Like a Prayer' But she can only remember the chorus so you hear over and over again 'I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there..' I couldn't believe where I was or what was happening, but it just kept on going. After that we had another pint and the kids acts finally finished and on came two old guys about the same age as Dad who did covers of 60's, 70's, 80's and a bit of the 90's... Yeah classic.
After that pint I decided to try a typical English holiday camp drink and get into this 'Holiday camp' mood and had a Pernod and Orange. I managed to finish it, but Pernod would have to come a close second to Snake wine in disgustingness.
After the old man cover band they had a game of Bingo, we had another pint and turned in for the night.

The next morning we headed to the Eden Project. We found that we could go there in the evening as a special summer thing so we headed down to the coast again to a little place called St Mawe for lunch and then back up to a camp ground to set up our tent for the night and then back to the Eden Project. The Eden Project is a huge green house built in a disused clay mine, where the earth has pretty much been desimstated. So a group has gone in there and dumped 85 thousand tonnes of recycled dirt (household waste etc) into this open mine area, covered it over with the green house, redirected the water catchment area into it and grown rainforest which feels exactly like the forest in Thailand as you walk through it. There is also another section of temperate forest, and then a mediteranian garden. The layout is beautiful, and the feeling in there is really peaceful and calm. Unfortuately I forgot to bring my camera with me on the trip, so hopefully the disposable one I was using will do it justice.

I hope to scan my pictures in at some stage and if possible put them up on this blog page. I'll try to do a pictorial representation of my whole time I have been away.

The day after the Eden project we headed down to lands end - the most south westerly point of the UK. The coast line there is much different from here. Here it's sand stone, down that way it's shale or some other type of dark/greyish rock. When in Lands end we took a look at the famous merry maiden circle which it's said if you dance around the maidens (standing stones) and touch the Marker stone which looks quite phalic, you'll be pregnant shortly afterwards. While there Mark kept a close eye on me and warned me several times not to dance around the stones! I'm not looking to pump out any kids just yet, so there was no need for him to worry.

All around Cornwall there are old celtic crosses just standing in the countryside. The land is windswept and has a drained and grey type feeling to it, whilst at the same time being quite beautiful in it's own way. We only got to spend the day and night there before we headed back to New Forest, a 7 hour car journey back to the east towards home.

New Forest is the largest tract of old growth forest in England and covers about a thousand hectares (or acres I'm not sure). It's gorgeous, old oak trees spotted between sicamores and other types of indigenous English flora. Squirels skip around the forest floor, wild ponies contentedly graze in the camp grounds, melting away at night into the trees for cover, and I am told that red deer wander through out the forest too, although we didn't see any that time.

We only had time to spend the afternoon and night there before we had to head back home to Hastings.

On the Friday when we got back I organised all my boring tasks like taking my winter coat to the dry cleaners and getting some more winter duds. I also had my hair cut at a hairdressers for the first time in about 5 years, and got my long locks made into a short layered bob. It's cut so that it flicks out rather than under and I have coloured it blonde again. Doing the colour job myself, and not badly either!

So that was my week away in England. I really enjoyed getting to explore more of this country that I am considering making my home, and have fallen in love with it that little bit more.

Work this week has been amazingly busy with no time to even stop to scratch! Still after the rest from my week off I feel up for it and not nearly as stressed as I was before I went away.