Yesterday, I phoned my favourite farmer up and agreed we’d talk about where to detect next in the New Year.
Today, he phoned me – whilst I was on a conference call, so he got my answer phone. Not one message, but three; of increasing urgency. The gist was, could I please get on a certain field, as soon as possible, and get detecting; never mind the gamekeeper, never mind the shoot, just get on there!
A night hawk has been working the field – a detectorist who is absolutely not authorised, who is just stripping off what treasure he can find to sell on the open market, ripping out the “goodies” out of context and selling it for whatever he can on the black market. It’s the lack of artefacts in context that hurts my farmer and I most, I have been building up such a superb picture of the history of the farm. The rat has been working with his detector set only for gold and silver, digging and leaving holes alongside the hedge – I hope he got lots of aluminium cans! My farmer rides along that headland, as do his children; a horse putting a foot into a hole masked by grass could kill someone.
I hate that kind of behaviour. I will indeed be on that field as much as possible, to keep the bastard at bay.
At night, I have another fabulous discovery – a course on writing historical fiction! Whilst I can’t write any, or soon-to-be-ex-hubby can put a claim on the income from it, I can profitably learn about the craft. It opened today, and I am loving the first reading assignments! One was about my heroine, Hilary Mantel; I have been in awe of her historical writing since I realised that I refused to accept that I knew what was going to happen!
So my days, and evenings, are going to be full of happy stuff for a while 🙂 And with a bit of luck, soon-to-be-ex-hubby has found a flat, and I can sleep at night.
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Eclectic pleasures 