Bits and pieces

the weather was good for gardening today, clipping and tidying; lavender, mints, and a whole host of things at the front.  Daffodils, tulips and crocus pushing through, in the pub garden miniature irises poke their bright purple heads through. 

I have managed to mostly finish my kitchen dresser though it awaits french polish and gilded door knobs,plus of course dusting some sawdust off which the accurate camera eye reveals.So my mind thinks about the next woodwork project, a corner cupboard maybe, or even a davenport desk?

Then there is the cottage in Whitby everything finalised last friday, and a long trip down there next week, to see what there is to be done, a certain amount of trepidation and excitement.  An article written on Isobel Smith - archaeologist.  One of my gripes is that there are not that many women archaeologist who have gained fame.  There was a Times letter on the issue of reburial of  bones this week, 40 professors, 38 male, 2 female!

Isobel Smith wrote up the notes of Alexander Keiller's excavation of Windmill Hill, and Avebury, I think he had become ill, so she devoted several years to this job and being of an unassuming nature her name does not appear on the front of the book.  She went on to become a senior investigator for the then Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, and then on retirement lived in a small cottage in Avebury. 

so who else, Maud Cunnington - early 20th century and of course Jacquetta Hawkes who wrote with such elegance about history and archaeology.  Not many, true we have a few more 'leading light' female archaeologists now, but still not enough.