I've never been a planner. I'm not one of those people with a grand life plan in which certain targets have to be achieved within a particular timescale. This is partly because this involves being super-organised, and I'm just not, and partly because nobody knows what life has in store and what is, or isn't, around the next corner that could throw your carefully-made plans into disarray.
I've always kind of bimbled along, doing life as it happens, the way I want to do it, rather than adhering to the 'norm'. Why do things because others do them, or because I feel I should do them? I've never wanted children. I just don't. I've got nothing against kids, but having my own is just not for me. I don't drink. I've got no problem if you do; it's just I hate the taste and effects of booze and would rather have a cup of tea or an orange squash. I don't drive a car. Being behind the wheel of one makes me so nervous and anxious it's not worth my stress and worry. I never went to university. I was going to; I had a place to study graphic design at the University of Portsmouth but when the time came it just didn't feel right and I started a mailing and print finishing business with my mum instead.
I've only just got married. Chris and I have been together for ten years and we got wed in November. Again, it wasn't your 'normal' wedding because neither of us wanted to do that. We didn't want fuss and fanfare. I wore blue, we had thirteen guests, a civil ceremony that involved the Terry & June theme tune, a meal at Jamie's Italian, no speeches or toasts, and then drinks back at the Premier Inn bar. And it was lovely. (This paragraph was mainly my way of telling you that I finally got married.)
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| We got married, see? |
What I'm saying, in a long-winded way, is that I wait for stuff to happen in its own time, rather than trying to make it happen. I quite enjoy letting my life meander and unfold, letting one thing lead to another, a bit like listening to one artist or band, reading and learning about them and seeing which artist or band that leads me to listening to next. I've always been the same with my beads. I started off faffing with seed beads, reading bead books and magazines, then reading about how glass beads are made, then slowly gathering kit and glass and knowledge and skills, learning from the glass and my mistakes, growing my collection of tools and equipment as I went. I'm still learning from the glass and my mistakes, and I can't ever see that changing. Just this week I had an "A-ha!" moment (not in the Morten Harket or Alan Partridge sense) when an encasing technique that has long eluded me clicked into place.
And so to my impending degree course in Archaeology. I've always loved history. When it came to choosing my GCSE subjects, History was one of my second choices but ultimately ended up being the subject I enjoyed the most, even more than art. I did an Art History A-level at college which combined two things I love but that is where my formal history education stopped. I've always been partial to historical telly programmes and books. I love finding out how we got to where we are today. The history behind everyday objects—basic things like cooking pots and clothing fasteners and buckles—really fascinates me. I've forever been interested in our language and how the words we use today link back to our past too.
I've lived in Cambridge for over six years. We live here because Chris has a very good job here and as long as I have a shed, I can work anywhere. Cambridge is great; it's a lovely city and I like living in it. However, Chris aside, I have no family or friends here, so I don't see many people on a day-to-day basis which is sort of fine for me because I like my own company, and seventy-eight percent of humans irk me anyway, so it's OK. Last year I realised that I spend far too much time on social media talking to people in a virtual sense. That's great and it has its place, but I find that social media is becoming more poisonous and real-life-affecting with every Facebook check, browse of Twitter, or scroll through Instagram. I don't want to read constant, long, angry rants about Trump or whichever person has done or said a bad thing. I get it; you're a decent human being with good morals – if you weren't, I probably wouldn't be following you on social media. I also don't need to know that someone is having their second coffee of the day and to see a photo of a Starbucks cup to prove it. Anyway, in short, I find myself annoyed by social media more often than I am entertained by it. That video of the cat being dragged around a house in a cardboard box to a jaunty Japanese pop song, whilst wearing a hat made out of its own fur, though? That's FINE.
So yes, I'd reached a point where the internet was giving me rage and annoyance on far too regular a basis, and Chris aside, Diane and Karen who work at the local Post Office were the real life people I spoke to the most. Nothing against Diane and Karen, I mean they're just lovely, but I needed to do something about my lack of interaction with other actual people. So I Googled about for local history groups. How better to learn about the place in which you find yourself living, than to discuss it with other people? In searching for local history groups I stumbled upon a very local (like a seven minute walk away local) community archaeology group. It reminded me of seeing the ad for the 'make your own glass beads' lampwork kit in the back of Bead & Button all those years ago and I was all "What? I can actually make beads? In my home? Me?" Yeah, it was like that but "What? I can actually dig up olden stuff? Without qualifications or having to apply to Tony Robinson? Me?" instead. So I emailed them and went along and joined the group.
Well, that was it.
Those archaeology people are my people! Once a month we meet up and drink tea and talk about historical stuff. And in between those meetings we go to talks by other people who like and know history. And sometimes we go to see people who've dug up stuff. And sometimes we get to do the actual digging-up of stuff!
There it was. Years and years of bimbling along through life not knowing that archaeology was a thing for me but suddenly realising it is. It really is. All those television programmes, books, looking-up of things, and that need to know how and why we are the us that we are (that makes sense in my head) all coming together and making an electrical brain circuit of BINGO!
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| My first dig at the Leper Chapel in Cambridge. I helped to unearth a medieval trackway. Those light patches of stone are the track. Lots of trowel and brush action required. |
After a few months of group meetings and talks, and after my first archaeological dig in a field next to a medieval leper chapel, I decided I needed to learn more. Properly learn. And so I applied to study for a BA in Archaeology at the University of Leicester. It's a full-time distance learning course which incorporates a few weeks of practical experience. I'm fully aware that doing the course alongside my beads is going to be hard work (people love pointing that out to me) but I'll be studying a subject that fascinates me and that I love, which is more than can be said for the degree course I didn't do when I was eighteen, and I've never been one to shy away from a challenge or hard work, so I shall see how it goes and adjust and re-jig my other life stuff accordingly.
Does this mean that I'll eventually give up the beads? I don't know. Nobody does. Like everything I've ever done since the age of eighteen, I shall see where it takes me. If I get a good degree, maybe I'll go part-time with the beads and get a part-time job in one of Cambridge's many museums. Or maybe I'll get into development-led archaeology for a living. Or perhaps archaeology will just end up being A Thing That I Know A Lot About. Who knows? As the first four paragraphs of this blog post demonstrate, I am one of life's bimblers. For the next three years I'll be bimbling with a purpose. I don't know for sure where I'm going with the archaeology but I'll know I've got there when I get there and when I am there, I'll let you know.
