The Winter Nights Draw In

As I continue to write my book (Valhalla and the Fjörd) it has given me time to reflect. I enjoy recanting tales from biking down the peninsula and around Strangford Lough, I am quite far into the writing process but getting it published is the challenge....it has been said that writing a book is the easy part getting it out into the public domain is the mountain you have to climb But researching a lot of the sites (rather extensively) has given me time to ponder my archaeology days. It's made me realise why I studied the subject; it was never to get rich, it was due to a genuine enjoyment of the topic. We have an unbelievable heritage trail - and not just around Strangford, around the whole province and coastline[s]. I have an idea for a second book called 'The Seventh Best' which would be along the same lines but on the north coast run (which is rumoured to be the seventh best motorbiking road in Europe). Whilst I write my manuscript I keep coming back to that shaded glade at Audley's Castle in July of this year. The heat was glorious, the shade even more so and the quiet time it gave me for contemplation was cathartic in the extreme. But I realise what a waste it has been that I am no longer in archaeology. I had lunch the other day with a former colleague and he used those terms (verbatim). It hit me (once again) like a sledgehammer, the acute pain making me wince. I was a fool. However, I also believe that everything happens for a reason....and for me it isn't difficult to find the positives....life is good and happy and that is, after all, what most strive for and never achieve!  

I revisited many sites as follow up fieldwork for the book and for some reason I picked some of the most sombre music for my iPod that day; as I stood at the likes of Audleystown Court Cairn, alone, with the wind rustling the trees, blowing eerily and strongly across the 'plain' I stared out the Lough and began to frown. These moments reminded me of undergraduate and postgraduate thesis' fieldwork trips. Halcyon days now gone, but I had my chance....again, something not everyone gets. 

The more I research the sites, the more intriguing it gets - so many excavations lost in various archives have revealed so much, amazing finds and sites that aren't even visible in the landscape any more. We are too quick, in my opinion, to and all too ready to relinquish our heritage abandoning it to natural forces and the ravages of time. But we lose a link with our past as well as robbing the next generations of knowledge and places to go! I know it sounds slightly melodramatic, but then again maybe the demand isn't there; after all what interests me doesn't necessarily interest someone else.

I am looking forward to Kivi getting a new bike - our biking season always seems to be in cold November, December and January winds as that is when he finishes filming. I remain loyal to the mighty Triumph and even if I had money, wouldn't change her for the foreseeable future.

It is that time of year when the dark nights make you slow down, like some natural hibernation state, the open fire with some logs crackling and glowing is what brings me inner peace.