Veni, Vidi...

I am still waiting for someone to invent a day that is thirty hours long with weeks that last for ten days, that way I may finally get on top of all the chores. Until then I guess that I will just have to accept that there will always be times when I just run out of day and that I can not do all that I would like to do.

Therefore, there was a degree of inconvenience when I was asked to attend a meeting the other day. I needed to get some washing done, I was running out of clothes. However, I had just bought a new tee shirt so I decided to wear this. However this meeting I had requested as I was seeking permission to access some land to film the wildlife there, or at least explore to see what looked like a good location for natural history. However, for security reasons and terrorist threat, it is not a place that I can access easily nor without explicit permission. Therefore many months ago I had written to ask for that permission. I had not heard anything for ages but I suddenly get a phone call. Following that chat, I was asked to attend a meeting with people at the location.

As this came out of the blue and at short notice, I did feel peeved that I was expected to jump when they said simon says. But I attended and did so in a good mood. I explained what I was seeking, and why I had thought the site could be interesting, at this point I was told that they had just discovered some rare beetles at the site, did I know they were there? No I did not but I said this was exciting news and from what I could see of the location, the habitat look ideal.

It had been the discovery of these insects that had caused them to assume that I had been on the site previously and my request had been made to legitimise what I had already been doing. I assured them I hadn't and while a decision regarding some limited access has yet to be made, provisionally I have been told that I may be given limited access. This could lead to access to other locations too but will be subject to a background check.

However, it was my tee shirt that caught the eye of one of the chaps I was talking to. As I was wearing a jacket he could only read part of the slogan and thought it said “I came, I Saw, I conquered” but in Latin. When I showed him that it actually read Veni, Vidi, Velcro, “ I came, I Saw, I got stuck” this brought a smile to his face and broke the ice.

It turns out that he is an amateur archaeologist and very interested in the Roman period. We have a lot of Roman stuff here and not just the Wall. While I am far from being an expert or seriously knowledgeable I have enough general knowledge to be able to hold an intelligent conversation. The conversation came round to photography, or more exactly aerial photography in archaeology. As there is a Glider school and airfield close to my village he was asking if I ever flew. I leave that to the birds.

To cut this short, he was interested in finding a mug, sorry someone to go up with him to photograph the landscape from the air. Well I have told him that I will consider it but I am not comfortable at hight.

While I am very tempted to do it, I don't really have the time. But I am thinking about what incredible images I could get from up there. Watch this space though!

As we were leaving the site, another chap appeared. Now I knew this man as we used to drink in the same pub. After greetings and pleasantries were exchanged my contact asked how I knew him. I told him, and I also said that I had always thought that his job title of “Water Engineer” conjured up a rather bizarre image in my mind, that of him manufacturing water. I added that he must have been working overtime for the past couple of months.

When we got back to his land rover, he asked if I would be willing to go with him to a couple of other sites. Curiosity got the better of me and I agreed. On the way he explained that in the past amateur natural history enthusiasts had provided a lot of valuable information and the water company were looking to allow a small number of trusted people some limited access to some sites as often this could help them monitor the health of habitats and used to be a useful early warning system for them. This would be a pilot, if it goes ahead but sounds really interesting, so I have agreed to be short listed for this.

As the water engineer has been even busier doing his job, I have been able to get three tasks done simultaneously today. First some washing done, so I will look less like a tramp, (American Translation, Bum or Hobo) as well as some cooking. Also and more importantly, I have been able to catch up on sorting out my video footage. As I lost some previously, my own fault for not being methodical about backing stuff up properly, I have been careful to do things properly. This also includes indexing the film and burning copies onto DVD. Now as it takes about an hour to burn a DVD, I have had fourteen to do, it has provided me with long periods when I have been able to get other things done around the house, like the aforementioned cooking. At least now when I disappear for hours I know that I will at least have some fodder in the freezer to come back to.