The Wayfaring Path

I’ve spent the best part of a year being super excited about going on the dig, but these last few days I’ve felt quite sick with nerves! Try as I might to talk myself out of the anxious feeling I just couldn’t, and I got quieter and quieter, and grumpier and grumpier. Darling Regan met me up in Berwick and came over to the island with me, puzzled as to why I wasn’t bouncing off the walls… but I’m getting ahead of myself, so I’ll catch you up on the last week.

After Sunday’s music festival we had about a week left in our lovely Prestwich home, working in the mornings and doing wee trips in the arvo. Monday was the first day the nerves really started to kick in, so I distracted myself with a trip to Orsdall Hall, a Tudor building in the south-east of the city, actually in the neighbouring city of Salford, not in Manchester itself. It was a bit of a mission to get there on a couple of buses each way, and it was pissing down so we didn’t do the planned walk around the massive ship canals, but we did get some good views of them from the top deck of the bus, so that’ll have to do for this trip!

The hall was beautiful, there’s something so special in the ancient heavy beams and creaky floorboards and old old furniture. It’s a really well run place, with portraits of the family members over the years, and stories about all the ghosts that the staff have encountered! There was lots of the carved dark black wooden furniture that I associate with that time period, but also modern recreations in oak that are a lovely golden colour, which made me wonder if that’s how the old stuff looked at first, and then 500 years of woodsmoke and polish coloured it black. A really cool bit was the stone over the fireplace with grooves in it where people had sharpened knives and swords over the years.

Travelling by bus can sometimes be a bit tiresome, but generally it’s really easy to get around, and occasionally you find some real characters. One of our trips that day had only a few of us on board, and after a young mum had gotten off the bus with buggy and baby, another passenger realised she’d left her phone behind. The bus erupted into noise and chaos, with Regan and I totally baffled as to what was happening. The toothless old lady in front of us was yelling about the lost property office, the person who found the phone was yelling at the driver to stop, and the other passenger (who is a friend of the mum) was yelling something else entirely – all in such broad accents so that we really only figured out what was happening after the fact.

All’s well that ends well as at the traffic lights the mum came running around the corner, baby in her arms and pram presumably in the care of a random stranger! Phone was returned, we gave each other thumbs up, and then a completely bizarre conversation started up between toothless-lady and friend-of-mum-guy. I could only really understand one word in twelve, but there was something about a crack-head neighbour and a stolen phone. I recorded it for a bit and then realised that’s not really cool so deleted the recording, so you’ll just have to imagine!

Tuesday was a ‘life admin’ type day, with a trip to the charity shop to offload stuff, and a visit to the Post Office to offload even more – goodbye tent! Goodbye sleeping mat! I won’t miss dragging you around! I was SO WELL prepped for the post office, right up until I closed up the two bags without making a note of which parcel was which, so we had to squeeze and grope them to try and figure out which was parcel 1 and which was parcel 2. Hopefully we got them round the right way, otherwise customs will be very mad at me as the list of contents will be wrong.

Wednesday was packing day, plus a trip into the CBD to visit the Pre-Raphaelite paintings. How amazing to be able to go and see them whenever you like, I’ll really miss that so much when I’m back home. I met Regan for a coffee and then wandered around the gallery – such a great mix of paintings, sculpture and furniture, I like it a lot. More rain, it really feels like the weather has shifted this last week or so.

On Thursday my alarm went off at 6am as usual, but not for work today, so I was able to bounce out of bed rather than drag myself out 🙂 I had that night booked in York, with an early train, so Regan hauled Big Bertha along to the station for me, bless him. It would be so good if the bag had bigger wheels and some tread, as some of the footpaths we’ve encountered are more off-road than urban. No idea if an off-road suitcase exists but it should! And suspension, it definitely needs suspension!

York was amazing, of course, and I was there to make a video about the minster, which I’ll link here once it’s done (but that might not be for a while). On the first day I didn’t film, I just wandered about and learned about the minster and got talking with some people to try and harvest some fun stories. I think I’ve got enough to make a pretty good video, here’s hoping! I went through the Jorvik Viking Centre again (a lot of places here offer free re-entry for a year) which was really good a second time, and then back to the minster for Evensong.

Holy moly it was such a wonderful experience, and it’s how I imagine Rivendell would sound. As I sat there tears welled up, and everything became a beautiful candle-lit blur – I could imagine all the lords and ladies throughout the centuries, sitting in the Quire listening to the music. As my tears cleared the audience returned to being just us tourists in our hiking gear, but for a few moments there I time-travelled.

I headed back to my Victorian attic room and had a cold dinner, and then the sun came out so I went back down to the minster to film the sunset on the western wall. There were puddles everywhere, with shards of the minster reflected in them, which made for some lovely photographs. People milling about, a few ghost-tour guides telling stories, and a really relaxed vibe – a perfect end to the day.

When I got back to my room I realised I didn’t have an NZ>UK power adapter with me, and I freaked out as I had a day of filming to do the next day, plus navigation at either end of my train journey and of course my ticket only exists on my phone! Victorian guesthouses are famously not great at providing USB charging ports, but happily I have a power bank with a little over a full phone charge so I charged up, powered down, and hoped for the best.

Up at 6am and down to the minster to film sunrise on the eastern wall – what a glorious light, and so wonderful to have the whole city to myself. Well, me and the bin-men of course! York is one of the few cities I’d live in the centre of, it would be so wonderful to have the city to yourself at the edges of the days, when the tourists are still in bed and it’s quiet and magical.

I went to Matins, then had a very compressed filming session in the minster, hopefully I have enough footage! Attending Matins was nice, as a few locals were there too, so it felt a bit less touristy and a bit more like the real life of the church. I’m not a church-goer so felt incredibly awkward and probably did everything wrong, but it was nice to be there and everyone was very kind of course.

Update: here’s the finished video!

I wheeled Big Bertha up to the station and on to the Berwick-upon-Tweed train, which is the nearest station to Lindisfarne. We went past Lindisfarne – the Holy Island – and then kept going for ages to get to Berwick…. I really didn’t realise it was so far between the two places. When I was planning this trip at a 12,000 mile distance such details didn’t really register with me, but now all my (lack of) planning chickens were definitely coming home to roost!

The accommodation in Berwick was basic and clean, and the host was friendly but very VERY stoned! The overwhelming smell of this trip has definitely been marijuana – it’s everywhere and seems to be basically legal, in as far as the police don’t seem to be bothered arresting anyone. Anyway, I managed to make my phone charge last all the way there, then back to the station to meet Regan, and then back to the room again. Hurrah! To think the first time I left NZ I travelled from Kathmandu to London overland without a mobile phone – not even an email address! Unthinkable now.

We had an explore, it’s an interesting wee town – definitely feels more Scottish than English in architecture, accents, and culture, and its history is one of conflict between the two countries – so there’s way more castles and fortifications than we’ve seen so far on this trip. A pint in a “proper” pub, a delicious curry, and then back to our room – a big day tomorrow!

The nerves were almost overwhelming the next morning, so I was very quiet and probably a bit snappy (sorry Regan!). I had budgeted for a taxi, but we found out there’s a bus to and from the island on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and happily it was Saturday! So we took the bus, and I looked around, trying to spot any other budding archaeologists on board. When we got to the accommodation I found my bunk… in a room with 8 beds, which I freaked out about as I’d been told it was a maximum of four to a room. I was getting some pretty hard regret feelings and Regan wisely left me alone to unpack and try and drag myself out of my funk.

Happily the weather was lovely and the island is stunning, so we had a really nice wander around. I pointlessly tried to find alternative accommodation and then realised I was just going to have to suck it up and get on with it. I’ve since learned that the long list of names on the door is for the whole 4 weeks, they aren’t all moving in today! So I just have one other roomie and she’s lovely and quiet, bless her. It’s definitely been challenging, feeling lost and first-day-at-school-ish, and I’ve been missing home a LOT, but I know in a few days I’ll be settled in and loving it. Right now though, 4 weeks feels like a veeeeery long time. It was extremely hard to wave goodbye to Regan as he took the last bus back to the mainland. I knew a big WHAT HAVE I DONE moment was on the cards and that was definitely when it hit me the hardest.

Today is Sunday and I start on the dig tomorrow. I’ve met a few people, am figuring out the bunkhouse, and starting to settle in. Today is a very blustery day so I went for a walk to the castle and along the beach. As a Wellingtonian it felt very familiar – windy and wild – and I’m not sure if that made the homesickness better or worse! But as lost and alone as I feel, I know from tomorrow when I’m working in the trenches I’ll feel part of it all, and that’ll be great. Right now I’m “betwixt and between”, not really part of things but not able to be anywhere else. A sort of panic arises in me when I think that there’s no bus off the island till Wednesday, but then I remember that I’ve got a bed and I’m being fed, and from tomorrow I’ll be working, so then the panic subsides. I’m using fairly dramatic language here, and it’s not as bad as all that, but I want to be open about how I’m feeling so it can be an authentic record of the trip.

I look forward to writing next week with stories of old artefacts and new friends 🙂

UPDATE: I’m halfway through the first day digging and it’s brilliant!!!