Beach Party... coming soon!

I probably didn’t eixalpn that very well. We leave the dig house at 6.00am and it is usually about 5C. It can get to about 15C at midday. So I usually layer with a long sleeve T shirt a long sleeve cotton shirt (extra large sized Man’s shirt with ‘tails’ – to ensure that there is nothing ‘exposed’ for cross cultural differences), my rain jacket, leather gloves and my Akubra hat. Around my neck I have my Buff which also doubles as a head warmer under my hat and to block the dust if it starts to blow. Once at the trench off comes the rain jacket and leather gloves and on goes the leather work gloves. After about an hour of either trowelling, scrapping, filling buckets with soil or emptying the buckets, the buff goes in the pocket, the long sleeve T shirt is removed – it is amazing how a large man’s shirt covers you while you remove clothing layered under it!. The cargo pants I wear are usually ex Army – I prefer the cotton because the one time I did wear a pair of cordura nylon I found I was getting really hot and the legs felt so damp I was in a sauna. Like wearing a nylon raincoat and walking around Singapore in the monsoon.

You are so right about the inconvenience of trosuers for donning and bodily functions! Sadly in the UK the weather militates against your alternative, and I’ve sometimes got caught short both with bladder and bowel evacuation with my clumsy efforts. So I have to have a carer on hand especially for the latter. I suppose it reminds us that we are but dust well, perhaps not only dust, also spirit.