Yesterday we were playing, I mean investigating, down at the Fallen Oak.

The Fallen Oak toppled over about 2 years ago. It was a sad moment, because it was a magnificent tree and old. Dallas measured its girth. It came out at 360 cms. Which roughly translates to be about 180 years old.  This tree started life at around the time that Queen Victoria ascended to the throne, Chicago became a city, the first steamboats crossed the Atlantic and Lea & Perrins invented Worcester sauce.

The good news is that its not completely dead. One half of it still has leaves. I’m told that they call this a Phoenix Oak.

One of us must have dislodged some earth, because Dallas suddenly noticed a little turquoise coloured box. Sat inside a bigger rusty tin. What could it be? A late Roman lunch box? A Pre French Revolution tin of cookies (Bourbon biscuits)?

Dallas said we should come back, and do an Archaeological Dig. She said Dig. Yippee.

So today we set to. In archaeological terms, the preparation was shabby. Slapdash. No theodolite. No datum. No geofizz. Just a trowel. And the wrong sort of trowel at that.

Well, Sutton Hoo it wasn’t. No golden doubloons, no exquisite religious relics. Just a handful of old rusty washers, some nails and some random bits of ironwork. What an anticlimax!

Oh well, at least we had fun in the sun.