but I have to admit after 7 hours out detecting in this heat it takes its toll on you. As our dig was right on the edge of Dartmoor we were warned not to wear sandles or flipflops as there have been a lot of adders around this warm weather. So I wore my wellies, just in case. Well, I forgot about those pesky horse flies, I had a T-shirt on and received two nasty bites. One to my wrist which is now swollen and itchy, and one to my elbow which is swollen and painful to the touch. Oh well, a couple of drawbacks detecting in the summer months.
We all met at a meeting place at 9pm, it was a good turn out, more than usual. Then we all drove in convoy to the farm. Once at the farm and all set up to go we had a little meeting first. We had 3 very large fields to detect in, and boy they were huge. After being told which ones we could detect in we were then told about two fields we were not allowed in. Turns out these two fields are protected as one had a huge stone circle in and the other had a large ancient enclosure in it. Here we were allowed to sort of detect in between the two. The place was full of History so you can imagine how excited we were.
Once everything was said we were off. Within 20 minutes of starting a cry went up "HAMMY FOUND". One chap had found a Hammered coin. In fact he found it 5 minutes after I took that first photo. Great we all thought as an early find like that gives us all hope. I had my first find shortly after the hammy find, it was a horseshoe, I found 3 altogether during the day. All I was digging up was trashy stuff and it seemed most others were too. Come to around I pm, all anyone had found worth talking about was that Hammy find, Someone else found a Hammy, a George V Shilling and a few old pennies and halfpennies. Also some people had already left the site and gone home.
At 2pm, we were down to me and just 3 other people. They decided to call it a day too, that just left me there. For some it was too hot, for others they got fed up as hardly anything was coming up. I have always had a reputation for being the last one to leave a dig, but being the last one so early at 2pm is a first.
I carried on detecting until 5pm, by then I was ready to call it a day. All day long I'm sure I did everything right. My Velox was performing well, had some really deep trashy items out, I was detecting slow and low and I also put the hours in. it just turned out that if there were any goodies with my name on them then I just didn't walk over them. My reward for the day was 2 old pennies, a halfpenny, a button and a very large buckle.So another dig passes with not much to show for in finds. My wrist is swollen, my elbow is swollen, I was hot, sweaty and tired in the end. But you know what, I was out doing what I love doing, Metal Detecting, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment