Some of the wonderful buildings I overlook during writing!
It’s been a very long time since I’ve been able to teach or work on community projects, or get too involved in research – or indeed write here (or anywhere else).
But thanks to the often kind & helpful advice and support over the last few year of various local hospital consultants & rehabilitation clinics (different sort of rehab to that which Amy Winehouse sang about!), I’m now (I hope) in a position that I might try to return – very slowly & carefully – back to (a less intense) normal.
Unfortunately, if able to conduct tours at all, they’ll now be limited by what seems to be permanently reduced mobility, but I’m hopeful that with support, I’ll still be able to do occasional short house & garden tours, if not the multi-site quick-march romps around town & country that I used to do. And I’ll continue to develop digital tours, which informed by my own disabilities, I might work towards providing material accessible to a wider audience.
I have, however, not been completely idle (I couldn’t entirely keep away from my work – I love it too much!), and in having to contemplate & put into practice adjustments in everyday life, I’ve also been thinking on & trying out new approaches to teaching & research (expanding topics, as well as tweaking existing projects).
For example, I’ll be experimenting with some of the rather snazzy technology that I recently encountered, which I anticipate could be quite fun, as well as providing scope for disseminating informative content in different ways, through digital tours & other forms of engagement with the historic environment.
Over the next few weeks & months I intend to communicate some of the small discoveries that I’ve made over the last year or so – the first being from the ‘prolonged’ holiday that I took last year (of 4 nights – extended to 5 when in situ – rather than the usual one or two days off a year – usually spent mostly in travelling & dashing from site to site as teaching research/ prep). Unfortunately this provoked a further decline in health, rather than the improvement that I had hoped for, preventing me from revisiting my findings until very recently.
2018 Holiday Accommodation! (Projecting wing belonging to separate accommodation.)
I stayed in the most wonderful of places – a merchant’s hall not far from my favourite place away from home: King’s Lynn, Norfolk. The fine Early Modern building proved to be of great interest, enabling leisurely probings that might provide comparisons for the studies of housing & gardens I conduct as part of the LIP community archaeology project that I direct; and ritual protection inscriptions / incisions (‘witch-marks’ / ‘folk-magic’) for the ‘Malefic Midlands‘ project that I direct.
I’m now back in King’s Lynn – again in a fantastic building & location, staying in a mid-eighteenth century merchant’s town house this time (adjacent a late Medieval / early modern complex & numerous other superb historical buildings, as well as a churchyard & minster containing some interesting grave memorials). So I’ve again been able to feed my interests, ogling & photographing. Today I intend to take a look at the extant features of my interior surroundings, and as usual snap away at paint-chips & the like – the products of which I’ll add to my online photo-banks (e.g. here), posting some here too soon.
Where I’m staying now (behind the numerous first floor windows)!
I’ve been (unfortunately far too slowly – sorry H) been working on a local house (probable 17th – early 19th house with earlier feature). And (again too slowly – sorry D) on preparing a workshop for a public history project that I co-direct. So I’ll hopefully be able to say a little more about those over the next few months.
I’ve also been gradually preparing an expanded range of talks & workshops – to be delivered variously between autumn this year and 2021 – for my principal commercial website – which reflects my extended research; I’ll say more about these here as I develop these further & are closer to being ready for delivery.
Due to limited time & constrained financial resources, from now on I’ll generally only be able to take group bookings, though sessions may be accessible to individuals & families if organisations such as museums take them up. I might also again provide occasional events at the ‘Antiquarian Academy‘. (In both cases I’ll give my mailing list priority notification as usual, if possible.)
So for now I’ll sign off, so that I might spend the remaining holiday (checking out tomorrow morning) further enjoying the lovely building & views of wonderful Lynn.
View from one of the rooms in which I’m writing!
Notes of an Antiquary 