Helen J

So proud to be part of the Uncovering Roman Carlisle team as we won the award for research project of the year at @CurrentArchaeo live today #Carlisle #Archaeology

I've had a man mansplain mansplaining to me...

After 2 days of non-stop rain, water, water everywhere on today's walk around Buttermere

In an attempt to improve my French I listen to a weekly podcast called L'Entretien Archéologique which is broadcast on Radio France, with interviews about the lastest research and excavations. Would be so great to have something like that on the BBC.

It's this on top of the vacuuming, he's living in horrendous conditions right now.

A large black cat sits next to a line of food bowls looking plaintively up at the camera person. For the sake of transparency, from left to right, the first bowl is a water bowl, the second is empty but has clear signs that it once contained breakfast which has been eaten. The next one has an admittedly small amount of biscuits in the bottom, as they have been mostly eaten. The final bowl has the leftover remains of about half a packet of wet food, it was turkey flavour, which is not the worst flavour (that would be tuna), but it's not his favourite.

Please, won't somebody think of this poor cat and how perilously empty his food bowls are? How will he survive the next 2 - 2.5 hours before he is fed again?

My cats loved this, not sure what that says about your musical ability!

A large broken blue glass bead, with ridges.

A granite quern stone with a depression and hole in the top and a hole in the side for a handle to turn it.

More lovely finds!

An open archaeology excavation of a large cobbled surface sitting over a series of ditches and wall slots.

Trays of Roman pottery and glass drying in a wooden hut

A very worn broken piece of a decorated Samian ware bowl, with what looks like a running hare

The broken base of a Samian ware vessel, with scratched marks that might be a name.

Been back looking for the Roman fort at Drumburgh on the Solway with Grampus Heritage. Did we find it? No! But it's definitely here somewhere, we found bits of the vicus settlement next to the fort.
So many lovely finds despite the mud, ice and freezing east wind

#archaeology #cumbria #hadrianswall

I love it when they ask it for your parents when you were 14.

You've picked a great week to visit!

Some of us over 40s remember Diana.

We might also know about Kenya....

I particularly like this one.

Or just ring them up and ask! It's almost unbelievable nowadays.

The penpal section had so many young, lonely stay-at-home mums. I hope they found friends in the end.

I was looking through some 1990s embroidery magazines (national, glossy ones that would've been in newsagents), with penpal sections including people's full addresses. And a section to help people (also with addresses!) track down patterns, which shows how hard it was to find things pre internet.

View from a fell over looking Keswick and Derwent water. The sky is clear bright blue, and the distant fells have snow on their tops

Looking across a snowy fellside towards Skiddaw which has a line of snow on its top

Sheep grazing on a fellside with snow covered high fells in the distance

Looking across the fellside towards Great Dodd and Helvellyn in the distance, covered in deep snow.

Snowy fells from Latrigg today #cumbria #lakedistrict

The grounds used to be accessible, lots of older people have stories of playing in there as children. But I'm not sure if that was more because of a relaxed custodian than a deliberate policy.

Cockermouth Castle is privately owned but they let the Civic Trust run ticketed public tours 2 weekends a year, and have unticketed concerts there during the Cockermouth Live festival.

No judgement, I skipped yoga and had a chippy tea.

I tried Veganuary a few years ago. It didn't go well, then i discovered pot noodles are vegan and had my first one for 25 years. It was about then i decided being vegetarian was good enough...

Map from online database linked

Interesting map of ownership of enslaved people - currently dipping into involvement in slave trade in the Irish Sea in the 18th century, especially #Cumbria #blackhistory #history will do a few posts in coming days www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/maps/bri...

#Blackhistory #History #Cumbria Here is a useful summary from the archives relating to Whitehaven as a port involved in the slave trade and highlighting the presence of a black community in Cumbria in the 18th century cumbria.gov.uk/eLibrary/Con...

Archaeological excavation in Shoreditch Park, London. Image shows open trench, very shallow, with outlines of buildings revealed in brick foundations and concrete garden paths. Fence around site, trees in background in front of former location of Gainsborough Film Studios. A collection of buckets and hand tools in the centre of the trench.

In 2005 a Museum of London community archaeology project excavated a WW2 bombsite beneath Shoreditch Park in Hackney. I volunteered on the dig and recorded interviews with local residents about their memories of the area in wartime.

The photo is of the remains of salt pans and salt workings on the Cumbrian coast at Crosscannonbury, which are under threat from erosion.

View from a hill looking over remains of salt pans on coast of the Solway estuary. The salt pan is a large circular feature. The tide is out beyond an expanse of sand and mud, in the distance are the mountains of Scotland

On Friday, I'm going to be talking at West Cumbria Archaeology Society - Turning the Tide: Archaeology, Climate Change and Community Action

I'll be exploring how communities are coming together to protect and record vulnerable archaeology sites

At Allhallows Centre, Fletchertown, 7:30pm

Creative commissions: be inspired by the A66 Oxford Cotswold Archaeology (OCA) are funding two creative commissions, inspired by the archaeological discoveries along the A66 corridor. We’re looking for proposals from creatives working across a…

We’re looking for socially engaged practitioners from a range of disciplines (visual and digital arts, film, dance, music, performance, and beyond) who are excited to collaborate with local communities.

To download the full commission brief and information on applying: tr.ee/6ArLbX

A66 Creative Commissions – NOW OPEN for applications!

Oxford Cotswold Archaeology are thrilled to announce an open call for two Creative Commissions, each worth up to £9,650, inspired by the archaeological discoveries along the A66!

📅 March 1 2026
🔗 tr.ee/6ArLbX

A great opportunity for artists in Cumbria to engage with our archaeological work!

It was still upside down today 🙃!

Finding personal Roman items in Carlisle a 'real connection' Items from the Carlisle Cricket Club dig, including a diploma, are on display for the first time.

I don't want to sound like a crybaby but if I had become an archaeologists, I'd be doing a lot of crying.
www.bbc.com/news/article...