Sunday 8th April

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Filed under: Detecting Diary, My Diary — Norfolk Wolf

My good sites are mostly under crop now, but the farmer mentioned to me a couple of weeks back that he would be rotovating a field that had had sugar beet on it and that this would flatten it down as it was in a bit of a mess. “That’ll do for me boyo, I’ll be giving that a bit of the old boffo”. The field in question had produced a few Roman from a small area in the past along with a red and yellow Celtic terminal, so I had chances.

I only live about 12 miles from the site, so you wouldn’t think it would take long to get there. Think again, it was bank holiday and it seemed like every man and his mobile egg (caravan) were heading for the coast along the bypass that I had to get on. Stuck behind line traffic for an hour and a half, when it should be a quick 15minute run does nothing for your patience, if it ain’t the Dan Archers on their tractors, its Eddie the Egg-man and his aluminium hut on wheels! Don’tcha just wish sometimes, for the loan of something like the latest grenade launcher for half hour or so; just to jolly up your day?

Taking a long short-cut I eventually reached the field. That Barcelonian bargain-hunter of a farmer (’scuse my French) hadn’t touched it. I don’t know what he used to get his sugar- beet up with, but it must have been a close relative of a chieftain tank. The field was an absolute mess. Did this bother your intrepid detectorist? Blinkin’ right it did, but there was no way I was going back to that traffic.

After I’d sat there crying my eyes out for half an hour, I thought I had better give it a go. Christ! It was like bloody concrete, I bent the tip of my spade on the second dig. The phrase “he who dares, wins” passed through my mind, quickly followed by, “what a load of *******s”!

I had something in the back of the car to sort out this field; I went back and pulled out my mini mattock. I use this a lot in the woods for cutting through the tree-roots, it has a fibre-glass shaft so it’s dead light to carry, although that colour pink is a bit poofy. You’ve got to angle it right when you’re whacking it in the ground, otherwise the pointy bit can leave a nasty indentation in your forehead on the backswing if you’re not careful!

Well I managed to find a scruffy Dupondius and a few small bronzes along with other odd bits of kilter from the known spots, but thought I would widen the search area as the adjoining fields had produced the odd bit of Celtic.

You know what it’s like when you’re working a clean area, you are desperate for a signal, anything, even an iron one will do. Eventually that small clean crisp signal comes along and Bingo! Another blinkin’ nipple out of a cartridge end, or a tiny scrap of lead near the surface. Then I got the signal I had been waiting for, high pitched, long, unbroken and not too loud. Something that was fairly large, deep and highly conductive That’ll do for me Tommy! It’s at times like this when you start thinking (deluding?) to yourself another Celtic hoard?

The ground didn’t want to give it up, even with the Mattock it was hard going, but it gave me time to think. The sound wasn’t right for Gold Staters, it was too high, and even Silver units normally give a slightly lower tone.

Funny how all these different thoughts pass through your head, you are really willing it to be something good. Come on now, look at the hard graft you’re putting in to get to it; if there is anyone up there looking over you, fair’s fair after all said and done. You just know that he will look kindly on your efforts and give you what you rightly deserve.

Get real! If anyone was up there, they were laughing there socks off. The Celts used to drink beer and water, definitely not Coco-Cola out of can.

Bloody Dan Archer’s again!! I just hope that the traffic has gone.