For any Aussie readers out there, I'd like to draw your attention to the upcoming National Archaeology Week. NAW runs in the third week of May each year (this year from the 18th to the 24th May), and is aimed at raising awareness of the work of archaeologists in this country and around the world.
What that means is a load of fun activities and interesting tours and talks in every state around the country. I happen to be on intimate terms with the Western Australian program, and I can assure you, it's going to be huge this year. We have several excavations happening across the southern half of the state and all manner of other big events.
Check it all out at the National Archaeology Week website, and get involved if you can. It's a great way to get off the sofa and out in the field to get your hands dirty with the real life Time Teams.
Excerpt from Between the Lines
A memory wavered into his mind, shimmery as heat rising off the road in summer.
He was six years old, and he’d been in Stonehaven no more than a week. He was hollow and lonely, confused. He missed the bustle of Melbourne. He missed the other kids on his street, the whole gang of them and their scampy games. He was stuck out in the bush, all of a sudden, with nobody but Lionel for company. Lionel had spent the first day ignoring him completely, and the last few beating the stuffing out of him whenever he got the chance. So that day, he’d wandered out to the back garden, if it could even be called that- just a scrubbed, flat expanse of hot red dirt with a veil of tangled trees and shrubs behind it.
The bush.
On impulse, he’d taken a couple of steps toward it, bare feet burning on the hot ground. The air was filled with the lemony scent of eucalyptus and the fresh tang of the distant sea. He'd filled his lungs and the two steps had turned into six, then ten, then before he knew it he was running headlong toward the wall of whispering green and brown, pushing all his mother’s warnings about snakes and savages from his head. He barrelled between the first spicy-scented leaves and, to his surprise, popped out on a sort of beaten down track, hidden from view of the house. After a moment’s pause to wonder how many strokes of the belt he’d get for this, he set off down the track toward the most interesting noise he’d heard so far- the babbling giggle of flowing water, and laced in with it, the high, clear notes of a girl’s voice, singing.
He stepped off the track with his heart hammering in his chest, suddenly terrified as he caught side of the wide river bank and the rolling mass of glassy green water.
She was standing there, all right- a girl not much taller than him, skinny as a rake, skin the golden brown of tree bark lit by sun. A cascade of golden curls rolled over her shoulders to skim at her waist, tendrils flicking out here and there as she drew back her arm and lobbed a big rock into the water.
He watched it go, traced the arc with his eyes until it hit the water with a loud splash and was swallowed. She was singing, still, her voice high and clear. She was wearing a white dress that finished at her knees and puffed into short sleeves at her shoulders. He looked down at himself, his grey shorts and jumper coated in jam, dirt and everything else he’d been busy with that morning. He stared at her back with suspicion. She was pristine. The only dirty bit of her was her feet, bare as his.
If it hadn’t been for those feet, he might have thought she was an angel. Or a ghost.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
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1 comments:
Hey You!
It's me, Stephanie from the Forum. Very cool Blog!
National Arch. Week, huh? Cool. No one has mentioned it in my neck of the woods, probably because it would be difficult to dig in all this granite!
Going to add you to my blog roll.
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