On Radio Silence

A Post For Rob and Lorna

It’s been a while since I opened this page to type. Not that it hasn’t been on my mind throughout; and the lack of published prose has become a bit of a stick with which I have begun to beat myself; so much is the guilt of having paid subscribers. As the eagle eyed among you will no doubt have noticed, the hosting and domain have changed a little; I have moved away from Substack for a variety of reasons, some of which ethical, others technical. Hopefully the migration will be smooth, and I will be uploading old entries and other information over the Christmas break. If anyone sees any issue, or has any worries about their data please email me at rgarchaology@gmail.com

Still, here I am, at last.

Only two posts for the autumn is a poor reflection of how busy it has all been since I wrote last, on my birthday; and last weekend long term subscribers Rob and Lorna gave me a gentle nudge to write some more, so here we go.

There is a lot of shifting about here, in both physical and metaphorical space; boats moving between moorings and work-patterns changing. In the time that has passed so rapidly since, many things have resolved in ways unseen even a few weeks ago.

When last I wrote, I had just taken ownership of my new boat, and was about to leave the country for another spell of digging and teaching in Italy. An expensive few weeks away from home at a time when I finally had somewhere nice to be at home; I had to be reminded (quite rightly) that it’s a privilege to work in these places. However, whilst I was there something quite unexpected happened- I received a job offer from an old client. I’ve worked as a Post-Doctoral researcher for the last four years, and although it has provided me with a raft of opportunities and memorable experiences, the research takes me away from the hands-on work which I’ve come to realise that I need to remain grounded and retain a sense of achievement. The suspicion that the purely conceptual nature of University research wasn’t cutting it had been creeping up for some time, and I had for the past three months been working with a friend in his woodworking workshop for part of the week, in an attempt to placate the growing discontent in my head. That it worked to calm the storms of mind spoke volumes, and the truth of it is writ large across this whole forge project- my recent decline coincided completely with the moment at which I needed to pause with work on Murphy’s Game and concentrate on other concerns. On reflection, the last two years of involvement with the project, and importantly my time in the college forge last year, have been mentally subsidising my University life. There have been many times since the summer when I’ve been scratching my head at the source of my low mood, and being too close to the woods to see the trees did not make the link to lack of craft as the cause. The moment I picked up a wood plane or chisel, this began to change, however, and by the Autumn the conclusion was unavoidable.

The final straw came in October, when I last took to these pages; a series of fractious meetings and crossed wires at work left my stress levels at a dangerous high. Coinciding with early winter storms and floods at home, I began to wobble, then rock, and then sat in my van in a lay-by one rainy Friday afternoon I let go of the pressure, bursting into fits of animated auto-narration and manic outbursts. Over the phone my colleague at work gently talked me down, and a period of two weeks leave quickly followed. Did I just need the holiday I'd been asking for? No, I didn’t want to go back. Something had to change, but I had no real idea of what to do or how to do it, and to paraphrase Boromir ‘one does not simply walk out of Oxford University’.

Life, however, has a way of providing the route should you choose to see it. Word must have got out, as a seemingly unprompted question arose during a work conversation whilst abroad. “Why did you never come to work for us?” I was asked, over the ether. Skip forward a few weeks and I have a new job at an archaeological unit; and have somehow negotiated to stay connected with the University on a small fraction of my previous work load. It seems- salary hit aside- to be the perfect solution. The only fly in the ointment is it probably means no more time in the woodworking shop; which is a shame on many levels.

On the forge, the time between has been full of activity; albeit one-step removed. With a hit to the pocket imminent, I took the decision to plough what money I had into stocking up on the last materials and tools I need for the build. It’s shocking really, how little money buys you these days, and several thousand pounds has been transformed into a small pile of (mostly consumable) materials. Welding and cutting gas, electrodes, cutting and grinding discs, and the final parts for my metal turning lathe have been ordered. More recently, a raft of new hand tools have arrived by post. Lastly, a collection of beautiful woodworking machines- a new lather, thickness planer, and table saw have been set up, though the application for these has a more long-term focus within the fitting out of the forge's office cabin and the new home-boat.

The heap of steel stock set aside to create the roof (now in design iteration no.3) is calling to me, and with each visit to the now mud-plastered yard I have to restrain myself from setting about slicing up material for the new roof. I don’t have the time right now and operating high-voltage equipment in the ceaseless bloody rain isn’t all that conducive to a long and happy life. However, January is rolling down the hill towards us, and with it the longer evenings will come. Spring may yet give us some clement weather, and the itch to set to making is so strong that I feel in the coming weeks it too will burst forth into activity and progress.

Time and time I’ve found myself saying ‘we are underway’, and though I’ve been stymied by problems with other boats this year as well as endless delays on the canal network itself, I have to admit to being frustrated at my own need to allow complex plans to resolve/ evolve in my mind. I’m not one to rush to get things done without rumination, and as much as I’d rather it not be this way I have to concede that in all examples of me just ‘cracking on’ there has been a subsequent disaster. It’s a character trait that plans, designs, but also big decisions have to be allowed to achieve some sort of critical mass of their own in mind before bursting forth, often in a grapeshot manner. I know it causes other people a lot of confusion at times, “what the fuck is he doing this time?” being a reasonably common refrain, but by the time such thoughts resolve into action they have become fully resolved characters in my play. While others may look at a problem in a purely analytical manner- a cupboard needs building, a schedule making, even a relationship resolved, I have to let the item or idea sit within a space for a while; see how it feels, let its corners jut out into darkened rooms, guess at how often I'll stub metaphorical toes. Though it looks random from the outside, it is far from such from in here.

All this is by way of rounding off the thinking phase of the build. I now know exactly how the boat will look when it's done, and in the late nights of autumnal insomnia I've calculated the angles of cut, lengths of steel, and mounting for roller door runners. In the world outside, Murphy's Game is now moving again after being stuck behind yet another six weeks of the canal being closed. For the next two weeks I am free from work and if the rain keeps off we may make some additive changes, instead of removing things.

Happy Christmas, Winter Solstice, and New Year to all. Stay safe and warm, and I'll see you much sooner than of late- I promise.