I think we can safely say that this year has been a very trying one for many people and of course the lockdown has affected our respective hobbies so we have been very limited in what we can and cannot do but I would like to think that we have all had a chance to get out and about and enjoy our limitations as and when allowed .
I cannot complain though , finds have been forthcoming on both the metal detecting front as well as my other passion being bottle digging and although visits to my usual stomping grounds have been limited , they have been very productive for me . Each visit has been relished and enjoyed to the utmost so shorter sessions have been longer than normal due to the not knowing when the next lockdown will be , make hay while the sun shines !
The visits to the usual tip was the most sporadic , in normal times it would have been a once a week jaunt and we had to pick our moments especially with the weather , too hot and its gruelling and too wet then its a flooded dig . We soldiered on though even digging in both these weather temperaments , not ideal but I think we were all going a bit stir crazy .
These finds have been spread out from before and after both lockdowns and abiding by the rules in place and despite our lack of time put in , the shorter sessions proved to be the most productive which also seems to be the running theme on the metal detecting front .
The first photo is a collection of printed stoneware and the pot lids are gems to find especially in such good condition .The crazing effect on some of the lids are due to age and time buried . You can actually remove these with brick acid and then they need fresh water soaking to rid any remnants of acid . Personally I dont like minty clean , I would rather leave then as found and just wipe the muck off .
The ginger beers are always a favourite to find and have all come from this same tip over this last year .I dont know what it is about seeing one of these old ginger beer bottles poking out of the wall of mud but it is tinged with the anticipation of whether its a plain or decorative one so the extraction is always exciting
![20201222_134725_resized[2135]deep dig ginger beers.jpg](./download/file.php?id=2841&t=1&sid=4544cafb2fb6921ad8fc8f04c1f5f4f7 "20201222_134725_resized[2135]deep dig ginger beers.jpg (458.61 KiB) Viewed 537 times")
The pond dig has to rank as the most interesting and we dug this in the heat of the sun but the cool damp air from the pond and the tree cover kept us well shaded . It was mostly dried out with little water but the heavy silt was a mare to shift with a spade and it was one of the hardest digs I have ever had to endure as far as shifting heavy sticky clay and muck . A few hours and that was your lot but we did get some rare and interesting bottles and a few firsts and remarkably the vast majority of finds were undamaged . The glass bird feeder was shockingly intact and how that survived we do not know as the glass is wafer thin and very fragile . I dug two matching ones almost side by side so gifted one to my digging buddy . Whatever doubles we dug we just handed our respective finds to one and the other and we were rewarded amply . The rarest find was the blob top Hudson mineral water , so far never recorded .
![20201222_134453_resized[2130]hudson rare bottle pond dig.jpg](./download/file.php?id=2842&t=1&sid=4544cafb2fb6921ad8fc8f04c1f5f4f7 "20201222_134453_resized[2130]hudson rare bottle pond dig.jpg (469.21 KiB) Viewed 537 times")
The other mix of bottles are the sort of things we were digging out between us and the Codd bottles with the marbles in the neck were plentiful and with both 10 and 6 oz versions from both Blomfields and Hudsons got us some nice variants not often found together . It was a great experience , nice and local and full of great memories . Plenty to go at again in the summer months when the pond dries up again in the summer months and hopefully by then we will have seen the back of this virus and it will be but a distant memory .
