Today is a nice day, since I am going to take today (at least half) off - I spent Thursday and half of Friday in a very constructive get-together about experimental archaeology, then hopped into the car for some ugly travelling to Vechta (there was rain and jam, which is not delightful in contrary to toast and jam), had a workshop there on Saturday and thus spent most of Sunday on the Autobahn, driving home again - so I'm probably due an easy day to relax.

The workshop was very nice and fun, and we managed to get through the very large programme that the participants had wished for - lots of theory and then practice stuff to top it off. I got to spend the night in the museum which has prison cells as part of the exhibition, so now I have also spent a night in an actual cell (thankfully nobody pushed home the bolts on the outside of the door while I was sleeping). And the most curious thing about the workshop for me? Of the six participants, five were... men! Hooray for men in the textile field!

It's the time of year to work on the wares for next season, and I've been thinking about my linen sewing thread. Currently, I'm offering the thread in 20 metre packages, but seriously sewing with this thread means that 20 metres won't last for long - and that means needing to buy several rolls at once.

So I am wondering: What package units (length in metres) would you prefer when buying linen sewing thread? 20 metres? 50? Maybe even a hundred on one roll? Or should I offer different unit sizes? Please let me know what you would prefer!

Even if I don't enjoy working up the backlog of mails that accumulated during the holidays and needs to be taken care of, I'm quite happy to be sitting at the computer today or doing other, not-too-exhausting stuff - we spent the weekend helping a friend paint his old apartment, including the ceilings, and that did mean some exertion on our part. Most of the rooms were not white when we started but in some (nice and textured) colour, which meant that we had to give them two coats of paint to make sure nothing shone through, and that gave us plenty to do for the two days.

It was kind of fun as well, though - especially the part when we all three together tackled the living room ceiling to get an even coat of pain on it and got all sprinkled with tiny white dots of paint. After this weekend, I'm also happy that we were able to give back our old apartment unrenovated when we moved out, since that would have also been quite a thing to paint.

So... nice, un-stressful, not-much-movement work for me today!

I have successfully started into this week with the new routine, and writing and researching on stuff again does feel wonderful. I now realise that I really missed this kind of work that I somehow didn't get around to do during all of summer - much too long, I think now.

One part of the new project I'm researching for will have to factor in hair and hairstyles in the Middle Ages, a topic I've been pondering for ages now, it seems. And I'm really happy and excited that I will finally have a chance (and the need) to gather all my theories together and test them against the more-or-less hard facts given by pictures and written sources. Hairstyles and haircare are a hairy topic regardless of the time period, since there are so many different ways to work with hair, and no two persons have the same head of hair and the same procedures. And that, of course, means that there's a lot of guesswork to be done, and a lot of things will never be really clear. And in turn, for a try at reproducing old hairstyles, it means that everybody will have to try and see and possibly adapt procedures and details to match the individual hair.

And sometimes I do wonder if that is not the case with all historical reproduction stuff, much more than we today tend to think. There is no "typical medieval person", no more than there is a "typical modern person", but only individuals with their very individual and unique history, and their unique take on things and their own style and set of preferences. Yes, we are all a product of our cultural and social background, but still - there's a lot of personality and individuality in our daily choices, and I'd be very surprised if that was not the case throughout all of history.

Which brings us again to one of the core problems of recreating historical stuff or going for  Living History: the tightrope walk between sticking to the known historical facts only for all things (which is safe, but sometimes not possible, and would let all people that try to re-create a given time in a given area look quite similar) and interpreting stuff freely on basis of things known and things available in the time (which can yield wonderful results, but is not safe because our modern knowledge and modern concepts cannot be erased from our modern heads while doing these interpretations). Ah, the Eternal Dilemma of the Living History Activist.

By the way, my approach to that dilemma is try and get an overview of the archaeological stuff for the item that I want; then take a look at pictures showing said item, to hopefully get an idea of how varied that thing can look; and then decide on how close I can and want to stick to the original.
And then, of course, I try to stay very aware of where I did alter things according to my own interpretations or needs (or even whims) or because of practical reasons, like "but it has to fit into the car" or "I have to be able to carry it" or "I really cannot afford the original material". And when I talk to folks about the item, I usually mention where the sources are from, and how far it has been altered in comparison to the original. A working solution to the Dilemma, for me. And I think Living History would be a much more boring thing if not for that Eternal Dilemma!

I've tried a new routine today to better get myself settled into winter works - an hour (at least) with a nice cup of coffee and no Internet, and working on the new book project I have. It means re-visiting a load of books I read years ago, and I'm really looking forward to writing more again. And hence the new routine to help me slip back into the writing habit. (Which means that should blog posts be a little later than usual this winter, I am probably caught in a writing flash and forgot to blog timely.)

In weather news, we are still getting snow here, though prognosis says it should calm down now and stop snowing today or at least tomorrow. It's pretty cold outside, too, making the snow all fluffy and powdery - not good if you planned on making a snowman, snowwoman, or other snow figure, but perfect for cleaning sheepskins. And that is just what I did this morning, like I do every winter once it's cold and snowy enough. It's quite easy (though a guarantee for cold hands for me): Put the sheepskin fleece-down on top of the deep, cold, fluffy snow, then walk around on the sheepskin until it's nicely rubbed and trampled into the snow. You can leave it out for a bit after that to let it freeze all through or flip it around and let some more snow fall on it - or heap snow on it (wearing gloves, of course) and rub it in. Once your hands are cold and your sheepskin is snowy enough, just shake all the snow out again. If it is properly cold and you shook well enough, there shouldn't be much snow left - and with the snow, dust and dirt go out of the sheepskin, leaving it clean and fresh smelling. Hooray for snow-cleaning!

Our Internet is still acting up and not really moving very fast (with great lags when up- or downloading stuff) which means that all the I'net work that I have to do is tedious at best, nerve-wrackingly impossible at worst.

Which again shows how reliant I have become on the 'net, and how important it is to daily business. Sigh. I hope I can at least get a few mails done now before I move over into the next room to enjoy some work that is totally 'net-independent - hooray for historical textile techniques!

The old year 2010 (can you believe it's almost over already?) is yet bringing something new, and a very, very exciting thing to boot: Last Friday saw the ground-breaking ceremony for a laboratory and workplace especially for Experimental Archaeology in Mayen.

Mayen is a city in the volcanic Eifel region in Germany, with a long history as an economic centre. Nowadays, the region is visited for the very special landscape that still shows volcanic activity. And now it will gain a new attraction, at least for experimental archaeologists: The Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology aims to provide the infrastructure and logistics for experiments that are difficult to run otherwise, with different workspaces and proper laboratories to make first analyses. I think that sounds like heaven, and I am very happy that a project like this has now officially taken off and is being built!

If you understand German (or are interested anyway), you can see a TV report about the ground-breaking on the TV Mittelrhein homepage; the report about the lab starts at 8:35. It's only about two minutes long, and you can see how cold (and thus hard) the ground already was for the ceremonial use of spade and shovel. The building is scheduled for official opening next summer, and I hope the hard winter that has been forecast will not delay the process!