I love libraries. Especially those where you can keep the books for a long time.

Having studied in Bamberg, I grew used to the wonderful library there, with very friendly librarians, good light, lots of tables (and in the archaeologists' library building, with a wonderful view included) and very kind and fast service. There's the "book of wishes", for example: If you miss a book in the catalogue and think that the library should have it, you write it into the book, and most of the times, it gets ordered. (And then you get that wonderful book with a slip of paper between the pages, saying "Your Name" and "Erstausleihe" (first loan).) Thank you, TB 5 in Bamberg!

The library in Erlangen, on the other hand, has not too many books for my research. And those they have are all scattered across town, standing in smaller library rooms with often reduced opening times. A lot of those books can't be checked out. There's only one Erlangen feature I miss in Bamberg: You get an automatic email notification once your book is nearing the end of checkout time. Nevertheless, this wonderful feature won't help anything if the book can't be checked out.

And that is the main reason I'm still going to Bamberg now and again: The wonderful library. (I don't mind at all that it also gives me the chance to have coffee and a chat with friends and colleagues there, too, during much-needed library breaks.) And today is library day, so I'm on my way to the car, lugging along a stack of books that need to be returned (or, in some cases, checked out again). And I'll come back home with even more books.

Somehow, that nasty paperwork stuff has a tendency to agglomerate on my desk. I have a stack of urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent paperwork stuff to occupy myself with, and I really feel like I should tackle it today. If not yesterday.

Well, usually I am glad about any pronounced drive to do paperwork. The problem is that I have dedicated this week to work on Current Writing Project, and I want to stick with that decision. I have given myself an incentive to get a chunk of work done, shaping the project and doing the groundwork, and that is what I want and need to do. Current Writing Project is coming along nicely, by the way, sporting 3412 words at the moment.

Still, those urgent paperwork things nag me and nibble at the back of my conscience daily. Do you know that situation? Do you have a fail-safe, fool-proof, wonderful way of dealing with that? If so, please tell me about it!

After a phase of almost no sewing work, things have advanced during the last two or three weeks.
I have finally finished a kruseler that is now waiting to be tried out with the appropriate hairdo underneath, and a woolen sideless surcote is finished apart from the hem. The upper area of the surcote is lined with rabbit fur for extra warmth, and I am looking forward to testing this garment, though proper wearing will have to wait some months.

While working with fur, I have also decided to sew myself fur mittens. I get very cold fingers very fast, and I have rabbit furs and wool, so why not make fur-lined woolen mittens to keep my hands warm? I wanted to make non-modern ones (of course) so I can also use them on medieval events during winter time (or in severely cold spots). For medieval handwear, both gloves and mittens are known, and in the 14th and 15th century, even "lobster mittens" (two compartments for two fingers each, and the thumb) can be found on pictures. I opted for the earlier (and warmer) classic mitten type, though.

There are not many finds of fur garments, and cut and shape are usually impossible to tell from pictures. But the bookshelf, again, comes to the rescue with Rainer Atzbach's wonderful thesis about the finds from Kempten in Southern Germany. The Mühlbach-Ensemble in Kempten is a complex of a few buildings that sported hollow spaces between floor layers and between rooms. Those were filled with remnants of daily life - fragments of clothes, wood pieces, dust, straw, coins, paper scraps, and so on. Because there was no soil environment, and because it was all kept dry all the time, vegetable fibres and furs have kept well.

Fur usually degenerates in the soil, due to the tanning process (with alum) that does not result in leather as resilient as oak-tanned (or similarly tanned) leather. Thus, tannin-tanned leather might still be found in digs with good conditions, while furs or alum-tanned leathers will have disappeared. And this is why the Kempten finds are so important: It is the largest known find of furs from medieval times. If you can read German, Rainer's book "Leder und Pelz am Ende des Mittelalters und zu Beginn der Neuzeit: Die Funde aus den Gebäudehohlräumen des Mühlberg-Ensembles in Kempten (Allgäu)" is definitely worth a look. It is not only a documentation of the finds from Mühlberg, but he also gives very well-researched, concise histories of leather and fur garments. If you need to know something about shoes and fur garments, the book is a good start to delve deeper into the topic.

By the way, the first mitten fur lining is finished already, and the second one is coming along nicely. I hope to finish both mittens, including the woolen layer, on Friday.

First things first, and a happy, healthy and successful year 2009 to all you readers out there!

I'm back home since yesterday in the afternoon, but today and tomorrow are still for rest and relaxation, before work starts again. I started the new year with a bout of 'flu or something like it, and so I'll be going easy tomorrow.

2008 for me was full of exciting things, and the most sparklingly important happenings for me were finishing my thesis (I handed it in at the end of March) and successfully defending it in July. The first half of the year thus was filled with alternately stressing (much) and trying to de-stress; the latter with one short trip to Berlin (with a concert given by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain) and one long trip to Copenhagen. The Denmark trip was not overly much destressing, though, since I also went to NESAT, but a wonderful experience. I went hunting for a publisher for my thesis, which was exhilarating, and I learned a lot about the publishing process while reading up about the business and putting the materials together. I also thought a lot about the future, money, insurances and how I want to make the money I need, and I will find out in 2009 whether freelancing only is possible for me. Our main holiday trip was spent canoeing on the Mecklenburger Seenplatte, and it was wonderful and very quiet, since we went rather late in the year. I had a stressful though fun order for a new exhibition that will come up as soon as the building in Hartenstein is finished, and that saw me busy through most of September and all of October. Not that I've not been busy since - there is next year's summer season to prepare, since I have a few medieval events on my calendar already; I have a conference to attend in March and a talk to give in January; and a bunch of other things to prepare and write besides.

Alltogether, 2008 has been a good and very successful year for me, and I hope that 2009 will turn out as well - for me and for you, too.

Somehow, it seems as if things always come in batches, never one at a time. A while ago, I had a batch of things all progressing smoothly, working out and falling into place with no effort whatsoever. The last few days, the opposite is happening: Obstacles and complications seem to pop up everywhere.

I hope that at least the most important issues can get resolved before next week - I fully intend to have the holidays off. It's a much needed break from everyday computer work, and I'm looking forward to that. All the problems that have not been solved by the 23rd will just have to wait a few days!

Until then, however, some time is left to tackle them. And unlike their way of appearing in my life, I will not tackle the whole batch at once, but work at them one at a time...