A day in London

I was hoping to post this whilst on the train but the not so great free wifi scuppered my plans. I arrived in London yesterday evening following a day of exam board meetings. The exam board is where we go through all the marks and see who has passed, what grades they have, and who gets prizes. The whole process is anonymised until final marks are confirmed, then we get to see who got which prizes. I was really happy to see some of the first students I taught when I joined Newcastle finish their degrees and do so well! No names though as I'm not sure the details have been released to students yet.

So, I'm in London for two reasons - firstly to go to an appointment at the Turkish consulate to collect visas for myself and other team members for fieldwork at Catalhoyuk in July, and secondly for University Archaeology Day. I think the last time I went to Turkey was 2013 - how time goes by so quickly! Up until then I had been pretty much every year since 2004! University Archaeology Day is a new event that is led by UCL this year, to showcase all the fantastic work by archaeologists across the UK, and highlight why students should consider coming to study the subject at university. Not sure what to expect, but it will be nice to pop along to some of the talks and catch up with all the new things people are doing. I'm also wearing my new Trowelblazers t shirt for the occasion (I also wore it to the exam board yesterday!).