It's raining hereabouts, again. And while the willows in the garden do not mind (they like water and can't have too much), I think the other plants will soon develop fish scales. As will we! This is not a good spring, weather-wise.

After having the winter with the least sunshine for the last, oh, 40 or so years, spring was very late in coming, with snow into the month of March. Then, slowly, it got warmer and stuff started to grow. About a month late, but hey, at least there was green, and flowers. Both March and April were really dry, though - and now it's the end of May, and the month seems to try and get caught up on all the rain that was missing in the last two months.

So the last days (and it feels like weeks), we had a lot of rain. And, with the late start into spring, and the slightly-colder-and-a-lot-wetter-than-usual May, the tomatoes and chili and zucchini plants I put outside are just as small (but wetter-looking) than when I put them outside. Maybe also due to the fact that we're behind on sunshine hours...

At least the weather prognosis says it's going to be a bit better next week (after the weekend, mind you, when there will be... even more rain). And our garden is not looking like the sports playing field shown in this article! Hopefully the summer will not be as yucky and wet as this month was, though. I've had enough grey skies and rainy days for a while...

You are not getting a proper blog post today - it's a holiday hereabouts.

I have, however, a link for you - which might be helpful, or interesting, or both in case you know somebody who is suffering from depression. It's hard to explain what depression is like to someone who never experienced it, and Hyperbole and a Half does it brilliantly here.

Gender issues are a thing - not just a modern thing, but also a big topic in history and archaeology. Textiles often touch on the gender issue - was textile work just women's work*, as one famous book about archaeological textiles is titled? Or was it split between men and women? These questions, unfortunately, are very hard to answer - not least because the gender ideals of the 18th and 19th century still colour our modern perceptions, and our view of history.

With textile archaeology as a focus topic, the gender issue, for me, is coming to the surface quite often. So I was quite delighted about this essay - it's not about women and textiles, but women in war and fighting troupes. The quintessence? Women have always fought, but that might not be visible in documentation, and it's often just overlooked. I tend to think the same applies to men in textile...


* There are areas (and times) when men dominate textile trade - male weavers, male (professional) knitters, male dyers are all very well traceable. I am thinking more about the "typically female" textile activities like spinning, and the times before we have documentation about these crafts.

Somehow, the last few days, my schedule has been all over the place, and I'm not even sure why. I know that I slept way longer than usual today, and I all blame it on my furry biological alarm clock (aka the cat) - instead of insisting to get her morning treats, food, and being let outside, this morning she cuddled up to me for another almost two hours of sleep. No wonder this morning is so short, and this blog so late...

But on to things that might actually interest you. The first registrations for the Forum are in, and it looks like we'll have an in-detail look at some of the decorations on the Lengberg finds as well.Yay for decorated medieval bras!

Speaking of underwear, you are probably familiar with the Dove advertisements and their "real beauty" campaign? Here's an article about "the Problem with Dove". TL;DR: Dove is a part of Unilever, a company that is not about accepting different forms of beauty, and seen together with other stuff Unilever promotes, the campaign seems quite... weird.

Just in case it's raining where you are, too, maybe you are feeling like reading a nice poem from the 13th century... about Bèrenger of the Long Arse.

If you have not read any fabliaux before, let me recommend them to you - they are a very nice, and very funny genre. At least I think so... they are also, quite frequently, garnished with a little or a lot of sexual innuendos. Sometimes not so covert innuendos.

Did you ever feel as if the internet was sucking lots and lots of time out of your day? I know that I did, more than once. However, getting rid of the internet is not necessarily a solution to procrastinating or dawdling around, as this guy's report shows.

Paul Miller went offline for a full year, trying to find out whether not having the internet would help him achieve more and be more efficient. The bottom line? If you are prone to procrastination, you will find something to do it with no matter whether that is electronic and virtual or real-life stuff. And the internet is about social interaction as well.

I really liked this article - there are plenty of guys around who say the internet can be evil for work morale (and I think we all know about the endless possibilities to check just one more website before...) but then, in our era and society, not having the connection will also be a definite drawback.

So, procrastinate however you like - it's not worse doing it virtually!

Crafting is a thing very dear to me (as you all probably know) - and I am undecided whether an appreciation for crafts is coming back or not. Here, in any case, is a link to a BBC programme where they had unskilled newbies go into training with a craftsperson to learn the trade - in this case: weaving.



It's the first of the four parts that make up the whole episode, but the other three are also out on the Ytube, so you can enjoy all of them. And in case you want to know more about the backgrounds, here is what the BBC writes about this episode.