It's still raining outside, and by now, everyone and their dog and its fleas are hoping that the weather will improve soon. It would be okay weather for March, but not for the start of June! And all the rain has led to real problems around here, with floods coming to visit people in their houses.

Luckily, neither we nor our parents and family live in houses really close to water, or endangered by flooding. In case you have not seen pictures of the flooded places yet, here are a few.

It's supposed to dry up tomorrow, however, and then slowly become a bit warmer for the rest of the week. High time! And I guess that once the sun comes out and it's warmer, all the plants that have not died during the endless rain will go for an incredible growth spurt...

Now that I'm finished whining about the weather, here are some links for you. Cathy writes about the Lengberg Linens again; if you don't know her blog or have not been there for a while, don't stop reading after that article - there's more interesting stuff there.

While you are checking out blogs for their links - here's another one to take a look: pearl's blog (including links to the free online archives of Fennoscandia Archaeologia, Baltic Archaeology, and Czech Archaeologia historia).

Finally, if you're looking for an excuse to go visit Oxford in January 2014, the next Experimental Archaeolog Conference might be just what you need. The Call for Papers is already open and will remain so until July 31.

A heap of conference announcements and Call for Papers are hanging out in the Internet at the moment - so for all of you looking for places to go to in the next months, here's a few of them:

From my large-ish stack of tabs open to remind me of interesting things to blog about, here are some more links:

A study shows that the global cooling trend reversed in the 19th century. Industrial revolution, anyone? The NY Times/dotearth also covers this topic. With colourful charts.

There is a conference "Archäologie und Paläogenetik" in Erlangen, starting the day after tomorrow (May 9 - May 13), for those of you German speaking and in the region (or willing to travel). There's also an open evening lecture on May 10. More info? Go to the DGUF website.

I have been telling people about the job offers board at H-Soz-u-Kult for ages - and now there seems to be another board posting job offers for academics, including archaeologists and historians.
There's also a job offer for a textile conservator open in South Central Pennsylvania, just north of Gettysburg, about 1.5 - 2 hours from DC, 1.5 hours from Baltimore, and 2 hours from Center City Philadelphia. The job seems to be work as a conservator for an antiques dealer specialising in flags - if you are interested, email me and I will pass on the mail.

And finally, if all this has made you hungry: A 12th century manuscript including recipes has been found.  Isn't that nice?

Firstly, the proceedings of the Textile Forum are coming along nicely - the proofs have been proof-read by our very diligent editor, and currently the cover is being tweaked. Soon, very soon our little Textile Forum will have something more to its name than the website and the conference!

Speaking of which - we will have a meeting for planning our next Forum this April, and after that we hope to be able to get the Call for Papers out. Our Forum date and focus topic is already settled upon: Decoration on Textiles - dye, print, embroidery and paint. For more information, as always, go to our Forum homepage.

Now on to more proceedings: There were two sessions titled "Dressing the Part: Textiles as Propaganda in the Middle Ages" in the College Art Association 98th Annual Conference that took place in Chicago, IL, in February 2010. Not only is the conference programme still available on their website, they are also offering an MP3-recording of the second session for download (it costs 25 USD). It's a pity they are not offering the first session, which would have been much more interesting for me.

And there is a volume coming out this summer:

Dimitrova, Kate ; Margaret Goehring (eds.).
 Dressing the Part: Textiles as Propaganda in the
Middle Ages. Turnhout: Brepols, (June 2013).
28cm., pbk., ca. 350pp., 32 color, 150 b&w illus,
210 x 275 mm. English text. ISBN-13 9782503536767 ISBN-10 250353676X
They are approximating the price at about 100 €, but it looks as if it's not really fixed yet. More info available via the publisher's website.

A few nice, new and exciting things have come to my attention, internet-wise, during the last days - so it's time for a link list.

A find of a smelting oven, not too far from here, has been radiocarbon-dated. It's from the 13th century, making it one of the quite late ovens of that type. Read more about it (and see pics) in the Schauhuette blog.

If you are more into graphics design, you might be interested in having a look at the Elephants of Typography.

There's something new out regarding the finds of Lengberg - parts of the find are presented in the book "The Tudor Child". Beatrix Nutz has also made a website about this in German and in English, including some additional information about the pieces that will not be in the book.

There will be a conference about children's garments in Krefeld in May; the German language info page is here.

And finally, something not so nice: A 15 year old girl on the Maledives was raped by her stepfather - and was then sentenced to public flogging because she had sex while not married. I won't go into that further, because it's obviously so, so wrong on so, so many levels. The only positive thing about it is that word got out, and now there is a public outcry about it, and a petition running to get the Maledives government to abolish that law and institute better protection for rape victims (and actual prosecution for the criminals!). It's run by Avaaz, and signing is easy the first time and even easier once you have registered in their network.

Which is exactly what is standing in front of me right now.

Now for today's content (more or less):

Norway has damaged one of its many road tunnels by burning goat cheese in there. Really. (h/t to Phiala of Stringpage)

Both Kalamazoo and Leeds are casting their shadows ahead - there is a sneak preview of the 'zoo programme available already, and Leeds programme is available. If you are interested in textile-related things, DISTAFF has all its sessions on Thursday, July 4. There are a few very interesting-sounding papers in there, a pity I will not be able to make it to Leeds this year. Online registration will be available from February 15, and the Call for Papers for Leeds 2014 seems to be already running as well.

And in totally different news: Our little cat has relented. Even though her performance in the piece written for at least one human and one cat, named "I have such a hard life and now you are making it even harder unless you do exactly what I want, meow" was absolutely flawless and Broadway-worthy, she did not get around inhaling her medicine. (Nor did she get called to Broadway for performing there.) Though there was a generous portion of cat treats afterwards, as usual. And wondrously enough, this morning it did not seem to be that bad anymore... since all that her performance amounted to was a longer wait for the treats and food and being allowed outside. There was even some purring while inhaling. Cats.

Here are some more stacked-up notes and dates and things...

- There is a conference about Castles at War, AD 1000-1660, taking place the 29th and 30th April 2013 at Nyborg Castle, Funen, Denmark. More about it here.

- On February 9, the King's College London is offering a course called "Constructing Clothing: Exploring the Making of Dress". More info here.

-Just in case you did not know, there is a manuscript/picture search possibility of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, called Mandragore.

In other news, the cat was even less fond of getting her medicine this morning. Sigh. It's hard to stay patient and upbeat when it seems to be not at all appreciated... She also seems to think that we are running out of food, since she got us some yummy (in her opinion) fresh prey and gave it to me (only reserving the cat rights to play with it some more, of course). Cats. Says it all, right?