It's Monday, and - as things go - this day tends to have all the leftover things from the previous week on its list, plus all the ideas from the weekend, plus all the Monday-typical stuff as well. So it's a small wonder not everything got done... but at least a fair chunk of stuff happened. There's packages ready to be sent off, some organisatorial things taken care of, and some paperwork wrestled down. 

And hopefully tomorrow will be just as successful, if not better. (Better is always... well... better.) There's some writing stuff that I'd like to finally finish - but there's also some wheel spinning to be done with the Great Wheel, to make sure it will run smoothly on its outing the coming weekend.

For you, meanwhile, an image of the mermaid in Warsaw:

No, it's not a trash documentary in the sense that the film is trash - rather it's about trash, especially plastic waste, and how it gets treated and recycled (or, spoiler alert: not). You can watch it here in the ARD Mediathek.

It's hard to find words about all the shit going on in today's world, really. And very obviously, one of the best ways to help with the plastic waste problem is to cause as little as possible. 

And here's the next event, though sadly I will not be able to go there (I have something else going on that weekend): Archäologie am Berg! That's a yearly event organised by the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria, and it takes place on THE mountain if you're talking archaeology: In Hallstatt. It's on September 14 and 15, and the programme (fitting for the topic, which is eating, drinking, celebrating) does sound delicious...

 It's back from summer break and straight into action here - on the weekend, I will be going to Syke to show how a bronze age corded skirt was (probably) woven. I'll be demonstrating all day on Saturday and Sunday, and I'm looking forward to many questions!

I'm not sure where in the museum I will be, or whether I'll be sitting on a table or on the floor, but I will definitely wear no shoes for the weaving - I need my foot to hold the measuring stick and my little toe on one foot to keep hold of one of the loops for starting the next bunch of strings...

The event is running in the Kreismuseum Syke on Saturday from 10 -18 o'clock and on Sunday to 17 o'clock. There's going to be a bunch of demonstrators there, plus the museum itself is a very nice place to visit, so if you're up north and free for the weekend, don't miss it! 

You can find out more about the event on the homepage here: 

https://www.kreismuseum-syke.de/veranstaltungen/bronzezeittage/

The EuroWeb anthology has been published and, best of all news, it's available for free as part of the Open Access policy. The volume includes a lot of essays from many contributors on various aspects of textile research. They encompass a wide chronological perspective and vast geographical area.

All essays in this volume have been written by international teams of scholars from the participating countries. You can find out more and download the full anthology here, or find a list of the chapters with individual download links here.

It's time for the summer break! As every year, I'm taking some time off both for holidays and relaxation, and for doing some behind-the-scenes work that tends to get into conflict with the day-to-day stuff with everything running. Website stuff, for example.

I will be back with blog and shop on August 11. Until then, I will leave you with these pretty flowers:

and the hope that you will also have a very nice summer time.

(This, by the way, is post no. 3000 on this blog, if my system counter is not fooling me...) 

Wax tablets are a nice, and very practical thing if you need something to write on. Unless you go into extreme heat, the writing on it will stay, and they are rather easy to make and easy to carry. If there's need for more space, a number of tablets can be strung together in a kind of little book. Very handy indeed.

In case you want to read some more about wax tablet finds in Pompeii, here's a little article about them describing a project made in Köln, and some nice images of charred wax tablet fragments.