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I'm giving myself an hour to catch up on scholarly reviews. Maybe less than an hour. I was just going to catch up, but I'm not sure my mind is robust enough.

The problem is that I have just read an academic book review that makes my head whirl. There's nothing wrong with what it's saying, but there's everything wrong with how it's saying it. There are just so many specific words that are used where really the writer wants to say something general. As a result, all the very precise implications of 'recede' hit me when really, what the author meant was 'back a bit earlier in time.'

I am going to hold my head for a bit before I read on. You'll have to wait till this afternoon to hear about amazing archaeology.

At least this vindicates something I taught yesterday. We all have shared vocabulary. We just don't always know what bits of a words meaning someone else shares with us. This poor young academic knows less than most, and ouch, excuse me while I do that holding-head thing.

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The books about which I am wildly excited and which can be viewed on my coffee table are all from Wessex Archaeology. I'm leaving them there till I can work my way through them one at a time, at leisure, enjoying every moment. If you like Time Team, you will drool. If you like almost any period of British history, you will drool. If you are a Thomas Hardy fan, you will triply drool because there are lots of photos of that region. There are more reasons to drool, of course, but if I type too long then I'll waste potential reading time, and that would never do.

My friend Elizabeth Chadwick sent them to me, because the free offer from the archaeology people (they paid for postage and gave the publications free - nice people!) wasn't open outside the UK. She sent me a bookmark of reconstructed Saxon housing, just to put the icing on the cake. My publisher got the postage money to her from me, which was complicated, but so worth it.

All this happened months ago, but the books arrived on Friday. They were too heavy for me to carry, so the wonderful postal office delivery person kindly gave me a special drop-off on her way home. It was one of those "The world is so nice to me" days. It and the actions of friends these last two weeks have made me feel very warm inside.

I'm going to keep on feeling nice about things as I slowly wend my way through the reports. Archaeology reports always make good reading, and these are chockers with wonder. If any of it sparks notions that you need to know, I shall impart it. I shall especially impart any information on toilets, given the recent FAQ discussion. This blog has a tone to upkeep, after all.

I've decided against writing an FAQ right now, but I do promise to blog anything related to it. For example, I am Gillian with a soft 'g' and Polack has one 'l' and I swear faithfuly to pass on all salubrious aspects of Medieval hygiene I come across. All zombie ancestor material is currently on my food blog, though.

One last thing: I have a very few postcards left with a recipe that otherwise you won't get to find out about until after Conflux. If you want one, email me your snail mail address. When they're gone (or I run out of stamps), they're gone (or I'm out of stamps) and you'll have to wait till October to get the recipes. And the recipes may not include this one. And it's the dreamiest icecream recipe ever. And it's a sneak preview of Conflux.

If you can wait and will be at Conflux, you can save postage and angst and scruffing of postcard by saying "Save one for me." I'm happy to hand deliver in October, especially if it means getting to spend time with you. Conflux is all about friendships, old and new, after all.