Love, life and archaeology

Dear Diary,

Oh! It is like having the sun shine on one, from both sides at once. Maximus has again fallen deeply in love, with another fair maiden. Oh! The lady is exquisite. Last night as I walked the long road home from "Broadchurch" (as we call the place now), I stopped by a tavern on the edge of town, that didn't go so well, but that's okay. The "battery-farm drinkers" (Weatherspoons) was open. I sat reading Vergil's Aeneid (West's translation, which is excellent by the way) then went outside for a cigarette. I spied an old army-cadet buddy, Thomas. He was sat with a couple of his colleagues from where he works, at the hospital.

Young Tom sang my praises about guitar playing, and I gracefully thanked him for the sincere compliment. Next to me was a radiant-looking lady, adorned with a head of beautiful auburn straight hair, with eyes so comely all else faded from view. The lady sported a soft Irish lilt, musical, light on the ears (she is from Belfast). I recited her some poetry, and she told me she loved me, twice. I bought her a drink, then she stood up Tom (with whom she had gone out with that evening seemingly) then melted in to the gloom of night. Tom was most put out, his mate told him to forget it.

I had planned on sending her some flowers today (using the most appropriate floral bouquet from the language of symbolism in a book I have), but then I remembered that pollen through the air is no longer permitted in British hospitals (the French sell them outside hospitals). So, I decided to write her a poem, in my hand (which is my most redeeming feature).

Some time later, the telephone rang. It was Arrowhead Archaeology. I am invited to excavate the site of Maumbury Rings, which I am so excited about. (I'm basically a young Indiana Jones now, in my mind at least). The sacred site is a stone's throw from the County Hospital, and so everything is falling in to place.

I have a hundred and one other things I need to be doing, but for now I am lost in Ovid, Sappho, and the sapphire-like twin pools of the fair maiden Vivian.