I find myself inexplicably in the executive lounge at Birmingham airport. I hide in the corner in my cheap clothes and dirty trainers

Here I am once more in the baking southeast of Turkey sweating my poor life away in a room full of hot laptops and fans. It’s actually my ten year anniversary on this project which makes me feel unspeakably old. This wasn’t particularly helped today by my workmen, who during tea break broached the traditional second topic of international conversation after we had exhausted ‘what football team do you support’ (Arsenal, which didn’t go down at all well).

“You are married?” enquired Hussein. Having been asked this on a regular basis and being familiar with the response I considered lying. I used to pretend to be married to a character from a TV programme or film; this prevents any hesitation and aids the consistency of an on-going lie as you already know all the information required. In the early 2000s I was mostly married to Dr Carter from ER (‘his name’s John, he works in a hospital, he has brown hair’), and in the late 2000s I was mostly married to Spiderman (‘his name’s Peter, he’s a newspaper photographer, he lives in New York’). I was once married to Professor Snape from Harry Potter (‘his name is Severus, he’s a teacher at a school, he has black hair’) but I became aware that Harry Potter has quite good circulation in the Middle East and the name was too recognisable.

Being old and increasingly confused I decided to stick to the truth this time.

“No,” I said “I am not married.” This statement was received with a great deal of concerned murmuring.

“How old are you?” asked Hussein gravely.

“Otuz iki” I said, “Thirty-two”.

There were various cries of dismay. Hussein shook his head sadly. “You are very old” he said.

breaking ground on day one at the little known hour of 5am

I’m two days into excavation at Operation Y, a name that implies a level of existential enquiry which would make any archaeologist uncomfortable. I’m still going through the extremely boring process of watching the workmen remove the plough zone which leaves me absolutely nothing to do except watch men shovel soil for eight hours a day. Today I dropped any pretence of working and brought a hilariously out of date book about the Plantagenet kings to read (Richard the Lion Heart, alas, ‘fell victim’ to homosexuality). This only slightly helped the main struggle of the day which is the struggle for consciousness. The day here starts with breakfast at 4am to allow us to start work when the sun comes up. Unfortunately, in UK time this is exactly the same time I usually go to bed (2am), leaving me with huge lifestyle-based jet lag. With little to occupy myself it’s a constant battle against the urge to hide behind the spoil heap and having a sleep, which is generally considered bad form when you’re supposed to be supervising seventeen workmen digging up a Neo-Assyrian city wall.

I’m trying to ignore some ominous beginnings. I’ve been assigned Room 13 in the deserted school building we’re living in, it’s only day three and I’ve already accepted a cigarette from the workmen, and I saw a crane eat a frog. On top of this, all websites of any interest, including this blog, are inaccessible on the school server, which reports that the site has been blocked by the Turkish Education Ministry due to its inappropriate content. I’ve got tomorrow off to sort myself out.

Unlucky for some: school room thirteen, in which some kind of mammal has defecated just inside the door