Against my better judgement I found myself at the ‘Irish Bar’ again last night, drinking a strange beer from the British Virgin Islands and being slowly lobotomised by the mind-buggeringly awful music. I did, however, manage to find something authentically Irish this time in the shape of Paul; a drunk elderly man from County Down. He bought me a beer while slurring incoherently about the Mountains of Mourne and being way too free with his hands. If I could have had a pint of stout and ended the night under a table roaring Whisky in the Jar the experience would have been complete. When I asked what his job was he said ‘Ah work wit m’shovel’.

On the excavation, things have achieved a healthy sort of monotony, except for the occasional hangover and deadly car bombing. I was on site when the bombings happened last week; it was quite a bang which scared all the birds off the citadel and made me drop my plumb bob. Everything got back to normal pretty quickly though and we didn’t even get the afternoon off. The main dangers that I’m actually experiencing, other than suicidal Kurdish driving habits, are to do with cleaning off the top of the enormous fortification wall prior to planning it. This involves balancing on crumbling ancient mud brick with a five metre drop on one side and a strong cross wind. I feel my experience working aloft up the masts of tall ships has helped with the emotional background to this process. One of my Kurdish colleagues won’t even go up the step ladder to take site photographs.

I’m finding that excavating in the middle of a big city is a bit different to the digs I work on out in the middle of nowhere. One issue is that I’m just so dirty. Urban Kurds are a pretty well-groomed lot, overlooking their rather excessive use of powerful aftershaves, and I do get some rather concerned looks walking through town in my best old clothes covered in filth. Taxi drivers in particular seem filled with doubt about my right to be in any such state, being female, alone, very foreign and very dirty. Many seem unprepared for such an exotic beast. On Wednesday the taxi driver who drove me home offered me some of his perfume. I was unsure if he was making a pass or making a point about sweaty, smelly foreigners.