we have not, after all, struck oil

The geo-technicians have been back, testing the soil to see if we had any interesting petrochemicals, heavy metals or other interesting mineral deposits under our building site. Oh well, it was worth hoping. The late John-Paul Getty I used to say the secret of success was "get up early, work hard, strike oil." We thought we were well on the way, with two-thirds of that programme completed.



Here are the geologians drilling a hole. We told them the Gravel Terrace lies 1.2 metres below surface, 'cos we've seen it - its lovely, level, firm, river-deposited gravel, drains well, ideal foundation. And they said they had gone down and down and found it at 4.5 metres. Which we said was silly. So they tried again, and again, and everywhere else they met it at 1.2 metres. It seems their very first probe was exactly where the one archaeological feature was - you remember last summer - just one circular hole going down through the gravel. We thought it was a Bronze-Age burial pit, but at that depth it is beginning to look much more like a post-mediaeval well. So no Bronze-Age gold, no serious chemical pollution, nothing to prevent us building happily on the site. Except time and, er, money.