This week we welcomed several visitors to the excavation; Justine Tracey, who has recently completed her PhD in Archaeology at Reading led several sessions on human bone identification – ‘Bones R Us’. These sessions are always popular – and the identification of bone – either animal or human – on site is a useful skill for any field archaeologist. Malcolm Reid who dug with Mike on the Forum Basilica excavations back in the 1980’s spent 2 days with us wielding a mattock and reliving his university digging days! I also had a – slightly harrowing – visit from the university Health and Safety Services! It was actually a visit out of interest in the archaeology itself, but understandably difficult for my visitors to remove their safety hats altogether…..But they were complimentary, helpful – and fascinated! So, all in all I could breathe a sigh of relief. Sometimes the weight of safety responsibility for over 100 people in a field is very heavy! Mike and I also hosted a visit from new members of staff from the university’s Human Resources department, and on Wednesday morning our annual visit from the Silchester Roman Town Panel took place. 17 councillors visited! Thursday we said ‘Happy Birthday’ to Will Ogilvie – a Day at the Dig was a surprise birthday present bought by his wife…..and I also gave a site tour to Wokingham’s University of the 3rd Age. Alan Povall and his Wokingham group are great favourites of mine; they have visited the excavations almost every year since we began and the season would not be complete without their interest. I also showed Julian Richards (ex-Reading Archaeology graduate and famous – amongst other things! – for his wonderful ‘Meet the Ancestors’ programmes on BBC2) and party around the site. Julian had filmed us for ‘Meet the Ancestors’ way back in 2002 so he was interested to see how far we had come since then….Mike and I both agree that we really enjoyed filming with Julian, and we would love to make a follow-up with him before the Insula IX excavations finally end…..Margaret Mathews – Reading Archaeology’s recently retired Graphics Officer also visited with her husband Tony. We are sad that Margaret has left the Department – she has contributed wonderfully to Silchester’s public presentation over the years: posters, leaflets, postcards to name a few – and she is responsible for all those fantastic reconstructions you can see in our various publications. But she will keep in touch with the project and has not put down her drawing pen/cursor for good! These are just a selection of the visitors who come and see us during a working week – Mike and I usually have at least 1 visitor booked in a day – but we are always being surprised by the large numbers who turn up on spec to view the archaeology and chat with Mike and I. What other job does this?