In my other recent moment I mentioned that I had received another strange Christmas present. Well here it is.

I know that receiving a calendar isn’t strange. But I would imagine that the subject matter of this one is not what would excite most people!

As with the steel model of a block of flats, there is a reason for this present too.

Way back when I was an undergraduate student at the Institute of Archaeology in London, doing my BSc in Archaeological Conservation and Materials Science, I had to do a thesis in my final year. The title? Get ready…

The Deterioration and Conservation of Sandstone Gravestones in an Urban Environment.

A riveting read… not. Mercifully, undergraduate theses in the UK are not available via EthOS and the like, so you are spared.

Anyway, it means that my friends and family know that I rather like looking round old graveyards, inspecting not just the inscriptions, some of which are fascinating and quite revealing, but also to look at the types of conservation problems that they pose. Hence the calendar.

January’s photo is of Highgate Cemetery, famously housing the remains of, among others, Karl Marx, Malcolm McLaren, Michael Faraday and Douglas Adams.

I haven’t cheated and looked ahead yet, apart from glimpsing February’s entry, which was one of my favourite burial grounds when I was doing my thesis. But more of that in a month’s time!

Here is January’s photo: