I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get back to finish off my last posting for a while, but writing with a wristpad is time-consuming and tiring, particularly when you’re trying to transcribe a conversation at the same time. In fact, I’ve decided not to write down the conversation verbatim, as most of it is still unintelligible to me. I could try to put down phonetically what I think I heard, but it won’t make any sense, so instead, here’s the gist of what went on:

The chap coming to meet me (I’ve now found he’s called Samuel) greeted me in what was clearly English, but with a very strong accent, and some words are so strange that I just can’t make sense of them at all. It may be the accent, or it may be that these are just words that don’t appear in modern English.

Anyway, it was obvious that he was saying hello, so I said ‘hello’ back. He stopped, and took a good look at me – mind you, I was doing the same to him. Clearly, my accent marks me out as a stranger, as indeed, does my clothing – army fatigues, even after having been worn continuously for several weeks, are obviously of a completely different order of quality to what he was wearing, and a type of material I guess he’d never seen (probably no-one on this planet will have come across synthetic fibres).

If this is, as I suspect, a feudal society, then I obviously have class. And although I haven’t been able to have a bath for some time, he looked (and smelt) as if he’d never seen a bath in his entire life, so hygiene wasn’t a problem.

He spoke at length. I got very little, but consoled myself that at least I was recording him. I did reply to what I could understand, and also asked him to speak slower, for what it was worth.

One phrase I did manage to get pretty clearly was, “You’ll be from Nople then?” I still have no idea who Nople is, but as it seemed clear at the time that he was sure that’s who’d sent me there, I did agree. It seemed to satisfy him, anyway.

He took me into the church, and showed me round, obviously expecting me to be interested. I tried to look and sound intelligent – fortunately having done an archaeology course, and having a father who’s a clergyman (even if not a priest in this sort of church) being in a medieval building like this didn’t throw me too much.

On replaying our conversation later, he was obviously a caretaker (verger?) for the church, and he wanted to point out all the important features of the building, including all the minutiae, even down to the cupboard where the candles were stored.

He then took me outside, to a small house behind the church itself, and showed me in. After a short monologue, of which I understood not a single word, he left me there. Playing back his words, I finally realised that he had been telling me this was my house. Clearly there has been some confusion here. He was obviously expecting someone, sent by this chap Nople, and thought I was his man. Oh well, I thought, at least I’d got a roof over my head.

Things became a little more clear the next morning – but I think that will have to wait until I can find time to do some more typing. My life is a little busy at the moment, what with the work I’m expected to do, and the research I’m doing on the internet, trying to work out how to do it. More next time.