A Mudlarking Year

I really enjoyed Lara’s first book, Mudlarking and was so pleased when I heard we were getting another from her.

Once again this is written about Lara’s exploration of the Thames foreshore, plus a few adventures further afield.

Lara’s writing as previously is warm and open with a very relaxed conversational feel to it, it was a warm hug that I really needed at this point in time. Getting to see more of her biographically as well was so nice and this mixture made reading this book so pleasurable.

The core of the book though is still about the various areas of the Thames which Lara explores but this time written as a diary showing the trials and tribulations of mudlarking through the various seasons as the year progresses.

It’s also nice to read about all the other people Lara has made connections with through this pursuit and the lives that other people live around the Thames or their personal collections.

Broken down into the four seasons we see which are the best times and weather systems for mudlarking and it is always fascinating waiting to read what finds there were on a particular day, and it scratches an itch for collecting by reading about someone else’s itch as all collectors understand that drive to get out there and find what it is we are collecting.

It’s also fascinating finding out about another discarded/destroyed printing type as this was one of the more fascinating parts of the previous books for me.

As I said I loved the first book so much I bought this one before it had even had a chance to hit the shop floor and I’m waiting for the next with great anticipation.