People probably think I'm a crazy woman. On a hill in a park in my inner-Sydney neighbourhood, I can often be found bent over, digging in the sandy ground. Joggers and walkers and ball-chasing dogs pass by and I barely notice – I'm absorbed in unearthing the mysteries of the hill. My imagination is firing, in my head, questions trip over each other.
My amateur archaeological diggings on this hill have yielded masses of broken antique blue-and-white porcelain, pieces of domestic history bearing hints of stripe or pattern – flowers, diamonds, vines, leaves. I have found the bowl of an old clay tobacco pipe, stamped with a maker's mark, but missing its stem. A ceramic inkwell. Glass apothecary bottle shards with traces of writing, half words – “ydney”, “e ulcers”,…
