On a cold early morning in the middle of winter knee deep in mud, cold to the bone, what was I doing, I could have been sat at home in the warm in front of a high flamed fire. Watching the television or perhaps chatting to my other half or perhaps doing some of those chores that were building up around the house.No! I was glad I was out metal detecting, there is just something about this hobby of mine that was different to anything else I had tried. The research into the history, finding out about who had lived in this area hundreds of years ago or if a battle had happened well before my time. Finding the history of a particular search area was just as much fun as actually getting down to the actual treasure hunting part of this pastime.As this was a relatively new hobby of mine, having only been metal detecting for just over a year, my finds were somewhat scarce compared to many others. What I had found in this time was a great treasure to me. Buttons, spoons and some very interesting old coins were part of my proud collection. My collections had from the start been placed in a glass display cabinet, these were always a great topic of conversation when visitors were around.My very first find was a bottle cap, found at my local beach, it did not put me off, I kept the search up for many hours that first time and was pleased to have found quite a few coins and a wedding ring. Of course, these finds got me hooked straight away, I could not believe all this could find it's way into the ground. I did however, make a big mistake that day, throwing the rubbish items back to the ground, I was digging those same rubbish items up the next visit.It got me thinking, how many millions more items were laying beneath our feet? What were people walking on without even knowing it? These are questions that will never be answered or indeed should never be answered.I had gone from using an early whites metal detector which I did enjoy to my now minelab which has proved to be a great investment to my hobby. The minelab is a great piece of equipment, it searches deeper and the discrimination settings are much more precise.So what the hell was I doing searching in deep mud on that cold early morning? Well only the previous week a large find was made and me being greedy expected to find another large hoard, as you can imagine, that day all I managed to find was a good way of catching a cold.