Snadger that sounds a FAB hobby! I'm a fan of Time Team and love watching them digging somewhere up, much to the disgust of my OH who loves to take the p*** by saying "Oh, look we've found so and so, and here, by magic we've been able to totally rebuild the site....etc etc!". I'll have to have a look on ebay to see how much detectors are - not sure where I could search round here though!
Dexterdog