But for the last ten years Penny Lindop has buried her archaeological life to build her business in Diss.

She runs a greetings cards business, Penny Lindop Designs, a retail arm, The Little House, and a website, www.pennylindop.com, which was relaunched on Monday.

Mrs Lindop already has an international market for her hand-finished cards, which include buyers from the USA, Japan, Canada, Europe and New Zealand as well as an established national trade, supplying the National Trust, Fortnum and Mason, The Conran Shop and the Royal Horticultural Society.

But it was the local market where she felt she needed more exposure and this led her to sign up for this month’s Diss On View trade fair, organised by the Diss Business Forum, the independent trade organisation, of which she is a member.

Mrs Lindop said: “The core of my business is greeting cards designs which I supply internationally.

“But because my business doesn’t have a local basis I felt I needed to do more to be known locally.

“I joined the Diss Business Forum and I felt I should support the event.”

Many of the products, which also include calendars, bags, mugs, and gift bags are designed and finished in a log cabin at Mrs Lindop’s home in Garboldisham.

She set up The Little House shop in Cobbs Yard, Diss, in May, but had to close it in August due to family circumstances, but Mrs Lindop has adapted it.

“Now it will have to be something with more flexibility to bring the shop to you,” she said. “For example I have just done wedding cards for a family who were stuck for someone to do it.”

Mrs Lindop attended last year’s trade fair and had no hesitation in signing up again this year, seeing it as a way to promote her business among other businesses, and to find out about what new ventures have launched in the area.

She said the event could only get stronger: “I think Diss on View is something that will grow in popularity as people realise the need to promote themselves locally.

“Perhaps businesses in the town are feeling now that they need to work together.”

Mrs Lindop started excavating aged just 15 and earned a first class honours degree at Birimingham University in archaeology before pursuing a second passion for textiles, obtaining a diploma in hand weaving, spinning and dyeing.

But how did she get from that to her design business?

“I always designed and doodled and grew in confidence when buyers became interested,” she explained.

In the ten years the business has been running, the style of her work has been described as quintessentially English, particularly by her American audience.

“A lot of people in the US like me because I’m so English, but what does that mean?

“I think other people need to be the judges of that.”

Her business has a green side too, using envelopes made from recycled paper and biodegradable bags.