First Eryri Harriers committee meeting

The committee meetings of the Eryri Harriers are actually open to all club members. In autumn, there had been a call for one. I intended to go! I was curious. But I had stupidly misremembered where it would take place. I had "Bethesda rugby club" in my head, but in reality it was "Bethesda cricket club". So I did not attend that meeting.

Now I am the secretary and I am expected to be there. And I duly turned up! To find one car in the car park, with Mike in it, staring at the shutters of the club. That didn't look good! But soon a bloke appeared who opened the door for us. Phew. 

We could soon start. It was a rather standard meeting! We dealt with the action points from the recent AGM, we decided we needed to plan a meeting for some change we were forced into but which couldn’t make with just the committee, and there were reports from our various officers. We decided we needed a subcommittee for the Welsh Castles Relay. And we had some agenda points requested by various people. 

It was by coincidence an exciting time to have a meeting! Three days after the meeting there would be a new club-organised fell race. I am sure it will go well! 

I sometimes had to ask stuff because I’m new to the game. But I suppose I have to hit the ground running. One of the action points from the AGM was that it was seen as desirable to have a vice-chair. We didn’t have one. Mike nominated me. And I was ok with that so I stood, and that was unanimously accepted. It will be acting vice-chair for now, as we need an AGM to make it proper. But it’s clear I am getting established in the running of this club quite swiftly! 

There were also cups of tea, and Nia had brought cake. We tried to get everything done in 90 minutes but we failed. Too much to discuss! And when we were done I was a bit miffed to see that the roof underneath which I had parked my bike was leaking profusely. I think my bike was only marginally less wet than it would have been if I hadn’t parked it under a roof at all. Oh well. I will look for a better location next time!

One thing we didn’t get around to was deciding on dates for future meetings. So I don’t know when we go again. But I think I will be up to speed by then! 

Small post-race hike

Neil had proposed a hike on the day after the race. We hadn’t decided on where to go. But it looked like the mainland would be cloudy, but the coast sunny. So we didn’t head for the mountains. I had my archeological book in mind, and wondered if Neil had seen Din Lligwy. He said he hadn’t! So that could be a goal. 

We drove there in the sunshine, and walked over the hoarfrost to the chapel and the remains of the village. That rocked his memory; he had been there before! But it’s a lovely site. 

Din Lligwy

The chapel in the sunny distance

We were actually both feeling a bit low in energy. Me probably because hanging around in the cold by the finish line the day before had done me no good. Neil wasn’t quite sure about why he was a bit sluggish. So we were ok with no big hike!

We walked to the coastal path and followed that south. It was beautiful and sunny! But still cold. The sand of Traeth Llugwy was frozen. We came past something I thought was an old quarry. And I figured it was the same stratigraphic level as Bishop’s Quarry on the Orme. Later we saw some beautiful sandstones underneath the limestones. Some good channels there! 

The suspected quarry

And the suspected channels

 

Further on we had a chat with some people at the Coastwatch post. They spoke of a seal on a nearby beach. We hoped it was ok. And we sat on a rock for lunch. It was so relaxed Neil even dozed off a bit. 

When we got to the next beach, we saw a chap with binoculars. We should have recognised that for what it was: a Coastwatch man we had seen at their post, checking on the seal, but he had to tell us that. Oops. The seal seemed fine! Just dozing in the sun. 

Go full page view for the seal

From there we just walked back to the car. Enough excitement for a day! And only when we were back at my place did it become clear just how under the weather we were. I was glad we hadn’t tried anything strenuous! 

Twin Piers race

I started the racing year with a race I hadn't done before, just like last year. This time the novelty in the calendar was the Twin Piers race, from Llandudno to Colwyn Bay. A rather flat course. Not the most exciting, but a nice one to start off with!

Because it is a one-way race, you have to think about how to get from the finish to the start. The race organisation mentioned there was transport; I assumed that would be with coaches, but it didn't provide detailed information. Would you have to be transported with only everything you would have on you in the race? Or was there bag transport? If everyone would show up suddenly by coach, would that not overwhelm the provided portaloos? I decided to sort out my own transport. I drove to the finish with my bike in the back. That way I could also recce the course. I had not done that on foot! And I found Emma, the fast Dutch lady who was picking up her race number, but would then drive to the start. She said she would run back to her car at the end. Perhaps, if my car stayed there, could she put a jacket in my car? Of course she could! I had one in there myself as well.

I got a good idea of the route, and especially the hill in the middle. And I had decided to scout out the public toilets in town. My least favourite part of the race is always queueing for the toilets by the start! But if you have a bike, you might as well just go a bit further away and have some public toilets all for yourself. Unfortunately, you get nothing for nothing in Llandudno. Both sets of public toilets I scouted out required a 50p coin for access. I did not carry any on me. I might have to rely on the loos by the start anyway.

The start confused me a bit. Normally, that is quite some infrastructure. But I suppose this time, all the infrastructure was at the end, and at the start there was basically only a bloke with a microphone and a big sign saying "Start" (which I initially entirely failed to spot). And there were portaloos. At least the coaches hadn't arrived yet, so there was no queue. I took advantage of that.

It was beautiful and sunny! I decided to strip down to my racing tire quite quickly. I stuffed my excess clothing in my bicycle bag. I had faith it would be safe there. And I was hoping to see a lot more Eryri Harriers. I saw fewer than expected! But I saw some fellow track runners. That was nice too.

Sunny by the pier! 

After a while I found the rest of the club, and we posed for a club picture. And then it was about time to start. I made sure to be somewhere at the front, but as soon as the whistle went a lot of people came storming past. This included two Cybi Striders of note: the first was my friend Louise, who had said she was going to try to stick with me as long as she could by way of pacing, which clearly went out of the window in the first second. The second was Richie, who is more or less as fast as me, so it is always anybody's guess who is going to win. In the last five races he had beaten me three times, so I really wanted to beat him again!

Club pic

I knew I would quite have liked to run a personal best, but then I would have to run from the start at a 4:15 pace. And I could immediately feel that that was not going to happen. Sometimes you have your day and sometimes you don't. This day I didn't. But I made sure I didn't stray too far away from Louise and Richie. 

After a kilometre or two I caught up with Louise. She admitted he had set off too fast again! A bit like in the Breakwater race. We ran together for a little bit, but then I wanted to go and chase Richie. I figured I could take him on this time; he had a bit of a niggle, and I was fine. That put me at an advantage! Am I overtook him before we hit 3 km.

I was alright on the uphill; I normally am. And the downhill wasn't steep at all. That suited me fine! But by about 5 km I was starting to feel the strain. I knew a personal best wasn't going to happen, but another thing I would quite like to get was a category win. My first race after my 50th birthday! And I had no idea, of course, who was in front of me, but I figured I couldn't relent, in order to maximise my chances of getting it. I plodded on, counting the kilometres away. 

In the last few kilometres, the field was quite spread out, so I didn't think any 50+ lady was going to jump out of nowhere and overtake me. I just kept up my speed and hoped for the best! And I was properly, properly out of breath when I finished. Immediately I received a text. The timing software gave me my time! And could even tell me the results so far. So I immediately knew that indeed, I was there fastest woman over 50! I was happy with that. My time was 43:47; 1:10 away from a PB. And quite unlike my previous 50+ win (even though I was 49) I wouldn’t have won in the previous age category. Oh well! And there would be other chances to try to beat my PB.

Emma had already finished, of course, Louise and Richie weren't far behind me. We did the usual after race chat. How did it go? Were we happy with our time? What was our ranking? And I got to my car so both me and Emma could put a jacket on. It was cold!

There was a bit of faffing, and then the ceremony started. I knew I would get a trophy, and there were several other Eryri Harriers who did. Excellent! And one thing I didn't see coming; this race also gave a price for the fastest theme. I wondered if you would have had to register as a team for that, but it turned out you don't. But they just do it take the fastest for men and the fastest for women from any club that has entered at least four of each, and then figure out which were on average the fastest. It was us! And I was the third fastest woman. I was proud of that!

Me, Emma and Louise by the finish

Getting my trophy. Pic by Louise

6 out of the 8 winning team members

I quite like that our team of 8 was almost entirely above 40. Only one of the women was running in the 35-40 category. And then we had 4 people in 40-45, 2 in 50-55, and 1 in the 55-60 category! So we were a bunch of superfast middle-aged people.

After the ceremony from the organisers, there was a second ceremony by Welsh Athletics, as this race was in the North Welsh championships. But because it was cold, quite some people decided to not wait for that. The crowd got smaller and smaller when they went through the categories! Because I had won outright in my category, I also got a medal from them. And with my finishing medal, that brought my loot to four trophies! And my category win got me a nice tile with an old picture of the Colwyn Bay pier.

Now it was really time to go. So I drove back to the start, found the parking place near where my bicycle was parked, and loaded it up. Time to go home! The racing year 2026 had commenced!

Loot!

Surprisingly handsome flatworms

I mentioned before that we have a fish tank at work. I wasn’t very excited about the fish, but the tank also contained invertebrates. These surely floated my boat! 

If you look now at the pictures I took back then, it’s a very bare landscape (seascape). But the invertebrates have grown, and we have had new acquisitions. It looks very lively now! Lush with corals and polyps and whatnot. 

When I recently had a look I noticed some red specks. I had no idea what they were, but by coincidence Craig, the brain behind the fish tank, just approached. He did know what they were. He said they were flatworms! I always imagine these to be bigger. These specks were more or less couscous sized. I couldn't see them clear at all.

The full tank

Notice the dark red bits

A few days later I made sure to have my hand lens with me, and I had another look. A whole world opened up for me! With the lens, I could make out their shapes. There is a lot of detail in the little things.

Individual wormies 

I don'I don't really know what I was looking at; they seem to have a bellybutton and a tail, but that is projection. Just that I could have a good look at them was enough for me. When people saw me do that, they wanted to have a look as well, and they were impressed too.

It seems that these little things are a bit of a plague, and they will have to be removed. There is a massacre on the horizon! Oh dear. I'm emotionally involved now…

January marking

When I went away for Christmas, all marking that needed to have been done by then was done. There was a pile waiting that had been submitted the 19th of December, but that was not too bad. I shared that with Jaco. This assignment was having the students be critical about an AI-generated text about topical subjects. Time-consuming, but actually quite fun! 

When that was done, the next batch came in. Exam marking! I was involved in two of them, a week apart. The first one was a module on shelf seas. Sometimes my exam questions in that module are not very popular at all. This year was different! We had about 100 students, and they all had to answer 2 out of 8 questions. So if every question would be equally popular, they would all have 25 students choosing them. One of my questions (I had two) drew 23. A fine number! The other one drew 57. Crap. 

The North Sea: example of a shelf sea. Pic by NASA

I finished the popular question before the students started on the second exam. And then I managed to mark the less popular one while the students were working on the other exam. So I could move straight on! Were it not that academic integrity cases, teaching admin for the second semester, and an invited talk about EDI got quite in the way…

Infrared panels finished

It is finished! It is mid-January but it’s done. The previous time the electrician had left with two issues unsolved: several panels without a thermostat because they hadn't brought compatible ones, and a hole in the wall because he had hit a water pipe.

When he showed up again to finish it off, I was surprised to see him and a colleague carry large boxes out of his van. These thermostats aren't very big? But he quickly explained: they were not going to install compatible thermostats; they were going to exchange the installed panels with panels that were compatible with the thermostats they had used so far. That sounded like an unnecessarily labour-intensive way to go about it, but so be it. It did mean more time, more mess, more disruption, more annoyance by the cat.

I got to work upstairs and they sorted things out downstairs. But at some point he wanted to know where I wanted to thermostats. I like them near the light switch. All the controls for a room in one place! And we figured from the light switch, the cable would go up. So we put the thermostats below it. That we had miscalculated. And the man still didn't have the device that detects metal wiring in a wall, so he chanced it. And tripped the fuse. 

The latest problem

He had to drive to Bangor to buy what he needed to fix the damage. But when that was done, he was sorted. He suggested we fix the last thermostat with double-sided tape. Fine with me! And the hole in the wall was not something he could do anything about; he was an electrician. They would have to send a plasterer.

I agreed with the company that they would just take some money off the bill and then I will sort out a plasterer myself. So that's it! I now have a full set of infrared panels! And they work. I did have to bicker with the company about the bill; I suspected they had lost track of what they had actually installed. So I wanted an itemised bill. They were reluctant, but I was right to be stubborn about that; it turned out they were trying to make me pay for the installation of two panels that had been installed in 2022. Cheeky! 

I now don't have to deal with this company anymore. I must say it has been a bit of a struggle! But now I can just enjoy my panels in peace. At last!

Old money

My stepmum found some UK banknotes in my dad’s stuff, and he is highly unlikely to travel to the UK again, so she sent them to me. He must have had them for a while! For they were the old papery versions, and the new polymer ones came in in early 2020. 

Would I manage to sort this? 

I hadn’t noticed, so I tried to pay with them. The lady in the shop wasn’t having that, but said you can still exchange them in a bank. A bank! They still exist. There are some in Bangor. So one day I biked there and had a try. The first bank said this branch didn’t have a counter service, but in Llangefni they did, and they would be able to help. 

The next bank I tried (might as well) said they could only help if I was one of their customers. I’m not; the nearest branch of my bank is in Liverpool. But they said I should try the Post Office. That was just up the street. 

I tried it. And it worked! Effortlessly. Which means I could have just gone to the post office in Bethesda or Menai Bridge. Oh well. It’s sorted now! And that money hasn’t fully expired somewhere in a drawer. That would have been a waste!