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! 

More thorough repair of the wood burner

When I bought wood burners, I didn't quite realise that they need some maintenance. They tend to have something called fire rope on the inside of the door, to form a sort of a seal. You don't want the metal of the door directly on the metal of the stove, but whatever you want in between, it should be fire resistant, be a bit of a buffer so closing the door of your stove doesn't get too noisy, and keep the fumes of the fire in. Cue the fire rope.

After a while, my fire rope was starting to come undone. Initially I didn't know what to do with that, until Miles told me you can just glue it back. And I did that for several years. But I had to do it again and again and again. It didn't seem to really fit; there is a gully on the inside of my door, which is only 7 mm wide, but the original fire rope was several times that width. Strange!

You don't have to accept the original fire rope, of course. You can just buy that stuff, in several sizes, in DIY stores. Neil figured I should really do that, as it would actually stay put better if it fit inside that little gutter. He had a point.

I bought some, and a more generous supply of heat resistant glue than I had been buying so far, and now we decided to put it in place. We took the door off, removed the old fire rope, cleaned out the little gutter, and glued the new stuff in position. Then I lit a fire to set the glue. And it worked!

Neil had been a bit nervous that the smaller fire rope wouldn't properly seal. I will soon find out! 

The refurbished door, with the old fire rope for comparison 

Light switch in hallway back in business

Infrared panels are often best placed on the ceiling. Unfortunately, the same holds for lamps. So when I decided to have my whole house fitted out with infrared panels, several ceiling lamps had to yield. I had agreed with the company putting up the panels that they would move some of these lights; this is not a big job if you're an electrician, but it is if you're someone like me.

The problem was a bit that the process took many months longer than expected, and lights are actually quite a good idea. In the master bedroom, the ceiling lamp was moved to the side, which basically means that only half the room now has adequate light. In the little space behind the front door, there was no light whatsoever, so I put a standing lamp there. That was not ideal.

On a day with rubbish weather and Neil and I decided to act. Or rather; he acted and I watched and learned. I could not make sense of the wiring the electricians had left by the front door, but Neil could work it out with some of the equipment he has. And then he just fitted a wall mounted lamp I had bought for the occasion. It is absolutely lovely to have proper light there again!

We also considered the options for the master bedroom. For symmetry, it would be best to just buy another lamp like the one that has been moved. We checked how we would connect the wires, though; that doesn't seem to work. The wires would have to go through the ceiling, but the joists seem to have a crossbar and there's no way you could get past that. So I'll just put up another wall mounted lamp. The same model as the one in the hallway, but in a colour that matches the bedroom. Progress is being made!

 

Light! Next to my infrared panel. 

Marshalling XC again

If I remember correctly, my first marshalling ever was last year at the Eryri Harriers-organised fixture of the cross country (XC) championships. It was the first race after the AGM, committee members encouraged everyone to marshal where possible. It had been my first AGM.

This year I volunteered again. I am a much more seasoned marshal by now! And this time I was going to marshal all races. In total, there are six; it starts with the under 11 girls, and ends with the senior men. The races get longer and faster as you get along.

I was stationed somewhere where you always go the same way. At least what I could do is tell the runners where they would go at the next junction. It's good to know in advance! And I would assume most would have had a look at the map, but some might not have managed to remember it all. Especially those who had race jitters.

The first runners, the under 11 girls, we're running or muddy grass. But they already started changing this into mud with a little bit of decorative grass. And with every race that went by, the terrain got worse. I was really glad that I had decided again to not run myself. It is so easy to sprain something when you slip in these conditions.

The races came thick and fast. I did have time to eat my lunch along the way, but that was about it. And when the senior men had come by for the last time, I went to the back of the field to retrieve the route markers. And then my job was done! But it was already quite deep into the afternoon. It was time to do other things!

The next race I will be running myself. I really look forward to that! Unsurprisingly, it will be on the road.  And I hope that no weather warnings will get in the way…

The start of the senior men race

A Gog Triathlon Club runner seems to struggle with grip, with an Eryri Harrier in pursuit

The bloke who would win that race