Heatwave

The weather is all over the place. We tend to have heat waves with cold, rainy weather in between. There was a heat wave I was in the Netherlands. It was cold and wet when I ran the Llanrug 5k, hot when I ran with Jacko and in Deganwy, cold and wet when I was marshalling the Tuesday race on Gyrn Wigau, et cetera. We are back to hot. And not just a bit!  The Met office has issued amber and red weather warnings, and they expect us to break the British record for the hottest June day ever recorded this week.

In the weekend, it wasn't very hot yet. On the Monday, I stayed at home and did cool things. Cool in the sense of not at high temperature, obviously. I kept a lot of curtains closed and (selected) windows open in order to keep the heat out. And I have been sleeping upstairs, behind the very thick walls of the old part of my house. Not in the extension, with its thin walls and south-facing windows.

My house in heatwave setting

On the Tuesday, I had a lot of meetings. That was a bit trying. In the morning I was in a meeting room that was too hot by everyone's standards, and in the afternoon I had all my meetings online in my office. These are all about academic integrity, and for privacy reasons, and in order not to be disturbed, I keep my door closed when I have them. That means my office doesn't ventilate. It gets unpleasantly stuffy.

On the Wednesday, I was back at meetings, but that day it was actually surprisingly cool in the morning. My office was quite bearable, and so were the rooms in which I had my meetings. This must have been a perk of North Wales, as in some of the rest of the country it must have been unbearable 

The Thursday would be the worst, with initially temperatures forecast of 35°. It was later adjusted to 33°. It really was super hot. In England, the record of the day before was easily broken already.

The Friday should be the last they where it was really too much. On the Saturday things should be ok again. I came through locate. The temperature in my living room went up to 25°, which is a lot more modest than what some other people were experiencing. Given that it is not term time, I can work from home if I want. I have double glazing, and a north facing office. I also have a standing fan. My office on campus is not that suitable and/or adaptable.

I didn't bike for the entire week. On Tuesday that wasn't a choice; I just suddenly thought at 8:45 that I had a meeting at 9. That was not true; that meeting was on Wednesday. But as I believed it was true I jumped into my car and went to campus. On Wednesday I would go to Bethel straight after work. On Thursday I worked from home. On Friday again I had to go places straight from campus. But anyway I was glad to not spend an additional 80 minutes or so in the unforgiving heat. And having got sunburnt on Sunday, I was quite happy to not expose my fragile skin to the sun, not even through clothes.

I also barely ran. I only did a race on Wednesday (blog post to come). My skin was not grateful. But I did enjoy it. I skipped the track for reasons of heat and sunburn, and I would have skipped the Thursday Hill run anyway for similar reasons, but I was also otherwise engaged. Not much exercise for me this week.

We will have to be ready for more of this! I suppose one thing I should change is be more careful and not get sunburnt. I might invest in a fan for my office. And I might try to think of something that is more efficient in keeping the heat out of my conservatory than the improvised curtain I have now. It is a conservatory, though, so although I am sure gains can be made, keeping it anywhere near bearable wouldn't be easy.

I'm sure there will be more times like these even this summer. I'll be OK! But I can't say I'm enjoying it…

Last exam board type meeting of the year

It is done! We have come to the end of the exam board meetings and all associated meetings. We know now which students will progress to the next year, which ones will graduate, and which ones might suffer a less happy fate such as having to do supplementary assessment or repeat the year. We have gone through all the modules, and we know which aspects of which ones need changing. 

The idea is after the last one of these meetings, you can start taking your annual leave. There isn't much timetabled anymore. Im looking forward to it after the rather frantic marking period. It's not going so well! Things keep cropping up on the days I would like to take off, such as meetings about the future of our "physical" teaching (as opposed to the teaching of the biologists). But this is a big change. I'll try to enjoy it while it lasts! 

Welsh 3000s training

Neil got it into his head to do the Welsh 3000s; this is some challenge where people walk or run over all the hills that are more than 3000 foot high. The people who walk do it in three days, or within 24 hours. I personally think that doing it in three days is something you can do without having to think too much about it. The real deal, though, is doing it in one go, within 24 hours. And that is what he wants to do. I don't want to join him. I think that after a full day’s worth of walking, my feet would be totally fed up, and the rest would be torture.

It is quite a slog, so he wants to train for it. He had already been training for it in spring, as originally he would do it in spring, but he got an injury, and had to postpone until September. And now he is training again.

We would do the Glyderau range; start on the A5, then climb Tryfan, take the detour to Glyder Fach and then Glyder Fawr, and then just follow the ridge all the way to Penrhyn Quarry, descend it, and walk home. It's a sizeable walk! Only 20km, but with its 1340m ascent and 1500m descent, and bits that are either scrambly, crumbly or bushwhacky, quite trying. 

We got the bus into the valley. We soon got off the road onto a path that would lead to the base of Tryfan. And then the scrambling could begin. 

I had only done this mountain once before. It had been a while ago! And the weather conditions had been quite different. I like a bit of a scramble, so I enjoyed this bit. Not too far from the summit we came across a little guided group; father, daughter and guide. The guide was talking about jumping between Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve are big rocks on top of the mountain, and the tradition is that you jump from one to the other, and only then have you really done the mountain. I am not a particularly big fan of jumping from one thing onto another, so I have never done this. Neither has Neil, who has done the mountain several times. 

Neil on the Cannon Stone

Graded quartz nodules! 

Onwards

Without much further ado we came to the summit, and so did the guided group. Neil still didn't want to do the jump, but he did say he wanted to stand on one of the rocks, so he climbed up. And then he stood there. And then I saw a flicker in his eyes! Would he jump after all? He didn't in the end, but he admitted he had been very close. I didn't even climb onto either of them. The mountain guide showed just how easy it can look. Such a little hop. I still didn't want to do it.

Will he? 

We started to make our way down. The most direct way to the Glyderau is over Bristly Ridge, but neither of us was comfortable doing that without a guide. So we took the long road. And there were streams crossing it! Neil had fresh memories of his birthday, when he had taken me on another ridge walk, and I had brought so much water he had offered to carry some of it for me, and worn himself out. He had been thinking about refills from the beginning.

Once on Glyder Fach we had a nice chat with a solo hiker lady, and then went to the cantilever, to have lunch. We took lots of pictures of hikers on top of it after having eaten our sandwiches. And then we went on.

It was a warm day, but not scarily hot. That was good! There has been weather warnings out all over Europe. We would not escape the heat ourselves. That day, though, it wouldn't quite reach us.

The landscape in that area is amazing. So much bare rock with spectacular formations. But we had further to go, so we kept moving and soon hit more grassy ground. But that wouldn't last; we knew it would give way to the moon-like landscape of the descent to Devil's Kitchen. That is nobody's favourite part of the hike! But it is there. The rock is very crumbly and steep. At the bottom of it, I refilled my water bladder for the last time. And then we went up on the other side, to y Garn.

Crazy Glyderau landscape 

On that summit we bumped into a bunch of men who were doing the Welsh 3000s in three days. This was their second day. They had planned it months ago, and been very lucky with the weather! I did say that the next day they would get a bit boiled, but that didn't discourage them. 

We went on, and decided to have a second lunch on Mynydd Perfedd (intestine mountain; maybe not the most obvious choice for a lunch break). Before we got there I needed an emergency glute stretch. My bum wasn’t feeling it. But the stretch helped. And we made it to our second lunch spot.

Second lunch

From there it was a gentle walk until we would leave the main path and head for the quarry. Along the way, we (again) admired the Atlantic Slabs. We still want to do them in the not too distant future. 

Atlantic Slabs

I wasn't a big fan of the last part; the path is minute, and it is difficult to see where you put your feet. And at some point it almost vanishes. The going is bad; it is unpleasant to the feet, and to lower legs which get attacked by the hostile vegetation. By that point, I was pretty tired and had sore feet, but I was obviously committed. I was glad when we finally hit the path in the quarry, because then the going gets easy. 

Because it was quite late by now, we stopped by the pizza van in the village to have a quick evening meal. All in all, we had done quite a large part of the route Neil will have to do in one go in September. And it had been a beautiful day! I had enjoyed it. It was lovely to be on a hike with Neil, and it was nice to meet all sorts of people along the way. But now I just wanted to put my feet up. So that's pretty much what I did for the remainder of the day…

No underground trip

There was another ladies’ underground trip in the diary, on a Monday. Then things got complicated. There were two! One during the day, and another in the evening. I wasn’t sure why, but there was an Eryri Harriers committee meeting scheduled in the evening, so I was committed to the daytime. I took the day off. 

It was a hot day. And I was particularly non-heat-resistant. I had been careless in the mountains the day before, and got sunburnt. So I set off in long trousers and a long-sleeved shirt to keep my skin out of the sun. 

I drove to the Gwydyr Forest without issue. But when I got to the junction to the actual mine, I found a ‘road closed’ sign. Oh no! How to get to it then? I decided to drive on a bit, to get myself out of the way, and have a think. There was a parking lot nearby. And it turned out that everyone else had done the same. I parked up and joined the others (in the shade). 

Trouble!

We considered our options. Maybe we could drive around? That is quite the detour. And would complicate the planned pub lunch between the underground trips. Another option was to just go to a different mine, but that wasn't really popular either. The last option was to just suck it up and walk from the parking lot we were on. That was the most popular option, but not with me. I couldn't expose my skin to the sun yet, so I would have had to at least wear my furry suit. In that kind of weather. I did not fancy that at all.

In the end, the group stuck with that decision. And I decided to just go home. I had done that mine many times before! Never with this splendid group of ladies, but for me, the circumstances were just not right. And I had plenty to do at home. Better luck next time!

Organising the kitchen

When I moved house, I think I at some point ran a bit out of steam. In the kitchen, I had one drawer that was basically all sorts of stuff that didn't belong anywhere else, just chucked in. And I had another one that was mainly full of a cutlery tray where all the cutlery (in the wider sense of the word; is also includes tin openers and corkscrews et cetera) that I have but not use very often, just sits. It mildly irked me over the years.

Now I had three things coming together that made me finally do something about it. The first thing was: having Neil, who is very tidy. The second was: Alan, the neighbour, who told me he had become a bit intolerant to gluten, and he decided to stop making bread. He gave me his supply of flour, yeast and bread improver. The third was: a Saturday with nothing otherwise planned.

I didn't really have anywhere to put Alan’s supplies! Bread paraphernalia had been in the esoteric cutlery tray drawer, and there wasn't any space left there. And I had wanted to do a big declutter and tidy of my house for a while, and this was made stronger by Neil. So I decided to use my Saturday to rethink this situation.

I started with the arbitrary drawer. I took everything out, cleaned it, threw away some of the stuff in there, and then put everything that was left back in a more or less organised manner. Success! 

Next up was the drawer with the esoteric cutlery tray. I decided that some of the esoteric cutlery could live next to actual cutlery tray in the top drawer. Three matching utensils could hang from the wall. I made a note to buy me some suction cup hooks. And I decided to make a special box for the rest.

I made the box. It was a lot smaller than the original tray, that went in the bin. And that created a lot of space. I first cleaned out this drawer as well, and then put the cutlery box in, and lots of stuff associated with baking bread. Everything fit in!

This won't look organised in other people’s eyes! But in mine, it is.

I was quite chuffed with the result! And I want to do several kitchen cupboards as well. It will take a long long time before I get through the whole house, but there is progress, and that is great. Neil was impressed too! I think I will manage to keep some momentum going until I have made serious improvement. Watch this space!

Dragon update

I was so close to getting my voice recognition software (called Dragon) back. But when would I reach the finish?

When I had managed to download the software, but not installed it, I contacted IT. A man called Deiniol was looking after this case. After a bit of faff he told me that the software company had admitted there was a problem with the license key, and they provided a new one. And that did indeed let me install the software. But installing software and activating it are not the same thing.

Trying to activate the software, I was told that my license key was not correct. Again? What is this? With this allegedly incorrect license key, I could access a trial version, but not activate the full product. I contacted Deiniol again. He advised me to try again the next day, and if that wouldn't work, try activating it off-line. The instructions were on the manufacturer’s website.

 

The next day I tried again. It didn't work. And I decided to record what I was doing, and send the video to Deiniol so he knew exactly what the problem was. And he asked me to give him a call.

On a video call, sharing my screen, we still failed to make it work. Not even when Deiniol took control of my computer, and manipulated it directly.

In the end, the only advice he could give me was to exhaust the trial version (I would have five days of trialling), and then try again. If it would not work, Deiniol would come to my office and try it there and then. I suspect it will have to come that far. But if he then makes it work it will all have been worth it!

Over the new bridge

When I use my standard route to the office, I don't come over the new bridge. But I can! And I was curious so I did it. It is only a tiny detour. 

Once you come over the bridge, this situation used to be that you can go up quite a solid path, that starts very steep, and later has a kissing date. And there was a little gate to the right, that took you to a rather muddy path, first through vegetation, and then (after a kissing gate) between crawiau (typical North Welsh fences made of what basically are vertical planks of slate), to a farm track. That was all very scenic. And it isn't anymore. But it is a lot more bike-friendly now. It's still not as bike-friendly I thought it would be. You might want to do this route on a road bike, but the farm track still has a surface composed of slate chips, and road bikers don’t like that very much!

The path on the other side of the river, wide enough to drive a car on

They restored the crawiau! But they are a lot wider apart now