Not even May and already no water

I don’t think I have been saying that much about the weather! It has been gorgeous here. Quite windy, but sunny all day. For quite a stretch. 

I don’t think you could already tell from my tan, but you could surely tell from my water butt. It was only April but I effectively emptied it! I regularly flush the toilet with rain water, and I also have been watering the grass seed I spread. (That seed was a bit old, though; it might not germinate…) And with all that going on, the water level dropped lower and lower until it reached the level of the tapping point. 

I think I only emptied it only once before! And that was in the middle of summer. Last year it got quite empty too, but only by late May. 

In the night from April 30 to May 1st, of course it rained. Not enough to fill the water butt again, but I think the weather wanted to make a point that this was an April thing. Rare! But I have enjoyed commuting in T-shirt and shorts. And not freezing my bum off on track or hill. Not many al fresco meals yet, but that might change! 

Ad hoc bridge closure

When I biked home on the first day of the dissertation presentations, I was surprised to see the bridge closed to cars on the Anglesey side. What was going on? I hadn’t heard anything. It had been fully open for a while since the last period of faff. And I could cross, so it didn't affect me very much, but I wanted to know what was going on. And there was no traffic coming from the other side, so it seemed closed entirely.

On the other side, there was a bloke in high viz, patrolling. He was possibly there to tell angry drivers why they couldn't cross. I asked him what was going on. He said that in spite of the clear sign saying that vehicles over 7.5 tons should use the other bridge, a heavy vehicle had crossed. And that apparently meant that they had to check whether there had been any damage to the bolts holding the bridge together. And as long as this check was going on, no car was going to cross!

None shall pass! Pic taken with cones of hi viz man. 

I had not come across this before, but I assume it is standard. There are cameras on both sides of the bridge. There is nothing stopping you driving a heavy vehicle onto the bridge, but there is also nothing stopping the authorities from knowing that you are doing it. I assume a hefty fine is in order. But also, inconvenience for other traffic users. I think it could be a while before this bridge becomes straightforward again!

The actual dissertation presentations

After a tiring day I got up to have another one. This one would be tiring in a different way. The first day of the dissertation presentations! I would have to be in the office quite early. They started at 9 am, and I hadn't been able to put all the paperwork in the rooms, as several of them had been in use for an open day over the weekend. So I needed to sort that out. And make sure the door of the building would open automatically. And see if there was anything wrong.

Putting the paperwork in the rooms (and putting the room numbers on the doors) went fine. And while doing that, I bumped into one of the technicians who sorted out the front door for me. But then the first problem arrived! There was a technical problem in one of the rooms. The staff member in that room managed to circumvent it by using her laptop, but that wasn't ideal. So I got on the phone to the main campus. And they would send a technician. 

Room number! 

There was another problem; one of the staff mailed that he was ill, and couldn't come. Could someone step in? Luckily, one of my other colleagues immediately realised that there was one session with three members of staff, so we could transplant one of them. That went well! 

I also had to finish putting all the student presentations in dedicated session folders, and finalising the abstract booklets for the next day. And I obviously had quite a lot of student enquiries to answer! And when I figured the morning sessions might finished, I collected all the leftover paperwork, and put in paperwork for the afternoon instead. And then I had lunch. And by the time I had eaten it, main campus had sorted the technical problem. Great!

That afternoon I had my own session. It wasn't a long one! I had a rather high percentage of students who didn't present. And when it was done, I agreed marks with Martyn, with whom I had shared the session. And then I did another round of sweeping the rooms and getting them ready for the next session, the next morning.

Then I could go home. Unsurprisingly, I was a bit late arriving in Welsh class. But so be it.

The next morning I was back in post. And again, there was a problem! I had accidentally put two students in a session where they didn't belong. Luckily, I had also put them in the session where they did. I'm sure they never even looked at the documentation of the other session. Why would they? So they never panicked about being listed as a speaker in two different sessions. So that was easily solved. Otherwise all went well!

Around lunchtime, I did my usual round of collecting paperwork left over from the morning from the rooms, and putting the afternoon papers in. At the end of the day I could just sweep all the rooms, and take the numbers down. And I managed to put my grades and feedback where it belonged.

My next task was to find out which students had actually presented. With the presentations, it is not so easy to see if a student has done the assignment. Uploading your slides is one thing, but presenting is another! So I had to email all the staff to tell me who hadn't shown up. And then I had to make sure I sorted a mop up session for these students. And somehow get the staff to provide grades and feedback for all the students who had shown up. That can be a bit of a job!

Before all this will have died down, the actual dissertation will have hit. But that will be another post!

Birthday Neil

Neil had his birthday! And he likes hiking. So that is what we had planned. With the intention of dining out afterwards. And he came up with the idea of walking a generous loop around Cwm Eigiau. Sounded good!

The evening before we had been for dinner at Susan and Dean’s place. That had been lovely! But we got home quite late. It hit midnight before we had managed to get to bed. So I could congratulate him as soon as his birthday officially started! 

The next morning we were up quite early for our hike. We were a bit groggy! We’re too old to cope well with late nights. But I presented him with a birthday cake, part of which we then packed for our hike. We had breakfast and got our bags ready, and were off. 

5 candles for 55 years

There was plenty of parking space. And it was cloudy but lovely. I like the place. It is at the end of a tiny road with several gates on. It feels very remote. 

Cwm Eigiau

I had brought a lot of water as we would spend a lot of time on the ridge. Neil was a bit worried about the share weight of my backpack, and volunteered to carry one flask for me. That was kind! I wondered if that would mean I could finally keep up with him. 

We headed into the valley, and had a little look at one of the small slate quarries there. I hadn't been to this one before! And it looked like indeed; this time I could actually keep up with Neil. That is unusual. He is a bit of a Duracell bunny. I am hardly terribly unfit, but he tends to run ahead like a gazelle.

Small quarry

Beyond the quarry we headed up the ridge, where we had a cake break. Then we continued our way to the summit of Pen Llithrig y Wrach. The views were lovely! And from there we did the down-and-back-up to Pen yr Helgi Du. By then we were hungry again, and sat down for lunch. We could see a few climbers in the cleft! 

Pen Llithrig y Wrach

Next up was Carnedd Llewelyn. And from there we soon left the path. We intended to bushwhack in between reservoirs below us (Dulyn and Melynllyn). Level with these we could pick the path back up.

Summit selfie

The off-piste bit was gorgeous! I should go there more often. And take more pictures. We sat on a rock for more lunch. We had made sure to not eat everything the first time around.

We got down without difficulties. It’s a rather birthday-ish path; we had used it to for Kate's 40th and my 50th! On my birthday, the weather was so rubbish we didn't get far. Today we didn't have that problem. But we were almost there now. Just a trudge back to the car.

When we got back to mine we first had a shower and a hot drink. And I gave him my present. Then we trudged to the pizza van by the cheese shop. We didn't linger; not because we were so hungry, but because we were scared we otherwise would fall asleep! We were both very tired. We blamed it on the late night the day before. And Neil’s cat howling us awake at 6 am. And Neil blamed some on the extra weight from the flask.

The pizza man got wind of it being Neil’s birthday and gave him a very good brownie for free. That was kind. We had it all at a picnic table right by the pizza van.

We agreed it had been a good birthday! He is lucky with a spring date. Much better chance of nice hiking weather. Let's hope that this is the first of a lot of adventurous together in his 56th year! 

Ready to bring on the dissertation presentations

This year, the dissertation presentations would be on a Monday and Tuesday. And I didn't want to work during the weekend. So I would have to make sure that at least for Monday, everything would be ready by Friday.

On Thursday I got quite a lot done, but it did mean I left the office so late I missed Thursday Night Hill training. And when I got to my bike I realised I had a flat tire. That made me get home even later!

On Friday I managed to get everything done for the Monday. For Tuesday, quite a lot was done. I had finished 6 out of 8 conference booklets. I could finish the rest on Monday morning. And I had printed quite a lot of marking sheets and feedback sheets. That would at least get me through the Tuesday morning.

I would have to do a bit of downloading presentation slides, and putting them in the right folders on OneDrive. But that's a rather quick process. That would also fit on Monday morning. I didn't have to actually attend any presentations until Monday afternoon. And on Tuesday I didn't have to attend any of them.

I was hoping to finish the day with an ice cream with my Italian colleagues, but these ended up stuck in a meeting. So I just went home. And I had faith it was going to be ok!

I would have to be there quite early on the Monday. I would have liked to get all the rooms ready on Friday, but unfortunately, there would be an open day during the weekend, and that used several of the same rooms. So I couldn't get the paperwork ready. But plonking some piles of printouts in some rooms isn’t a big job, and after that I think everything will be on a roll. I will find out!

Fighting water wastage

There was water coming out of the asphalt of a little street around the corner. That's not good! This was happening on a dry day, so it didn't look like sewage seeping through. I suspected it was drinking water. So I contacted Welsh Water. Nothing happened for a while, but then I got a text. It thanked me for my message, and warned about that doing something about it might take a long time. It warned, for instance, that if a road closure would be necessary, it could take twelve weeks to obtain permission for that. I could imagine one was indeed needed.

Almost two weeks later I got another text. I was warned about potential low water pressure. I was sure it was related. And indeed: the next time I went to work I saw the road had been closed. (No months of permission seeking going on here!) Someone was already warning people about it. It's a tiny road, but it does lead to a school, so I can imagine closing it significantly affects the school run. People would have to approach that school from the other side.

And something was indeed happening! When I got home later that day there was a hole in the road surface. It looked like I had been right! And it had been a leaking water mains. I was glad I had contributed to stopping that.

The next day I left for work there was activity there, and when I got home the hole in the surface had already been filled. There had been nothing happening these few weeks in the beginning, but after that, the water company seemed to have been very much on the ball! That is great. For a country with so much rainfall we seem to have surprisingly many water shortages. And I think one should never take Drinkwater for granted. Letting it just leak through the road is not a good idea!

A leak?

Road closed, hole dug

The hole

Race loot, a year later

Last year I had a category win in the Trawsfynydd race. It is a charity race, and the prizes are donated by local businesses. The year before I had walked home with local honey. But this time I had spotted a £50 voucher for outdoor kit! That would come in handy. Nobody else had claimed it when my name was called, so I nabbed it. 

In the year that went by since I did not pass through Betws, where the shop is, very often, and the times I did I either forgot the voucher or had no time to stop. So in the end I banked it on the day of the next race along! The shop was on route. 

I knew one thing I definitely wanted to buy with it: a new flask for hiking. I missed the one that had given up the ghost. If I went out now, I tend to go with the whole collection of smaller flasks, and that is not very practical. And I had already seen on their website that they also did wide-necked flasks for hot meals. I'm sure that will sometimes come in handy! 

I added some little safety lights, great for making sure you can be seen from behind when you go for a run in the dark, and a little dry bag, to get to the amount of the voucher. The little lights will probably not come in handy for a few months, but that's OK! I'm sure the dry bag will see some action in summer. 

I know I've just blogged about getting rid of stuff, but that did not involve flasks! I can use an almost infinite number of flasks. And rear lights. I’m not feeling any clutter-anxiety with this loot. 

The bloke at the till had a bit of a problem with the voucher as it had a code, which was handwritten. It wasn't necessarily clear which letters were uppercase and which were lowercase. The software would only accept it if he got everything right! It took a while. And then I could go home with my treasure.

This might be the best prize I've ever won in a race! Which is a bit weird, given that this was only a category win, and I have managed everything up to gold in the past. But so be it! I will enjoy this for many years to come…