Field trip starts

We the geosciences-oriented people always start term two weeks before everybody else, with the Newborough filed trip. And this year, the weather forecast for the start of the field trip was absolutely rubbish. In the morning before I left it was bucketing down. I also drove in through rain. The students, who had been asked to gather on the Ocean Sciences campus, had sought refuge in one of the buildings.

Martin took attendance and then we could all get into vehicles, to get to Newborough. We have fieldwork HQ there. And by the time we got there, it had stopped raining!

Martin said some introductory things, and suggested that we might as well have lunch before we go into the field. We left at noon.

As usual, we went to Malltraeth first, to have a look at the landward end of the estuary. But it was high water spring tight, so there was less to see than normal. Then we went into the saltmarsh. I did my thing there. I told him about why these environment are important, and why foraminifera are important too. 

I thought we would then go to where we take our sediment cores, but we didn't; we went all the way to the other side of the estuary. Martin pretended it was on purpose. Dei knew he had just missed a junction. Never mind! We had a good look at the beach and the dunes and how the beach is different on either side of Llanddwyn island and where the waves break.

On the beach

Martin explaining stuff

View on Llanddwyn

 

By then it was time to go back to HQ. We skipped the coring location altogether. Fine with me. 

Back at HQ, Dei reminded all the students of how to survey. It turns out that they had almost all learned this already, more than once. He did it anyway. And then we could go back to SOS. 

The atmosphere in my vehicle was good. I had the impression the whole group was quite engaging. Great! Sometimes you get quite a number of very unresponsive students, and I find that rather disheartening. 

In Brynsiencyn we saw two hitchhikers. We had two spare seats. I asked the students if we should pick them up, and they said yes, so we did. They turned out to be German tourists, housesitting for someone in Tregarth.

We got back to SOS. That was the end of the first field day! The next one will be a lot more hard work. But so far so good. And in my own car I brought the hitchhikers to the recommendation and then I could go home. Time to eat pizza with Neil! And the day after, I wasn't needed. I could use this Sunday to get mentally ready for the Monday, which was going to be a day with a very early start… 

Phone problems

I like phoning my mum on a regular basis. I have an international phoning app, which is cheaper than just normal phoning. But it started playing up. First it wouldn't let me phone my dad, but at least there is a workaround as I can FaceTime his wife. Then it wouldn't let me phone my mum anymore either. I have no idea why.

One night I decided to just phone my mum anyway, but the direct way. Yes it is more expensive, but it is important that I manage! It worked once. But then just phoning her resulted in the same refusal from the phone. And she doesn’t do WhatsApp or FaceTime or email or any of that, so if I can’t phone her, I can’t let her know I can’t phone her, except by snail mail. 

I was wondering if it was my phone. By phone standards, it is old. It does more quirky things. Neil didn't believe it. He thought it might be something with the SIM card or with the provider. 

When I couldn't phone my mum at all, I did some more fanatical googling. Why couldn't I do this? I got nowhere with the international phone app. I tried some phone settings and rattled the SIM card. I googled if maybe there are alternative apps I could use. When I couldn't phone my dad anymore I had already googled that, with little result, but maybe I hadn't looked hard enough. I got nowhere.

The next day I did log into my account on the website of my provider, and I noticed that it seems to have merged. It used to be O2, and now it is Virgin Media O2. Might that have something to do with it? Did something change with the conditions?

To be on the safe side, I sorted an international calling bolt-on, and raised my spending limit. Even though I think that if this was a money problem my provider is an idiot. If someone is trying to make a phone call and they ran out of budget, surely the thing to do is disconnect the call and then display a message that says “you ran out of budget; go here to top up or change your allowance”. I mean, I want to make a call and they want to earn money; why not enable both? 

Either way; I hope I have sorted it. But if not; I asked my future killer AI for advice regarding useful apps. It found things I hadn’t, and they looked useful. I still have my old phone but I may be in business again! 

Threat of AI

When it is on the news that AI insiders are warning that there is more than 10% chance that AI will kill us all within 10 years, that is a reason to worry. Have I heard some people claim that this is a publicity stunt? Yes. Is that thinkable? Also yes. Unfortunately, it is also quite thinkable that they mean it, and that they know what they're talking about.

Some months ago I had a discussion with Neil about this. He wanted to know what could go so wrong. I didn't know the details. But what I had done was read a review of a book that goes into detail about these things: If Anybody Builds It, Everyone Dies. I bought the book, and gave it to him. I told him to read that rather than ask me questions. He's not finished it yet, but when he has, I'd like to read it myself. Not in order to feel reassured! Maybe more to know what to get mentally ready for.

I remember that many years ago, I read in the newspaper that some scientist in the know said that the next big disaster to happen to humanity would be a pandemic. They said it was pretty much inevitable. They just didn't quite know when it would happen. And I must say that when COVID-19 broke out, I did appreciate it I had had advanced warning. This could be the same thing.

Will we be killed by AI? I don't know! One way to find out. I really wouldn't put it past humanity to let it get this far. And that would, obviously, be sad. But if it happens, at least I think I will have lived longer than most people, ever. So I could consider myself lucky…

Cwm Idwal with the Challenger conference

The Challenger Society describes itself as the foremost learned society representing the UK academic marine research community. Once every two years they have a conference. This year, it would be in Bangor. Tom was involved in the organisation, and he had sent an email around saying he wanted to include a few field trips in the program; would the usual suspect who lead trips into the field, like Dei and me, be willing to do the same for the conference? I said yes. And we agreed I would do the trip to Cwm Idwal.

I have done that trip many times; I don’t need to prepare for delivering the information. But close to the time I wanted to know what the logistics were. What time would the coach leave where, and what time did it need to be back? How many people would attend? The answer to the last question was: quite a few. I had just spoken with James, our new PhD student, and he offered to come along. I gratefully accepted that offer. 

On the day, I biked to the visitor centre. It’s about as far as to the office. It was great weather for it! When I got there I checked if the bloke we had given the mystery bag to was in, but he wasn’t. Then I just waited for the coach with conference people to turn up. It was quite early!

We were 29 in total. A big group! I was glad I had James. And we also had Sijing, one of our PhD students; she was also happy to help. Great! 

We did the trip counterclockwise as then you get to some good bits quicker. The audience had a few geologists in it, a few biologists, a bucket-load of physicists, and some undeclared people. And they had all chosen to be there. It was a lovely group! 

View on Tryfan

View on Llyn Idwal

We looked at the mountains, the syncline, the roches mouttonnées, the grass that gives away the presence of mafic rock, the lake, and the moraines. And I talked about the earliest British geologist who has been mapping here. And that Darwin had been one of them.

I had a great time, and I think the people in general did. We did have some people who walked rather slowly, though. And once you are at the far end of the lake you are committed to a fair walk back to the coach. I decided to do my last spiel everyone except the tail walkers. They need all the time to get back to the road. We were a little bit late, but the coach driver was relaxed about it. Fortunately!

When we had loaded everybody up I could accept my bike ride home. That practically downhill all the way. Very comfortable! I figured it had been a success. 

Group pic. Notice Sijing far left and James far right

Talk about lakes

One day I came into the office and saw that the name on the office next to mine had changed from Dr Iestyn Woolway to Prof Iestyn Woolway. Normally, you know that that is happening. There tends to be a promotion round announced, and at the end of it the Head of School sends a congratulatory email to everyone about all the people that have been successful. None of that had happened.

Soon after I saw a public lecture by Iestyn advertised. His inaugural lecture! Or so I thought. I like these. But it turned out it was something else; it was the Jack Darbyshire Memorial lecture. Jack Darbyshire was the first Professor of physical oceanography in Bangor, and Iestyn can trace his academic lineage straight to him. They also by coincidence both come from Blaenau. But whatever lecture it was; it was public, I wanted to go, I wondered if Neil did too. He had listened to a public lecture by Tom, be it online, and he had really enjoyed that. He might like this too.

I saw Iestyn on the day of the talk and he was complaining that talking for one hour is actually quite difficult. I was confident he would be fine. 

When I made my way to Main Arts, where it would all take place, I was a bit nervous because it was so quiet there. How many people would show up? But I was just early, and more people did appear. One of these was (obviously) Neil. 

He was also a little bit early, so after tidying my stuff up and helping Tom with some introductory sentences in Welsh he wanted to say (he would introduce Iestyn), I took Neil on a brief tourist walk through the building. It is quite beautiful! He agreed with that. Then we went into the lecture room. 

It started with the recently retired head of the National Oceanographic Centre, who had been a student of Jack Darbyshire, who did an introduction on the man. He spoke for almost half an hour. Iestyn wouldn't have had to worry about having to talk for too long! And then Tom introduced Iestyn himself. He is an unusual man given that he is in the school of ocean sciences, working on freshwater. Somehow he manages to be more successful than anybody else. 

Ed Hill talks about Darbyshire

Iestyn starts his own talk

He started with climate change. And with what’s so special about lakes. And what sort of ways there are of gathering data about them. And then he went into detail of the work he and his research group had been doing. On lakes in the Amazon basin. Lakes in the Arctic. Lakes in the Himalayas. Lakes getting warmer. Lakes getting bigger or smaller. Lakes providing varying levels of connectivity to communities that rely on boats for transport. 

The results were always: there is a problem, and it is getting bigger, fast. And then the talk was over. There was time for questions. 

Neither Neil nor I asked one. Soon we were outside again. And we left soon after. 

Neil was a bit depressed after this relentless doom. I am used to it. But at least he had found it interesting. So had I; I know Iestyn works with lakes, but now I know a lot more about what he does with them. And it was nice to put some faces to names. I talk a lot about colleagues, and now Neil has seen quite a few! 

Important folk: fltr Yueng, an alumnus, Ed Hill, Jack Darbyshire’s son, Iestyn, Tom, Stuart, and John

Welsh classes start again

New term, new Welsh class. I had found one again that was online on Monday night. That suits me. It was again a southern provider; unfortunately, not with the same tutor as the previous time I did that. I just hope that this one would be good too.

The first thing I noticed was that it was a huge class. More than 20 people! And it had run the previous year as well, so a lot of people knew each other. 

When we did a little round of introductions, I noticed there were more Northerners, like one bloke who lived in Bangor but was originally from the south, and someone else who was from the Dolgellau area. And we of course had people based in England. That’s standard! And we had an Irishman from Donegal; he was fluent in Irish. 

It started dull, to be honest. After the introductions the tutor, Lyndon, went through a big document with all sorts of guidelines and resources and whatnot. That took us all the way to the coffee break. 

After coffee, we actually got some work done. We read an article on the BBC Cymru website, and went into breakout rooms for some chats in smaller groups. That was nice.

It was an ok introduction. I hope next week we get a bit more down to business. One way to find out!

Caernarfon Half Marathon 2026

I was full of adrenaline! I'm not really sure why. I really wanted to run a PB, but I am not sure why that should result in such race jitters. I had come to Caernarfon with what I thought I would need to succeed: a vest with water, gels, IT band straps and paracetamol. As the previous year I had run a PB in spite of hobbling over the finish with sore IT bands, I figured that I would manage if I just would sort this knee-adjacent issue. 

I did the usual going to the loo, chatting with other runners, dropping off my bag. And I saw Louise, who was obviously not running today, but was there to support. I had promised her to run that PB the day before. The pressure was on! Then it was time to line up. 

Before the race

I had a target pace for the first 5 km, the middle 10 km, and the last 6 km. The first one was the slowest. When we set off it wasn't difficult to reach it. We ran through town and onto the bicycle path alongside the railway, where Race the Train runs as well. Nia and family were supporting! That was nice. And this part of the race is slightly uphill, hence the conservative speed.

After the initial turmoil there seemed to be a bit of crew of equal speed developing. Apart from me, there was a young lad in a white top, a lady who looked like she was older than me, and a few more. We did a bit of leapfrogging, but for quite a while we essentially stayed together.

On the bicycle path, with some fellow runners. The young lad would come in first of us three, and then me

When we came off the bicycle path I knew I should speed up. And I felt like I could. This part of the race was rather flat. I trundled on rather uneventfully, with my crew. But then we came to the Foryd; where the road follows the coast.

This meant a few things. The first was: it really felt like the only thing I had to do was run back to the start. We were just over halfway there, and I knew I would soon be able to see the town, where the finish was. It also became quite exposed to the wind, but this was a tail wind, so that was a good thing. It was also exposed to the sun. No shelter here! And it was quite warm.

With the wind in my back I accelerated a bit. I left the lady behind. The bloke in the white top matched my speed. I managed to keep my speed where I wanted to be. Sometimes a bit faster even. It didn't feel like I was really pushing it hard. 

Where the coastal road bends around to follow the river instead I saw Neil. I had suggested to him he doesn't come to the start, because that would mean waiting for me for more than 1.5 hours. If he comes to the finish it's good enough! But it was clear he was a bit early, and had gone to spectate. That was great! 

I knew that straight afterwards, we would get the last major uphill. That knocked me a bit. I had actually spent quite a lot of energy already after all. And I took it easy because I knew there were still several miles to go; exhausting yourself on an uphill is no use. And I opened a gel. 

I tried to do a bit of arithmetic in my head. Was I on course for that desired PB? But I don't think that by that time, my brain was working at maximum speed. I just did my best. Pushing it, but not so hard I would burn up too soon.

I didn't feel fluent or bouncy anymore. But I just did what I could. And when I got back to the castle, Neil was there too. And I was glad I knew I still had to follow a strange zigzag course through the town to get to the full half marathon distance. A a bloke running near me told me after the finish he had seen the castle and thought he was almost there. Not really! And there are some nasty surprises at the end; some short slopes up, and a little bridge you have to go underneath which functions as a wind tunnel, where you get the full force of the wind in your face. But when that was behind me I gave it what I still had. And by then I knew I had that PB in the pocket. And Neil was there again!

Approaching the finish with dramatically flapping hair

Done it! 

I squeezed out a final sprint and came over the finish in just under 1:37. Excellent! The old PB was just under 1:39. Two minutes faster! And I was still panting heavily just behind the finish line when Louise and her entourage found me and congratulated me. I had done it! Neil joined them. 

Then it was a case of getting my medal and T-shirt, retrieving my bag, having my recovery drink, cheering some more people on, and chatting with other finishers. And catching up with Jacko! He was there too. He was in flip-flops and I think he was happy not to have to wear running shoes himself that day, for the first day in months. He looked fresh! 

Then it was time for the presentation. Emma had won it! Just like last year. I had comfortably won in my category again; I was about six minutes ahead of the next F50-54. Neil was disturbed by the fact he went to attack his sandwiches, but he saw nobody else eating. Hadn’t we just burned loads of calories? And Jacko got an honorary mention. And then it was over. A good race! 

Proud category winner