2024 Climate Festival

The 2024 climate festival was approaching rapidly! And Chris, the local spider in the web, seemed to have the organisation formally under control. My task now was only to prepare a presentation. And there were two of us presenting, so the idea was as well to make sure the two talks combined well.

We had good intentions! We had a phone call. And I said I would send her my slides from last year, and then she would send me a draft of what she would present. And then we could tweak according to need. But life got in the way, and I had to finalise my slides in the very bank holiday weekend of the festival, without having seen what my co-presenter had in mind. But at least I knew she was a biologist with an interest in extinctions.

Preparing the slides

The festival started at 11. I decided to show up shortly afterwards. I wasn't talking until 1 pm, but there was a moss walk at 11:30. I like moss! So I wanted to join.

When I got there it was already very busy. Such a good sight! And the moss walk was very popular as well; there was a veritable herd of us heading up the bicycle path, with hand lenses around our necks. It was run by the same ladies who had been talking about moss at the event in Penrhyndeudraeth. It was great fun! I will dedicate a separate blog post to that.

Busy already! Pic by Gwyrddni

The stands outside the community centre 

When we got back it was almost time for me to present. And there was a good crowd in the side room where that would take place! Some familiar faces from last year, but also quite some additional ones. And I was really glad that when I spoke, they would just interrupt me for questions. It got very lively! I really enjoyed it. And there also was discussion afterwards.

My talk; pic by Gwyrddni

Then the other lady, Alison, spoke. What she said was also very interesting. Her main message wasn't actually about extinctions. What actually argued is that we know enough to know what to do to prevent them. And that is where the gains can be made. Of course you can do more research on extinction; different locations, different species, new extensions due to changing circumstance. But what will that get you? More knowledge, and nothing happening. She argues scientists should increasingly get out of science and focus their energy on making those with the power to actually change things do so. I think she has a point!

Her talk and the following discussion overran a bit. The next thing on the timetable was a climate quiz, but a lot of people had run out of steam by this time. I knew the lady who had organised it, so I wanted to participate. We all took a little bit of time out in the fresh air, where I found my fellow bike enthusiast Pete. And then we went back into the admittedly stuffy room for the quiz. There were only three participants! But we had fun. And I won a pencil.

By then the whole event had come to an end. We helped Chris put the room back to the state he had found it in. And then I went home.

We will still have Chris for another year with another festival. And after that his funding will run out. He hopes that by then, we will be able to do it without him. But we are all people with busy jobs! I find it really helps that he just regularly calls meetings. If you wait for us to do that, we wait until we have time for that sort of thing, and that never happens. Oh well. We have another year to think about this and see how we can solve this. We might just sit together at the next climate festival, and put dates in the diary for a whole year worth of meetings. And then make it happen with volunteers only. That would be ideal!

Another day training in CRTT

After the not entirely successful communications training in CRTT, we were coming back to do a full scenario there. I knew it would involve pretend casualties! So I expected a long day.

It was also a sunny bank holiday weekend, so we expected it to be busy. So all controllers (both established and aspiring) were summoned to the car park by 8:30. That was just early enough! We had the very last regular parking spaces. After that, it became cowboy business. The rest of the team was expected to park further down the hill, where it is a lot quieter.

As controllers we got the briefing. Dewi had made up a message from the police, regarding two people overdue. We discussed what we should do. After a while he threw in another piece of information: the police had received a phone call from one of the two, who had made it out safely, but said his mate had fallen down a slope and was injured. That meant full team call-out! Unfortunately it was me who said it, some three times, and it wasn't heard. I suppose it was another instance of words only being heard when a man speaks them. Annoying. But we had an imaginary casualty on our hands. We needed to get moving! And Ed was nominated to be the casualty.

We got into our caving gear, and went to where all the team kit was. We always have a lot to carry! And this time, there was no Landrover to hitch a ride from. By now, the rest of the team also arrived. And we had decided how we would organise ourselves. A small team with medical expertise would rush in first. Soon after, a rigging team would follow. It wouldn’t be a simple stretcher carry out! And then the rest, with cave-links, for surface-to-casualty communications (and vice versa) .

We loaded up and started walking. It was very hot! And I was dressed for a draughty mine. It was a bit uncomfortable, but hey ho. 

When we got to the entrance, things started according to plan. The medical team went in, closely followed by a rigging team, and then the tailgaters. We had to wait for the last people to come up with the cave-links. And I had been appointed underground control, so I needed to remain close to our line of communication.

At the entrance

At the entrance 

When I walked in I noticed my lamp was temperamental. Oh dear! Because we had had to carry so much, I had hung my helmet from my harness. Bad idea! That meant it was scraping along my kit at every step, and that had clearly affected a contact. Without a light, you're not worth much underground! I was glad I had a spare light on my helmet, and with a bit of faffing I did manage to make it work. I continued.

When we had to clamber over collapses or scree slopes, I would often rub my helmet against my rather high bag. And that would make my light either go out, or to the lowest setting. Annoying! But still manageable.

After a while we heard voices. We first game across a rigging team. And not much further on we came to the scene of the accident. There was rigging going on there as well. I had look at what the situation was. Everything seems to be under control! So I set up a cave-link with Paul, and we sent a message to the surface. And soon we got one back. Communications established! That was good. But there was something weird. The messages we received did not really address what we had said. Were they getting our messages? And then it fell silent. Something was wrong! But the other teams were making good progress, and the casualty was about to be brought up the slope. And that meant we should establish a new position for our system. So we packed the whole thing up and moved to beyond next set of obstacles. That also meant we were in daylight. The mine system there reaches the surface in various places. Or in other words, there are huge holes in the ceiling. We set up the system again, but again without success. Fortunately, though, one of those who had stayed at the surface, Dave, appeared at the top of the hole, and could shout down to us. Paul even managed to get radio contact with him. That makes talking a lot easier! It turned out that they were indeed not getting our messages via cave-link, so basically shouting through the ceiling was now our best bet with regards to communicating to the surface.

It was such a pity we had lost an excellent opportunity to practice with the cave links in this system! It is clear we could have greatly benefited from it. Now the main priority was getting our casualty out. If your main priority is communications, you just sort this sort of issue out. And then we had the expert present!

With nothing to do regarding comms, we just went back to help managing the stretcher carry. I didn't have much to do with regards to underground control! All the action took place in a rather small space, and everyone had a clear task and just got on with it. 

The big challenge was that normally you just walk through a tunnel from chamber to chamber, but one of these tunnels had been blocked by a collapse. So the only way to get out was basically to clamber over the collapsed to a higher level, and then back down again on the other side of the collapse. That is quite doable as a person, but very difficult as a team carrying a stretcher. And the riggers had come up with a clever plan to circumvent this! Just haul the stretcher vertically up to the next level, and then traverse most of the chamber with all the rubble in suspended from a rope. And they made it happen.

The stretcher traversing the rope. Pic by NWCRO

While that was going on I noticed Dave, who later admitted he was getting a bit self-conscious about being observed by suspecting walkers to inexplicably be shouting down huge holes in the ground, had found the hole through which she could shout to us at this location. I couldn't really hear what he said, so I had to clamber a lot closer to him. He said the surface team hoped we would abort mission. It was getting late! And I thought we should do that after the stretcher had traversed this chamber on the rope. It would be a pity to not use it now! And I went back to the others to report this.

The riggers had actually also rigged one further pitch, to lower the stretcher down, over the rubble, to floor level. We decided to use that pitch as well, given that it was there, but then abort mission. The casualty could just have a miraculous recovery and walk the rest. That would be a lot quicker! And we made it happen.

Coming down to floor level. Pic by NWCRO 

When he got out and stretched his legs again we quickly removed all the pitches, and put all the kit associated with the stretcher back into the bags. And then we could head back! And that was mainly just one scree slope, one collapse, one incline, and then a very long tunnel before we were out in the sunshine again. Mission accomplished! And we had a little debrief in the sun. But then we went back down.

I figured it had been very useful. As I keep mentioning; if we have a callout, it is generally in this system. And this was the first time I had been on a practice where we had actually tried to get a casualty out. And we normally only encounter people who are in good health, but either don't have the equipment to come out, or can't find the exit. They are quite easy to extract! But it is likely that one day our luck will run out, and we will actually have to get an injured person out. And now we have practised!

I am afraid I have to end this post with the confession that that very night, at 1:30, we actually had a call-out; people lost in CRTT. But I slept straight through the alarm! And it turned out I hadn't been the only one. Friends suggested this might have something to do with the iPhone bug that had been on the news. I don't know! But I felt guilty for not responding. And I take my hat off to the people who responded, especially those that had already spent their entire day in this very same system! Luckily, for the actual call-out, no stretchers were needed!

Marking time, so also: academic integrity time

Pretty much all the teaching is now over! But that also means that there is a lot of marking work to do. The exams haven't been yet, but there is a lot of coursework to mark. Especially essays and dissertations. And these can be slow to mark!

With much marking comes much work on academic integrity. I had been getting some piecemeal cases, but the big job so far has been the second year students and their essays. Every single student in that cohort is on that module, and it is a big cohort at that. And it is marked by lots of different members of academic staff. And the problem with that is that I am reluctant to let the situation happen that in a module like that, academic integrity monitoring becomes some sort of lottery. In other words; that it just depends on who has marked your work whether you will or will not be pulled up for poor academic practice. I know some of my colleagues have never flagged a case of academic poor practice with me. Some people are very diligent. And the solution to such unequal treatment unfortunately is that I look at all of the scripts myself.

We always get quite some essays about turtles. Pic by Roberto Costa Pinto

It was a lot of work to evaluate all potential cases! And save the documents in the suitable folder. And then write an email to all of them. And write a documentation form for all of them. And put the emails and the documentation on their university webpage. And keep track of all of that. If it's just one or two students in a module that is quickly done. If you have 200 students, and you have to contact more than 10 of them, it becomes time consuming.

I will also have to do the dissertations! Traditionally, these have lower percentages of students whose work I need to check. And it is a smaller cohort as well. Let’s hope that like last year, it isn’t a big job. 

A good thing about all this work is that I suggest to every student that they make an appointment with me. A fair percentage always takes that up. That means: more time! And the discussions can be difficult. I am, after all, probably telling them that I have reduced their mark because they were using someone else's words instead of their own. But sometimes you have a really constructive discussion with the student in question. And that makes my day! And I always hope I never have to email them again. Not about academic integrity, anyway…

Second Tuesday Evening fell race: Nant Peris

After my first Tuesday evening fell race, I was eager for more. The week after, the race would be in Nant Peris, which is very beautiful. And not very far away. Ideal? Not quite! It was a very wet day, and that makes fell racing extra challenging. I'm already scared of slipping and injuring myself when it is dry! I knew my downhill was going to be very slow. But I still wanted to race.

When I arrived I tried to pay for the entire series, but the organisation did not want to accept that. This was already the fourth race. So I just paid for this episode. And then I had a little recce. Crikey was it muddy. This was going to get interesting!

Arriving at the start

The race didn't immediately start steep, but because of the soggy ground it was a challenge anyway. And I think there normally is a path lower down on the route, but that evening it was a stream. I wasn't going very fast! And soon it was so steep no one was going fast. There was practically no running going on for most of the uphill. But much, much later than I had expected it, we started to see people coming downhill. And those at the front were obviously hurtling down the slope as if it wasn't out have them sprain their knees and break their ankles!

It gets steep

I reached the top, took two pictures, and then carefully started to make my way down. It was more important to me to come down in one recognisable shape than to be fast. So I was overtaken left, right and centre.

Looking back at the top

Summit selfie

At some point I was overtaken by a lady who then just sat down and slid some distance down the slope on her bum. That is also a way of doing it! I did consider it. But I stayed on my feet.

And down

I had heard a lot of cheering earlier on, but by the time I finally approached the finish it was quite quiet. I found out that exactly like the previous time, I had come in as the 75th runner, but the previous time the weather was gorgeous and there were a heck of a lot more of them! Under these circumstances I am pretty rubbish. I was starting to look forward to the civilised road race that was only two weeks away. It is less scenic, but you can just concentrate on the running!

The week after that, the race would be a bit further away, and again up a ludicrously steep hill. I've walked that hill a few times, and even for walking I find the downhill too steep. I think I might skip this one! There just wouldn't be any running involved for me…

Matlab, R and AI

I was bringing out my modern, technological side! And some of it went better than other bits. My master student had got her data together, and I ideally wanted her to perform multivariant statistics on it. But the thing is, if I want her to do it, I have to be able to do it myself as well! And I'm not a coding genius in the best of days, and I also hadn't kept it up since the last time I had used it in anger. So I really needed to dig out my knowledge from underneath a thick layer of dust.

I thought I'd start with an MDS plot. I had been processing for all data that way for years. I still had the Matlab scripts. I just had to check if it still worked. Matlab evolves, after all. But it did! I got me a plot.

I then decided that an even better idea would be to perform principal component analysis. My student was thinking about the relationship between pollution and microorganism assemblages. Surely it would be interesting to see how these parameters relate to each other graphically. So I started googling how you do that in Matlab. And I asked Monica, my AI assistant. But I couldn't get these scripts to work.

I then noticed a search result that directed me to R. Maybe that was worth the try? It is more user-friendly than Matlab. I found the page that guides you through the process. So I dug out my RStudio. I had made some tentative starts with that software for reasons of probably having to teach it in Welsh. No I needed much more from it! Would I manage to make it work?

Asking AI, again, didn't really help much. But I found a webpage where it was explained in detail how you can make the software do your PCA. And when I followed that recipe, I got what I needed! I was very proud of myself. Two successful plots with two different types of mathematical software in one day; that is not bad. And I hadn't had to ask anyone for help!

If I can do this, my student can too. I directed her to the same website. And when I had the software open anyway, I made a plot with some arbitrary data. I am not going to give away the results of my student here!

I fully intend to make recipes for doing the other calculations and plots I do in my teaching in R as well. I think it is powerful enough to suit all my needs. In order to actually need Matlab, you need to have rather high demands, and I don't. And R is free, so I will keep having access to it. The university isn't keen on paying for licenses, so using free software relieves you of the risk of the university quitting its subscription.

Altogether a bit of a disappointment AI wasn't of much use here. But extra cool I got what I needed in the end. I hope I can keep this momentum going!

A PCA plot of some example data

Organising the family reunion (badly)

After the last family reunion (which I missed) I was asked to organise the next episode, together with my cousin Femke. Because of my foreign residency, I’ve never been involved in the organisation before. 

It will take place in the city where Femke lives. I suppose that meant that we really relied on her local knowledge, but I could do the communications. Whether someone fires emails from the middle of the Netherlands or from windswept Wales doesn't really matter!

Utrecht: the venue. Pic by Pepijntje

The big decision was done the last time we had a cousin meet-up: the date. We settled on a Sunday in May. And May is nigh! 

Femke and me discussed over WhatsApp. She had plenty of ideas. And then we had to choose. We weren’t as good at that as I would have hoped. I also think it didn’t help we both had very busy times; I had my two applications in spring, and she always has more jobs and courses and children and whatnot than seem to fit in a person’s life. 

We’ll have to get our arses in gear now! But I trust we’ll pull it off in the end. I suppose that’s probably how we live our lives! Uncertain how we will fit everything in, but making it alright on the night…

End of Rosemary

The lady I bought my house from was called Rose. It was short for Rosemary. I figured it wasn’t a coincidence there were several rose and rosemary bushes in the garden. I like rosemary, but I’m not so keen on roses. 

I have not gone on a campaign to get rid of any of the roses or rosemaries. I like keeping a tribute to the previous owner in place. But sometimes something happens that makes me reduce the number of rose-related plants anyway. At some point, the big rosebush in the upper garden keeled over in strong wind, and blocked access to the lower garden. So then I had to remove it. A rosemary by the kitchen was donated. 

This spring, the big rosemary bush that stood close to the rosebush I had to cut back, looked really bad. It might be a very old plant! It was about a cubic meter. Maybe it had come to the end of its lifetime. It looked like it was dying.

A sad rosemary bush

It was already an impractical plant. It was sub-horizontal, so its branches were hanging over a lot of both grass and plant bed. So although I mourned the end of a meaningful plant, I did decide the time had come to remove it.

I first took lots of cuttings. I know it isn't necessarily easy to propagate a rosemary, and I also seem to have decided this in the wrong time of the year, but I had very little to lose. And then it got busy; the same stuff that got in the way of my gate repair. But one day, a few weeks after the cuttings, I got executive and took my saw through its trunk. I needn’t have bothered; the wood was rotten, and I could just pull it out of the ground. The upper garden looks really different now! And I’ll have to tidy up what appeared from underneath it. I’ll find time for that these weeks. 

Goodbye, Rosemary! It was good to have known you!

The cat inspects to new situations with the uprooted Rosemary

Gone altogether

Cuttings

Day out with the Cornish

It had been a year ago since Mike and Daz, my Cornish friends, had come up to Wales. So I could have expected a message saying they were due again. They appeared just when teaching petered out. Good timing!

They were up for either an above ground or underground trip, but they had already done a massive hike, so I figured an underground trip would be more fitting. I didn't have buckets of inspiration, but I did mention which venues I had visited the past year. And one of these was a mine they hadn't been in before. They had been in a few meters, but then turned back. This might have had something to do with the cold water you encounter pretty much immediately. But now they were up for it. And we’d meet up there.

It was great to see them! And we got kitted up. After a while we went in. We first did the lower level. They had never seen a chute like that before! Or a wagon like that. 

Then we went up and checked that level out. And then it was time to head into the deep cold water. And we checked all the way to the end. Nice drippies, nice laddered shafts, nice artefacts. And then we went back out. Time to warm our feet back up! 

Mine level

Ladder going off into oblivion 

Crawling through a partial collapse with black speleothems

Decorative bottle

We changed, had a drink, and then decided to have a look at a nearby mine entrance none of us had seen before. How could this one have escaped me so long? I now know where it is. I might recce it before they come back. And then we went back to their accommodation. By that time I was ravenous! So I was keen to get lunch somewhere. And we settled on a nearby pub. I don't think any of the food touched the sides.

In the pub we made plans for the afternoon. Mike wondered if there was anything interesting to see in some area that boils down to the easternmost part of the Lleyn peninsula. I thought of the hillfort: Tre’r Ceiri. And we decided to go there. But I said I first wanted some tea.

We went back to their accommodation where I found a kettle and a big flask. So I did my thing. And then we could go!

It is a fair drive there. But quite a lot of the road is beautiful, so that was okay. And by the time we got to the layby that functions at the start of the standard walk up to the top, it was about 4:15. A bit late to start a walk! But this one wouldn't be huge.

We started our way up, and quite soon we got to the outer wall. The men were impressed! And it is quite an impressive structure. We had a little wander around, imagining what life would have been like when this place was still inhibited. We were most wondering about the issue of drinking water. But we didn't linger too long. We were back at the car in about an hour. 

Hillfort selfie

Notice the outer wall and hut circles

When we got back we had one more hot drink in their accommodation. And then it was time to go home. It was really time for the cat to get her dinner. But it had been a great time! And I'm sure they'll be back next year. I look forward to it already Maybe they will even do both a summer and a winter trip! That wouldn't be the first time…

End of timetabled teaching

I had two days of judging student posters in a row. The first day it was posters by the master students about their final projects, and the second day it was the turn of the students on the climate and climate change modules. These are two modules run together, but for both third and fourth year students; the third year students were doing a poster about something associated with sea level change, and the fourth year students were doing something with empirical orthogonal functions. They tended to run climate data sets through some software to see whether there were any particular modes in these data. One factor representing el Niño, for instance.

The first day, there was more variability, of course. These students do all kinds of different projects. It tends to be quite interesting. The students who are doing something you are familiar with peak your interest because it is interesting to see something new happening in the field you are interested in, but the posters by students who do something completely out of your line of sight tend to be quite interesting too. 

This year, for instance, there was a lady who was doing experimentation with hermit crabs. She wondered if a crab in a shell that is too small might be hesitant to exchange it for a better one if it never gets dark. Hermit crabs are vulnerable when they come out of their shell, so I can imagine they prefer to do it in the dark. But in coastal areas, darkness might not necessarily be available anymore. She also made sure to do experiments with crabs who had reason to believe there were predators around, and crabs who didn't. Interesting stuff!

Hermit crab. Pic by NOAA

With these two poster sessions out of the way, I have nothing timetabled anymore! If I now see students, it is either my own master student who is rounding off her project, or students I need to see for reasons of academic poor practice. So from now on it is marking, timetabling request, module evaluation, et cetera! Summer is nigh!

First Tuesday Evening fell race: Penmaenmawr

I had picked an interesting first race in the Tuesday evening series. That I had been recommended to bring gardening gloves already gave that away! And the weather was great for it. I changed in the office, and drove straight there. I immediately saw more runners! 

I went to the start, registered, and got my race number. And had a bit of a chat with other runners. And I recce’d the start of the route, to just get an idea. 

Arriving on the scene 

I didn’t start too far towards the front. I was feeling modest! But it did mean I was in a crowd, in the part of the race I would be best at: the uphill. And the path was rather narrow, so overtaking was hard. Maybe next time I'll be more assertive and start closer to the front! I expect all these races to start at the bottom of a hill. I might as well do as well as I can on the uphill, before I inevitably get overtaken by throngs on the way down! 

It was uphill for quite a while. In the beginning on a path, but after we came through a kissing gate, the path became rather faint, so my speed dropped. And then we got to the highlight of the race: up a gully! Or next to the gully. What route you took there was not important, as long as you ended up buy a blue flag on top of the hill. It was very steep, and there wasn't a path. This was the part for which we had been advised to bring gardening gloves! Practically everyone put their hands to the ground. And there was a lot of gorse on the slope. 

The start of the big uphill. Pic by the race organisation.

The big uphill. Pic by the race organisation

The big uphill seen from a distance. Pic by the race organisation

It was amazing fun! It is a bit weird to have your face so close to the ground while you're in a race, but it was fun to just scamper up the hill like some monkey. Once at the top, we gradually made our way down again, but only climb the same hill again, but now from a different direction. I put my gardening gloves back on for that. There was again some use of hands there!

From there on we were on a big, clear path again for a while. It was actually the path that goes past the Druid’s Circle. I sped up! But this was a fell race, so it didn't last. We had to leave the path again, and fairly soon we were back at the first kissing gate. And then I needed to find the highest speed with which I could safely run back to the finish. And then I was in!

Approaching the finish. Pic by the race organisation

I had a little chat with some of the people I had been chatting with at the start. It is a nice bunch of people, these fell runners! But we all made our way back to where the registration has been. I had left my bag there. I put on a jacket and walked back to the car. What a fun race!

Sunset from where registration had been

I am still awful at fell racing. I finished 75th in a total field of 135. And 19th woman of 46. So decidedly average! But that's a huge improvement on the previous time! And it’s not all about the results. This was fun and beautiful. I will be back!

Giving fell racing another try

I am quite prone too spraining joints. I remember rolling my ankles all the time as a child. I got pretty good at bandaging them up! In my 20s, I started to sprain my knees. That was even worse. I've also sprained my thumb; I think I sprained my right thumb twice (here and here, although I don't think I mentioned it in the latter post). And I know from climbing and caving that my elbows are a bit floppy as well.

With all these floppy joints, it is no surprise that I have never been attracted to fell running. I am terrible at running downhill! And I am terrible at running on uneven terrain, whichever direction it goes. One wrong step and I’m out of business for a while. When I wanted to be sure it wasn’t for me, and I registered for a fell race, I comprehensively came last. So that should've been the end of it.

I'm going to try again, after all. Harri, of Parc y Moch fame, has been trying to talk me into joining a series of short fell races in the evening for years. And this year the chorus got louder: a lady at the finish of Ras Trawsfynydd also recommended them. She was an Eryri Harrier, that's the club that organises these things. That race gave me a wealth of running endorphins, and I think that is an excellent high to chase, so I was susceptible to the suggestion. And during Katrien’s inaugural lecture, the people I was sitting next to were also Eryri Harriers, and also thought it would be a good idea.

In order to be allowed to join you have to register for the whole series. It’s in the Midweek Series, under the umbrella of the Welsh Fell Runners Association. Registering doesn't make it compulsory to actually show up. Or to pay. So I registered. The first race after my registration was not a good idea as I had to get out of bed at stupid o'clock the next day, for fieldwork. And the race after that I had to skip as I was teaching until so late I wouldn't have made the start.

I'll see how it goes! I haven't found a map of the route yet. The instructions recommend bringing gardening gloves, which suggests that they expect you to run straight through gorse. I think I will wear full length leggings for the occasion. And I will have to manage with the route markers, or the people in front of me, for finding the way. 

Since my doomed fell race I have become a lot stronger at running uphill. So I think I will do okay on that. And then I'll just see how the downhill goes! I don't need to do well. But it would be nice to get a regular short race in beautiful terrain under my belt. I'll report back!

Gate repair

The gate to my garden had felt a bit wobbly for a while. I had been eying up the hinges, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary there. Then one day I noticed the problem. Its post was coming out of the wall! It had been fixed with sizeable screws and plugs, but that was clearly not enough. Screws and plugs were just coming out of the wall. I needed to act. From the moment I knew that, I wasn't really comfortable using the gate.

Gate coming out of the wall 

I first removed the gate from the post. The screws that held the two bits of wood together were in good condition, and I could just unscrew them. No such luck with the screws that were coming out of the wall, so I just pulled them clean out. No way I was going to be able to get them out of the wood with those damaged heads and rusty bodies.

After some thinking I decided that the best course of action would be to take a different piece of wood, fill the holes in the wall, put the plugs back in, and then screw the new post in. That would sort it out. And I just picked a suitable piece of wood from my pile of uncut firewood.

Preparing the new beam, in my newish garage setup

Then things got busy for a few weeks. And the weather was generally awful. You don't want to handle a gate when the wind is tugging at you! And it seemed that it was always windy and rainy. One thing I did manage to get done was indicate on the new post where the screws for into the wall should go. And I pre-drilled holes. That was garage work so not so weather-dependent. And in the weekend after the dissertation talks I finally got around to installing the whole shebang. It needed a little bit of tweaking as not everything lined up, but it got done! I have a gate again! I could do with a few days off to do more such chores, but at least this one is out of the way now…

Repaired! 

Almost birthday with Kate

I had only seen her the week before, after her long absence, but the weekend after that would be Kate’s birthday. I enquired if she was up for a birthday cake. She was, and she suggested an additional walk. That sounded great to me! 

On Friday night I baked the cake. On Saturday morning I drove to Penmachno. Bryn was glad to see me again! As was Kate. And we could have coffee with cake in the garden; the weather was good enough for that. And after the cake we went for a walk. We did not want to do anything spectacular; the week before Kate pushed it a bit too hard after her recent illness, and we did not want to make that mistake again. And we did not want the hassle of walking through lots of fields with sheep and lambs, that would require tight control of the dog. We would just do one of her standard loops. But a standard loop in the Penmachno area is still spectacularly beautiful! And we found an amazing spot with a waterfall to have lunch. Bryn liked it a bit too much to take rocks from the pool underneath the waterfall, bring them to us, and shake out his fur, so we were at risk at becoming as wet as he was, but that was only a mild damper on the fun.

The birthday cake

Near the start of the walk

View on the valley 

Near the head of the valley 

Lunch spot

The other valley  

After the walk we had tea and more cake. And after some walk-unrelated stuff I made my way home again. I'm sure we'll find opportunities to get back to race recceing soon!

Dissertation presentations

I was ready for the presentations! I had a box in the back of my car with all the paperwork that was needed. All the files that anyone would need were available on the module website, or on OneDrive. I had my laptop with me so I would be able to do some work.

I got to the venue, Reichel Hall, and it looked ready for us. I had a little chat with the lady with whom I had communicated about my booking. It was nice to meet her in person. And a different lady did the final touches; she made sure there was a sign by the door of all the rooms we were using, indicating what would be going on there.

My program just mentioned rooms 1, 2 and 3, so I stuck signs on the doors. And I put all the conference booklets and marking sheets in the rooms, ready for the morning sessions. And I had myself a coffee.

All ready for us! 

As far as I could tell, the morning sessions went fine! And I was just doing some work I hadn't got around to previously. I entered the marks and feedback of the second year presentations I witnessed two days earlier. I started assigning all dissertations a second marker. I answered emails. And then lunch arrived.

When the rooms emptied themselves, I made sure to remove the morning’s conference booklets, and replace them with the ones for the afternoon. And I checked whether there still were enough marking sheets and feedback sheets. And then I had lunch myself. 

The afternoon sessions had two small snags! One member of staff wanted to be kind, and thought they’d tidy up the morning’s conference booklets, not realising I had already replaced them with the afternoon’s. So that room had no conference booklets! My hard work down the drain. But they meant well. And the other snag was a different member of staff who seemed to have only realised just in time their session started at 13:15; not 15:00. But these are small snags.

In the afternoon coffee break one of the students asked me why I wouldn't join the session he was in. And I thought I might as well! Then he back-paddled a bit. He clearly didn't think I was going to do it! But it was an interesting session so why not. Yes you could successfully argue they were all interesting. But some are still a bit more up my street than others. And everything was rolling fine; I didn't really need to do anything organisational anymore.

After the session it got quiet; I think our room was the last one to empty itself. I went to have a look in the room where catering was served; there were brownies left! That's not good. I filled up a piece of Tupperware I had with me to take home. And I asked everyone who was still around if they wanted some. Even random strangers who were in the building for entirely different reasons! And in the end they were all eaten or taken home. Success. And then I could go home myself! And the next day would be even more interesting for me, as then I had my own session…

That day went well. There was some faff with the room we normally get the catering in being booked, and one of the rooms in which we held sessions having to accommodate coffee too, but it worked out. And by 4 pm I could leave the premises!

There would be one additional session for the staff who had been at the conference that week, but that was straightforward. The worst was over now! And with that out of the way, the academic year was now seriously petering out. And that doesn't mean there's nothing to do; there is plenty of marking, and planning for the next year, and evaluations, and all that stuff. But the end of the dissertation presentations for me is always a bit of a landmark. At least it is the end of almost all teaching, which means that you can decide yourself when and where you do the things you have to do. And that can be quite nice!

Revenge by the cat

The night before the dissertation presentations would start, the cat had a mouse. I could tell from her excited meowing. It is not uncommon that she catches one and lets it go by the front door, upon which the mouse then climbs the curtain there. That throws her! And when I walked past I spotted the mouse. She clearly didn't think she could reach it. And normally I just let her do her thing with mice. I don't enjoy watching her kill, but that's just how nature works. But this time I figured I should be capable of grabbing and releasing it, pretty much before she would clock what was going on.

It wasn't quite as easy as I thought! I dropped the mouse before I had quite lifted it out of the window. A bit of a scramble followed, but in the end I managed to get it out. And I had a bit of an agitated cat on my hands, who could smell mouse, but couldn't find one.

Soon after that I went to bed and tried to sleep. The cat had other plans. Soon she went outside again, and I had visions of her making a point of catching that very same mouse again, to teach me a lesson. I would have no way of knowing if she would, of course! All mice look the same to me, especially in the dark and from a distance. But lo and behold, she came back with one. And noisily played with it all over the bedroom. And it wasn't even the last. After she had eaten it, she just went out again, and got another one.

I am probably reading too much into this! But I do feel like she was making a point. Maybe I should just leave her mice to her, even if they are hiding in the curtain. It's nature’s way!

Katrien’s inaugural lecture

During the tenure of our previous VC, inaugural lectures weren't a thing. This VC is clearly in favour of them. And the first people to be promoted to professor in our School happened to be the celebrated three ladies. Three female professors in a School that before then had only had one in its entire history. I liked that it was them who were kicking off this new tradition. On Valentine's Day, we had been able to witness Yueng’s lecture, which was mainly about polar oceans. And now, wedged between full days of student presentations, we would get Katrien’s lecture about geophysics.

I was early. I got a little chat in with Katrien herself. Then one of her postdocs joined us. And after a while the postdoc and I found ourselves a seat while the room was filling up nicely. Let the lecture begin!

Katrien started out explaining what geophysics even is. And then she did a sterling job in explaining why it matters. She explained how you can sometimes do an entire palaeoenvironmental reconstruction just on the basis of the surface topography of the sea bed. She mentions that if you want to build a windfarm somewhere, you need to understand where you are putting it. How strong are the sediments where you put your turbines? And can you predict its strengths on the basis of geophysics? And if you put a wind farm somewhere, you are probably changing the sediments there. Changing flow patterns of the water will cover some surfaces with sand, and might wipe other surfaces clean of the stuff. For instance. If you are a sand eel, you really care about that sort of things. And if you are something that eats sand eels, you obviously do as well.

Katrien being introduced by the VC

Starting her talk

I really enjoyed the talk. And there were some interesting questions. But afterwards there was very little happening, just like the previous time. There was coffee and there were brownies, but I still don't understand who drinks coffee at this hour. A lot of people immediately left. I had a little chat with my master student who was there too, and then I got collared by a lady from the general public who wanted to know if her relative, who lived abroad, could perhaps visit the school on a day when there was no open day on. She was interested in marine science.

I chatted with her for a bit, but I was aware of the big day ahead of me. So after a while I made a glorious retreat. Time to get home and get ready for the dissertation presentations! But I think Katrien sparked an interest in geophysics in quite a lot of minds now…

Preparing the dissertation presentations in record time

The apotheosis of the dissertation module is always difficult to organise. There are normally only some two weeks of teaching after the Easter break, and a lot has to happen in that time. The presentations need to take place, and deadlines for both presentation slides upload, and for the dissertation itself, have to fall in there sometime. Preferably not all the way at the end, as that would mean it is difficult for students to get an extension. Ideally, there would be time between the presentations and the dissertation deadline, that the students can use for incorporating the feedback they got on their presentation in the dissertation.

And there is some logistics there too; I need to make a talk schedule, and a conference booklet with all the talk abstract in them. And of course, I have to make the latter in between the deadline for the file upload, and the actual presentations. And that can be quite limited time!

This year the students had to upload their slides and their talk summary the very Monday after the Easter break, and did their presentations on the Thursday and Friday of that week. The deadline for the dissertation was the Friday after.

For me, this meant that although I had been able to make a schedule beforehand (but not until after the Athena Swan submission), I couldn't start on the conference booklets until Monday. Everything had to be ready and printed by Thursday morning first thing. And it was also Monday that I could start downloading the presentation slides and get them ready for the conveners. Sounds doable, right? It was still a bit of stress!

That Monday I was in the field. That Tuesday I had presentations in another module all day. It was Wednesday I would have to manage all of it. It is not as if I had an interrupted day for that; I had a lecture in the morning, and a staff meeting in the afternoon. And I couldn't work in the evening either; that was when Katrien would have her inaugural lecture. 

I was a bit wild-eyed that day. Technology didn't help. I had been making booklets, and sorting PowerPoint files into folders, on any computer I found myself logged into. All should just be on OneDrive, accessible from anywhere. But when I got to my office and opened the first file to print it, the talk summaries weren't in it. I accessed the file from a different direction; still nothing. I went into Office365; there it did show up with the talk summaries included. But when I clicked "open desktop app", they vanished again. Technology is supposed to help you! Why was this happening? But I did manage to copy the entire file content over into the desktop app, and print the file that way. First file done. I had quite a few to do.

About half the printing done

The printer I normally use gave me an error message at some point, and refused cooperation. I just went to one printer further away, and that gave me an error message from the start. I would have to find more remote printers! I went to the adjacent building with my last printing, and to mine relief it worked. The only drawback was that it didn't seem to be able to insert staples. I had to do that by hand. Not ideal. But I got it done! And by the time I had to leave to go to Katrien’s lecture, everything was ready! Success!

That was the point I could relax. From there on, everything would probably organise itself. And now it was up to everybody else to be stressed! 

Badly organised day in the field

We had one more field day in the diary in our "geology of Anglesey" module. It's a day that often clashes with the dissertation presentations, so I have missed it several times. This year I was available. I didn't know if Dei wanted me to be there or not. He is very busy, so he sometimes needs a bit of prompting. I started mailing him to ask what the plan was. He just asked if Jaco and I were available. I confirmed. 

I didn’t hear anything so I assumed he didn’t need me. But on Sunday I decided to check anyway. The trip was Monday! It turned out he needed me anyway. He said I might as well meet at the beach. He specified the car park. 

I got there, surprised to not see Jaco’s car. He tends to be early. I got into my welly boots and had a coffee. Nobody appeared. It was a bit like an earlier trip, where Dei had figured wrongly I wasn’t coming, so just left me to my own devices on this same car park, while the others were on the other one. I figured that if nobody would show up half an hour in I would just go home. If you want me to contribute to your trip, then at least have the decency to tell me beforehand (during working hours), and direct me to the actual RV! 

I checked my phone. I had a missed call from Dei. I phoned back. They were indeed at the other car park. Dei said I might as well stay there; the group would walk past on the way to the beach. But I didn’t. I figured it was bad enough I had been sent to the wrong place. If I would just tag along on the way, I thought the message would be that men explain geology, and women tag along as assistants. Not on my watch. I got there just as Jaco was about to start his spiel. 

The first half of the trip is just Jaco running around with his hands in the air, being totally absorbed in the geology. He does it well! But I was still a bit grumpy. And I made sure to tell Dei that I wasn't pleased with how things had been going, and I expected better from him in the future. I hope that helps.

Beautiful rock

When Jaco had pointed out everything he wanted to point out we decided to have lunch. We figured a little grassy field in the dunes would probably be the most sheltered spot. It was indeed very pleasant!

After lunch the students were tasked with actually measuring the orientation of the strata. They tend to not have done this before, so in the beginning they struggle a bit. We each took a few students under our wing. And we clambered over the rocks to find good places to measure. The weather was nice, I felt useful, and my students were good company. My mood brightened again.

Lovely rock pool

We worked quite fast. In not too much time we were finished! And then we admired a few seals who had swum into the bay.

When all the measurements are done, Jaco tends to collate them, and discuss with the students what it means. But I was thinking of the dissertation presentations that were nigh, and for which I had a lot of preparations to do. I figured I might let Jaco do the data spiel without me. We would walk past my car anyway! So I peeled off. Does that mean I was now doing to myself what I had been grumpy about Dei doing to me? You could argue it is. Women don't explain the results to you. But it felt different as the decision was mine. It is not the same if I am just not deemed important enough to even know where we are meeting!

Altogether I left in good spirits. And that's the important bit. The day started shit, but luckily some stunning geology in the sun with nice people sorted it out. As it should!