Swamp hike: day 3

As usual, we woke up at 7. That’s when the light wakes Henco up, and when he’s awake he wants coffee. If we wouldn’t be awake yet, the rattling of pots and pans for the boiling of water would sort that out. And we had our breakfast, and a look at the map. Today would be wetter than before! 

Morning stirrings

Autumn colours on the way to the stream (again)

Map pondering

When we set off it was a bit damp. We walked back to the main path, to Stanedge Pole, and then cut through on a smaller path back to the edge. That was the soggiest we had had! I got damp socks. And when we were on the edge, the wind was strong. We followed it for a bit, again admiring the autumn colours, but then decided to seek slightly lower ground. We walked below Burbage Edge to Longshaw Lodge. It was a very civilised walk! We had decided it would be a good time to go and have an indoor coffee somewhere. So we did it there. And we actually even turned that into lunch.

Back to Stanedge Pole

Windy on the Edge! 

In civilisation, on our way to coffee

After lunch, we kept walking more or less south, and through very civilised landscape we walked to a copse on top of Froggatt Edge (our fourth, I suppose) and decided to camp there. It was another gorgeous spot! With a nearby stream. And an amazing waterfall underneath which you could have a wash. Lovely! And we even saw deer. I admit I had to take other people’s word for it that these blurs in the distance were deer indeed. 

Shire-like views

Our little camp

This night, Sleutel cooked. Pasta this time! It was good as usual. And we went to bed early, as usual. Only one full day left… 

Swamp hike: day 2

We woke up on the moors, surrounded by grouse sounds. And after breakfast we were on our way again. It was lovely weather again! And we headed north. We had a snack break at an impressive tor. And then we headed back south and then towards the next ridge along the way: Stanage Edge. It was also very beautiful! But quite windy. And at some point, we decided to come down from that ridge looking for a bit of shelter. And we found a beautiful copse. With amazing autumn colours. We had our location for the night! 

Breakfast 

Leaving in the sunshine 

Great autumn colours 

Our snack break tor 

On Stanage edge

Stepping back from the edge

Scouting for somewhere to sleep 

We pitched the tents, and I went to get water from a nearby stream. When I was there anyway, I had a wash. And this time, Henco cooked. It was lovely as ever! And it was bright so a bit cold, but no wind, so it was ok. We still went to bed quite early. 

Cooking

At midnight, I woke up because I had to go to the toilet. When I got out of the tent it was so quiet and moonlit I was glad I had had to go. And that was the second day done! 

Swamp hike: day 1

We would meet at lunchtime in Edale. The same location we had met last year. We had quite enjoyed the Peaks, and I suggested going again, as it's big enough for two separate adventures. And three of us had had to miss last year's edition, so they hadn't seen any of it. And there was quite some appetite for that. Henco had designed some routes. So I was about to set off when I got a message. It turned out we would meet at lunchtime in Bamford. I was glad I found out before I left! I said goodbye to the cat and went. And I got to Bamford without problems. I scored a table that would fit us all and waited for the others. 

They appeared! And we all had lunch. And then we did some last things (for me: getting my walking boots on and parking the car at a convenient location, and filling up water bottles for all) we set off. In the sunshine!  And the first thing we needed to do was walk up Bamford edge. The geology there is slightly dipping late Carboniferous sandstones, and the gentle deep causes distinct cliffs in the landscape. These are very scenic. Bamford edge is one. And walking up was not trivial! But very rewarding. And when we got there we basically just followed the edge until we decided it was time to look out for a camping spot.

There were more people wanting to walk up to Bamford edge

Not strange this is a popular spot 

We had a view over Ladybower Reservoir, along whose shores we had walked the previous year

 

We didn't see any shelter, but we did see some moorland where we could pitch tents. And there was a stream. We settled for it! I went for a wash. And Roelof pitched his tarp for in case it would rain. Erik cooked the first meal. He didn't cook all of it, as we hadn't had a full walking day, and we wouldn't be sufficiently hungry. But it was really nice food! And it was nice to sit there together, under the moon, and talk. And there were some excellent rums and whiskeys going around.

Two of our tents om the moors (pic taken next morning)

With the moon visible it was quite cold, but not annoyingly so. Still, we didn't stay up late. Quite early on, it was bedtime. And I slept well! This was quite a change from hectic University life…

No more proposals for dissertation topics

This big task is over for this year! Every autumn, I have to give all the 3rd year students a dissertation topic, and I encourage them to design one themselves. It's a good academic practice, and they get to do something they find especially interesting. And it's a bit of work to get it right, so I start telling them in spring that this is an opportunity and that I recommend it. And they shouldn't let it come to the last minute.

A very small minority take this to heart. There was one student who gave themselves months to get it right, and they got my approval. And then there were quite many who gave themselves weeks to get it right. For most, that was not enough. And then there was the inevitable flurry of students who gave themselves days to get it right. This is not impossible; there were two proposals (but not very late ones) I gave my ok to straight away. But it is unlikely.

I had also made a change from last year; then they had an infinite number of attempts, which I regretted, as too many students made minimal changes to their (rejected) proposals before resubmitting them. That just took too much time. So this time I gave a maximum of three attempts. That helped. I had also considered standard replies, but I didn't implement that. I figured students would struggle to understand the exact changes they would have to make to improve on their proposals.

I have a double deadline for this: the first one for first proposals, and then a final deadline the week after for people who still have a few days to improve on their proposals if they weren't immediately given the ok. When the first deadline was reached I knew there was only a limited amount of work to do on this. And then there was relief when the final deadline was passed.

This year I received 26 first proposals, 16 second proposals, and 4 third proposals. In total, I approved 8. It's a lot of work for eight dissertation topics! But at least these eight students are doing something they are passionate about. And they have already shown some independent thinking and data finding. Good stuff!

I could imagine I will get some negative comments in the module evaluation about how difficult it is to get your proposal approved. So be it. Nobody benefits from me approving proposals that are not very well thought through, and are very likely to lead to low grades. I will probably even get fewer negative comments if I don't allow them to design their own topics in the first place. That would be a lot less work, but I would find it a bit of a pity! And at least the process for me worked better than it did last year. Not so much for the students, though: a much higher percentage got their proposal through last year…

There was a proposal about orcas. Pic by Robert Pittman, NOAA

Last teaching before annual swamp hike

The annual Swamphike was upon us! We would go as soon as reading week would start. We don’t have contact hours with the students then. But because Roelof had obligations in the later half of the week, we would barely wait for reading week to start. The Dutch delegation would leave on Friday evening. I would have to leave on Saturday morning, but fortunately not too early. 

On Friday I had a tutorial in Bangor at 10, and Kate did the lunchtime seminar in Menai Bridge at 12. I then had to quickly eat lunch, and get back to Bangor for a 2pm lecture. And immediately afterwards I had a two hour practical. And then I had to hop past the shop for some last hike shopping, and then get home and eat dinner. 

In between all that I also had to deal with the last proposals for students’ own topics, and publish the list with topic choices of all students who didn’t design one themselves. That had to be online before I would leave. It was terribly hectic! But I got it done. And once I was home and I had had my shower I felt ok again. And I could have a last night with the cat and Neil before I would leave them for days! And I knew I could ignore work for a while. That was good. It had been full-on! 

A plankton bloom, which are important in my practical, albeit that this is a different kind

This year’s foraminifera practical

After I pick the fossil foraminifera, it’s time for the students to pick the foraminifera from the surface samples they took. This year it would be an ok practical as the class size wasn’t very big. And it went well! Mike was there to help me out, like last year. It was a bit unusual in that we had one student not there even though he had been on the field course, and two students there who hadn’t been. 

We decided to let them pick forams until 11 am. The rest of the time was for identification and verification. And some students only had one species. We were done before the timetabled end of the practical. Great! And soon after, the students started mailing through the results. I didn’t yet have time to collect them. That day, I had to inhale some lunch, and was then in a School Board meeting for the rest of the day. And two days later I would have a practical again! 

Some of the fossil forams

Small blog break

It has been a busy time! So busy I can’t keep up. The blog will have a break of a few days. I will be back soon! 

Ladies’ trip into lead mine

The ladies were coming to the west again! I had skipped the previous trip, as the venue was something like a 1:20hr drive to the east. That just wasn’t feasible on a week night. But now we would do a mine in the Gwydir Forest! That’s not far. And I like that mine. 

It would be a big tight; we would meet at 18:30, and I would be teaching until 18:00. But I know the place; I could rock up a bit later, and get to the entrance on my own. I was sure I would find them. But my lecture was done a bit before 18:00, and there was no problem with traffic, so I actually rocked up pretty much 18:30 on the dot. The ladies were still there! And I quickly changed. 

We walked up the hill to the entrance all together, and got in. Some ladies hadn’t been here before. And those who had been, hadn’t necessarily seen it all. And even if you’ve seen it all, it’s nice to see it again! So from the entrance chamber we all had a lovely time. 

We first explored the level we had come in on. Plenty to see! It’s a very diverse mine, where you never know what will be around the corner. And it’s full of drippies in all sorts of colours. 

We then shimmied up to a higher level. That was nice too! And then back. Sharon had belayed those that wanted that up and down the vertical passage, and before coming down herself she threw the rope bag down. It sounded like a human crashing down! Several hearts almost stopped. Luckily it wasn’t a human. 

Then we went back out. I was home by about 10:30. It had been a lovely trip! 

Near the entrance

Big chamber

Scurrying down the vertical passage 

Group pic