Finding new ground

Tuesday has been caving day. That was our regular evening in Plymouth, and, during the summer, in York too! It has been Wednesday too, when in Yorkshire the post-digging pub would be closed on Tuesdays in winter. And now it's Thursday. I have joined a bunch of daft people called the Thursday Nighters (what's in a name!) who do underground stuff I like. This week, though, a trip rather far away was proposed; it was also a venue that the online mine exploration community commented negatively on. I wasn't so keen on a mine 1.15h driving away. So a different plan was proposed; one of the chaps had spotted some mine waste and a few ruined buildings on Google Maps. We had no idea what was there, but where there is mine waste there has been mining! So we took a chance.

All day it had been raining, but when we drove off it suddenly was sunny. And it stayed that way! We parked somewhere along a narrow country road, and followed a stream to where the mine tips would be. It was already a beautiful walk! Any nice mine would be bonus.

 Just a pretty pic taken along the way!

 Nice views

We found the place. It was riddled with danger signs. Even in front of holes in the wall that were only some 2m deep! It takes some talent to get into trouble in one of these. But 2 m deep adits are not what we look for. After a few duds we found an adit that did go a reasonable way into the rock. Nice! It lead to a chamber, from which we could see a level higher up, but this was (of course!) a mine in slate, and the wall one would have to scale to get there was simply too smooth and featureless to climb. But maybe we could get in from a higher entrance?

 

Found it!

We scampered up the hill. A next adit was collapsed. But even higher up we found another entrance. It was possible to carefully scramble down a steep slope, lower oneself along a beautiful original chain, and get to a lower level (probably the one with the collapsed entrance). And from above we saw our original chamber! It does go. Next time we should bring a rope. Then we can do a cute little round trip! I didn't take any pictures in there, as I had forgotten my waterproof camera, and had not brought the "normal" one inside...

 Inside. Pic by Simon.

When we got out we had one last depression to check out; it might hold a shaft. But I wasn't too keen; I wanted to get to a hilltop to see the pink sunset. I wasn't the only one! We admired the scene for a while before we returned to the cars, and went for a pint. I look forward to going back here!

Hole close to home

When I was having an afternoon stroll on an otherwise chore-filled Sunday I came past a door. In a rock face. Which was open. Ooh! How loud can things call out at you? This clearly beckoned. I stuck my nose in, but I didn't have a light on me, not even a bike light! So I couldn't really go in and see what that was. But I wans't going to let that hole remain unexplored.

 !

I asked my Thursday friends, and they said they thought it had something to do with the suspension bridge; it is well thinkable that the cables are anchiored fairly deep undergroud. One of them had been in; he said it ended after some tens of metres in a concrete blockage. But just knowing that wasn't enough; I wanted to see for myself! So one evening I changed into quick-dry trouwers, neoprene socks and my vacing boots, and biked down. Lo and behold, after some tens of metres it ended in a concrete blockage! But I was happy I had had a look. It's nice to have been inside your own town...

The well-decorated end of the passage

Back to the BGS

The British Geological Survey has drilled holes in the ground since 1835. They've managed a fair amount of drill holes in these 179 years. So many it makes the mind reel. When I was looking for interglacial sediments some two years ago I spent quite some time trawling through all the records they had from the Nar Valley, where we would do fieldwork. I found quite some promising leads. And once there we soon found out the chance of being refused to chase it up by the landowner is bigger than getting permission, but one has to start somewhere. In the end we got a fair number of interesting cores!

I'm already two universities on from there, but I'm back with the BGS. In the summer I'm going on a cruise for my new job. We're looking for the contact between sediments deposited by ice from the last ice sheet on these parts, and that deposited afterwards. We're looking for these in the Celtic Sea; the sediments draped over the top of the glacial deposits tend to be calm clays. That should be traceable in the BGS core logs. Because they don't only core on land. Oh no! The offshore areas are Swiss cheese too. Unfortunately, the offshore records are not accessible online, unlike the onshore ones. So I'm back trawling through their records, but this time it's a bit more troublesome.

 The ship I'll be sailing on later this summer. Pic by Zed Thousand

What I do is go through the BGS database, finding cores in interesting places, throwing all out that were cored in a way that makes it unlikely they have penetrated into the glacial sediments (these are rather hard, so just letting sink your core barrel into the sea floor sediments won't be good enough; a certain level of violence is needed), and then sending a list to the BGS offices. They then tell me how long my selected records are; the very short ones I throw out. And I request the rest,which then get sent to me on a CD. Then I can trawl through them again; if I like what I see, I can request to get to see, and perhaps sub-sample, the actual cores. It's a bit of going to-and-fro, but in the end we might get a few samples without having to do any coring for them ourselves, and if we don't, we have a rather good idea of how difficult it is to get to that specific stratigraphic contact, which will help us with expectation management!

A screenshot from the BGS website; it shows all the cores and samples they have in the area I was interested in. Our cruise will cover much more terrain; we'll go all around Ireland!

House make-over

My house looked fine. Nothing wrong with! But some people have a keener eye for imperfections on houses than I do, and my landlord is one of them. When I met him on the day I moved house he mentioned he would have it re-rendered. He had insisted the letting agents would make that clear! They hadn't. But it's alright, I don't think it's very disruptive. Not for me, that is. When there's work on the house I'm not there anyway!

And then it would actually happen. I waited for the chap who would do the work, and gave him the key to the garage; he needed the socket. And then he set to work! I had imagined in my mind the old layer would be sand-blasted off. I had never really thought about what rendering really is. Something like limewash, but thicker? But that was naive. He started to take the entire layer off with a jackhammer! The noise was deafening. I was very glad I'd be going off to work! I really hope I won't fall ill in the period he'sll be doing that. Sleep would be impossible! For most people in the street, I would think...

The first start in the corner

After day 1

The windows and doors seemed to have been plonked in with a lot more polyurethane foam than consideration.

After day 2

More energy issues

I like renewable energy. Who wouldn't? So in Plymouth I changed provider to one that only does only that: Ecotricity. But then I moved house. To York, where the place I rented was supplied by a run-of-the mill provider. So I changed provider again. And moved within the year. To Bangor, where British Gas was the provider. That didn't all go well, energy-wise... I got cut off due to confusion over the period the house had been empty. I got reconnected the very same night; I even got a new electricity meter. Which only said 888.8.8.8.8, but the engineer that installed it said British Gas would be in touch and get it going. It contacted me as much as it had done when I had announced my tenancy; in other words, it didn't!

I contacted both providers I wanted to switch again. That seemed fine. But when the actual switch approached I still had no electricity readings. And I wouldn't get one! I hope I won't end up paying for what BG thinks I use; they have no idea. And I do hope Ecotricity will be able to get a handle on my use. And then I hope it all becomes less of a fuss!

Vote and run

By late March I moved to Anglesey. By early May you had, at the latest, to be registered for the European elections. So I made sure to send a change of address form before I even left York. Such institutions are not always necessarily fast in data processing! So I wasn't quite sure if it would work out. But when I came back from Vienna, I found an envelope on the door mat. It was form from the electoral office! They had registered my new address, but wanted me to sign the form to confirm it. And they wanted the form back by the 6th. It was the 3rd. The next day would be a Sunday, and the Monday would be a bank holiday. So the only way of getting it there was to bring it myself. And that's OK; the Anglesey electoral office is in Llangefni, where I had bought my new wardrobe. Only some 15 mins up the road! And a look on the map disclosed that from the town, you could follow a path along a stream to a reservoir. I decided to combine my electoral duty with a run to, and around, that reservoir. And so I did!

The route was a lot prettier than I'd dared hope! I hope I'll get to vote here on the island later this year. But the run already was a success!

 The start of the path

 

A boardwalk over a sea of bluebells!

 

Bluebell up close

 

The reservoir. Notice that the disused railway goes straight through!

 

The railway in question

 

Cows enjoying the presence of some structure of sorts

Some cute path through Hobbiton I couldn't resist. The main path runs in the back.

Vienna Natural History Museum

It would be a waste to be an entire week in Vienna without enjoying at least a little bit of the culture it has to offer. So late one morning, between two interesting talks, I ran off to the Museum Quarter. I wanted to have a scamper through the Natural History Museum! It was standing there looking glorious, albeit rather scaffolded. I had only slightly more than an hour, and it deserves a whole lot more, but I'm glad I went! The building alone is worth it. And then they have amazing mineral collections, fossil collections, a zoological collection, and whatnot. If you ever visit Vienna; go there!

The facade, basking in the sunlight

 Someone had made enormous models of plankton!

 

Mineral collection

 

The grand interior

A fish you wouldn't like to have an encounter with