Clean conservatory

The state of my windows had disturbed me for a while. I decided I needed to clean them when I had a bit of time. And on the morning of the climate festival, I did. I started, as is not unusual, with the windows at the front of the house on the ground floor. Normally I then move upstairs to do the windows of the upstairs bedroom and the office. But this time I moved around. I did the conservatory next! First outside. But most of the dirt was actually on the inside. A lot of slugs have been walking around on my windows. So I then moved inside. But then I decided it is a bit silly to have clean windows in a dirty context, so I cleaned the walls as well. It became a big project!

Slug trails on the window! 

I had to stop when it was time to go to the festival, but I finished it after I came back. The conservatory, that is. I still haven't done the upstairs windows! But I'm really chuffed with my clean conservatory now. I only wish I would have taken a "before" picture. As I didn't initially intend to clean the whole thing, I didn't! But just trust me the difference is considerable…

Translucent windows! 

Climate festival

 I had been so busy preparing my talk for the climate festival that I hadn't really thought about what else was going on! I knew there was a bike event; I had been added to the WhatsApp list. But I didn't know anything more. 

In the morning I went to the park around the corner where there would be bicycle activities. I didn't know if I could add anything to this, but I did want to show my face. I like bikes!

I immediately found Pete, who was organising this. We are both in the sustainable transport working group of the valley. It was already quite busy! And people were creating a little obstacle course for the kids. That was quite busy used. The idea was as well that people could try out different bike set-ups. Analog bike, electric bike, bike with trailer, cargo bike, bike with tag-along…

Kids immediately using the obstacle course even though not even half of it is built yet

It was nice to see all this activity, and have a little chat with the people there. But I didn't think I could add much. I went back home! And had lunch. And when that was done I went to Neuadd Ogwen. 

I thought the talks would be in the main hall, but they were in the new lean-to! And that was for the better; it was not busy. People would have drowned a bit in the main hall.

I just caught the tail end about the initiative Egin, that wants to use neglected spaces to grow community food. It sounds like an excellent idea! Then there was a talk about creating a hub for cooperatives. There are some cooperatives already active in the area; there is, for instance, a timber cooperative, and there is a farm that does vegetable boxes. The whole foods cooperative is technically speaking not a cooperative I heard! This hub sounded great as well.

Then it was my turn. I placed global warming in a bit of a longer context. And everyone who comes to the climate festival already knows about climate, but it was true that these were timescales they weren’t particularly familiar with. But I also did the shorter timescales! I just showed them the data from the weather station in a nearby village, and how much had changed there in 30 years. Minimum and maximum temperatures had gone up by 0.7 and 1°, respectively. In just 30 years! The whole world did that in more than 100 years. And precipitation had gone up. This is a bit worrying; this village sometimes is the wettest place in the entire country, and quite unsurprisingly sometimes has a flooding problem.

I ended by saying that progress was clearly being made. Britain is cutting down on its emissions! But we really need to get down to 0. And we need to do it fast. So we can't become complacent.

There was an interesting discussion afterwards. And then we moved onto local energy! And after that there was a gap; I took that for going to the loo, but then I decided to go out. There were things going on outside as well!

The energy people didn’t use PowerPoint

On the little space opposite my street, there was a bit of a small festival spirit. There was a man making music, and a nature of school for kids, and several other stalls. I had a little bit of a chat with the people I knew there. It was quite nice! But things were coming to an end. I helped the people from the organisation put their materials back into the office. And then I went home!

The outdoor space

I think this was a bit of a day of preaching to the converted, but it also was a way for the converted to keep each other updated on progress on the various initiatives in the valley. And that is useful too!

Preparing for the Climate Festival

A while ago I got a message from my friend Caro. She said that there would be a climate festival in the village on May 1st. She had been asked to give a presentation about climate; she had done one as well for one of the climate assemblies. But she was otherwise engaged. Could I do it instead? And I said yes. She said she would send me her slides. I could use them, make my own, or do a bit of both!

It was quite busy recently, so I knew I would have to make the slides quite shortly in advance. I did a bit of thinking about how to go about it, but I didn't sit down to actually make slides until the Saturday before, in some time before we would go and eat some mussels in Porth Penryn. I finished it Sunday afternoon. On Monday I would talk!

Hard at work, with charming assistant

I only had half an hour. There is only so much you can say in that time! But I hope that the slightly longer perspective I provide means I tell the people there, who probably already know quite a lot about climate, something they didn't know before. And I hope there will be some interesting discussion afterwards.

It was a bit of a pity to have two very hectic weeks at work, and then ending that in a weekend in which I had to do something that is indistinguishable from work, in a bank holiday weekend, but it is for a good cause. And I like climate! So there we are…

Mussels on fire

Some of my colleagues are involved in a research project involves improving sustainable use of shellfish. The idea is that cultivating shellfish is a really efficient way of generating proteins while barely damaging the environment. And if you want to get people to eat more mussels, you need to do some serious outreach! So there was a sort of mini food festival organised in the old slate harbour. The usual crew (Sue, Dean, Martin and me) would go.

Sue would drive; we would park in the nearby industrial estate, in then walk down the old railway, which is now one of my bicycle commuter routes, to the actual festival. We were quite early! Then weren’t many people there yet. But there was already quite a good delegation from Ocean Sciences,  in fetching ‘criw’ T-shirts. 

We greeted our acquaintances, and were offered a very innovative piece of mussel sausage roll. This, in fact, was one of the headliners of the day! This was one of the novel mussel products it was all about. Quite a lot of the rest was just for drawing people in, so they could be made familiar with this kind of new delicacy. 

Really early on, when it was very quiet, our colleague Julie took the mic and started promoting the mussel rolls

The other attractions surely worked too. Susan quickly veered to the Pizza van. But I was at a seafood festival so I wanted seafood! That was a bit tedious; the local fisherman was, of course, present, but I think he had forgot to make sure he had hired effective staff. The others were already feeding me on pizza slices. In the end I got me my seafood though! And in the meantime it got busier and busier.

There also was a flamboyant chef who had, with help of several others, carefully placed a lot of mussels on a wooden table. Later it became clear why; he was going to demonstrate an old-fashioned French way of preparing the shellfish. You just heap a lot of hay on top of them, set it on fire, brush the ashes off, chuck some sauce on top that involves butter and vinegar and lots of other things, and le voilà! Cooked mussels. We were sitting downwind from that, so we were covered in hay ash, but what is a bit of ash among friends. Dean and I were the only ones to want to try them. 

The flamboyant chef in action

After a while one of our researchers, who professionally was more into oysters, joined us. That was nice! I mainly know him because he volunteered to have a dissertation student, and he is doing very well in the cake competition.

After a few hours we decided to head home again. I think it was a success! It was really busy during the second half. I hope they have achieved what they want to achieve. And I bike past the harbour, where the fishmonger has a little shop, quite often. I'm sure that sometimes it will be a good moment to pop in for a mussel sausage roll!

A beer with the dissertation students

Shortly after the dissertation presentations were done, I got an email from one of the students in the cohort. It said that he thought it would be a good idea to go for a drink with the entire cohort, and all of the staff involved, after the deadline for handing in the actual dissertation. That would be that Friday at noon. So he suggested a pub in upper Bangor at 1 pm. He asked me if I could send that email out to all involved; the students can’t use the email lists, but we staff can, and I thought it was a noble cause so I did send it on. 

That day I had a Cymraeg + session in Bangor from 1:30, and when it was done, shortly after three, I went to the pub in question. I knew the students would be several drinks ahead of me! And it tends to be a bit boring to be by far the soberest person in a group, but I wanted to show my face anyway.

The pub; pic from its Facebook page

The pub looked quite empty from outside, but when I walked in I saw a familiar face at the bar. One of the students! And he said there was a handful of them further back in the pub. So I bought me a drink and joined them. I was welcomed with enthusiasm! That's always nice. There were only about ten; the entire cohort is 135. I didn't know how many there would have been in the beginning. They did say two more staff had shown up, but had already left. It was good to hear there had been representation, though!

I had a good chat with the bloke whose idea it had been. And with one of the students who had already secured a job just up the road. He also said that if I managed to hit 20 on the dartboard with nine darts he’d buy me a drink. I took the challenge! And won me a drink. I rarely drink more than a pint! And now already had two. Oh well. 

It was really nice I have an informal chat with these people. The strangest topics came up! Amsterdam, God, Isle of man mythology, AI, whatnot. But I wasn't going to drink more than these 2 pints. (Except for one additional alcohol-free beer one of the students offered me.) So when these were coming to an end, and the students were making plans to go somewhere else, our ways parted and I went home. 

I thought this was really nice! Maybe I should mention it to next year’s cohort; maybe they will do the same thing. A nice way to celebrate that milestone!

Red Wharf Bay

In spring we get to do two excursions with our first year students in the Earth, Climate and Evolution module. So on a Thursday morning I came to the layby where the coaches would pick us up. And the first coach to arrive devoured all the students like that was trivial. Normally, on a coach you have two seats on each side of the aisle. This coach had three seats on one side! That made it contain a lot of people. And it made the aisle very narrow. But we could even fit all the staff in as well, and send the other coach home.

We got to the bay and it was a great day for a field trip. Not too sunny, but very quiet weather. That is great! In strong wind everyone gets cold, and it is difficult to shout over the wind. We split the student up in groups of approximately 12, and went on our way.

Last year had not been such a good year; I had forgot, when I checked the tides, that the table I had seen gives tide times with respect to GMT. We were living in BST. So we were an hour closer to high tide than I thought! And it had already been a bit on the edge. This year, the tide was ideal.

I also tend to like these things better when I have done them more often. You get more into the material! I quite enjoyed this iteration. 

The week after we would do the other trip, to Cwm Idwal. I hope that goes as well! 

View towards the mainland 

Little crab carapace on glacially smoothed rock with fossil sea lilies in it

Walking back to the parking lot 

Marking and assessment boycott

The union and the universities have been in a conflict for a while now, about pay and working conditions. There are negotiations, but it's not been resolved. And in the latest ballot, it was decided that we would participate in action so short of a strike. And the crucial part of that action was a marking and assessment boycott. 

I struggle with marking and assessment boycotts. I know the whole point of taking industrial action is to have an impact, but this seems very very big. The big things to mark at the moment are the final work of students about to graduate. If we don't mark it, can they graduate? And is that proportionate?

On the other side of the scale are the first year students. Their grades don't count towards their final agree. So we could refuse to mark their work without feeling too guilty about it, but the problem is, they might just shrug, and the University with them. That would not be much impact! And then there are the second years; they hang nicely in the middle. But should it just be them who take the brunt of this?

Then there is another issue; that is what the University does if you engage in such a boycott. They say that as an employee, you can't pick and choose which parts of your job you do, so if you refuse to do part of it, you don't get paid for any of it. And the University has said that they will not withhold all the pay of staff who don't mark, but I will withhold 50%. And it's not 50% of the pay for the time that you would've spent marking but aren’t; this is really 50% of your monthly wages. Because, as they say, not marking is a breach of contract, and if you do not honour the contract, they don't have to either. So basically, as soon as you refuse to mark one assignment of one student, they can dock 50% of your monthly wage. And I don't know how many of us could afford that.

There was an online meeting with the Bangor University branch of the union. And we had a meeting within the school of ocean sciences. None of us are really sure about the situation! But there was one option; the union does have the right to change the action into an outright strike if they can argue that the university’s threat is too punitive. And if you strike, you only do not get paid for the days you're actually on strike. They won't withhold your entire monthly pay if you strike one day!

The problem with a strike, this late in the day, is that there isn't much teaching anymore. As I write this, there is only one week of term left, and it is a four day week. So if they don't call this strike immediately, the only thing we cannot do because of strike is basically marking, supervision of master students, and preparing for the new year. Some of that is work that needs to be done anyway; if you don't do it because you're on strike, you will have to catch up later, and that defies the purpose of the strike. And with the marking and the supervision of master students we go back to the original dilemma. So there is something to say for it, but also plenty against!

I haven't refused to mark anything yet. The university’s threat surely works on me. And I don't know if anybody else has already nailed their colours to the mast. I have no idea how this will pan out!