The Rest of Christmas

Slight oxymoron that one, as Christmas was very busy for us both. Boxing Day saw me blast up the A1 to Huddersfield to meet Sonya’s cousins, catch up with Andy from her lab and meet up with some of her schoolfriends, then it was back to Loddon for another round of dinner parties. We made it to the New Year, when we staggered to a little cottage near Bury St Edmunds to recover before going back to work. I can definitely recommend The Old Manse Barn if you’re looking for a comfortable and well-looked after break.

Christmas Day wildlife

It’s hardly a secret that I like taking photos of animals. My parents have been carefully feeding the garden birds for several years now, and that makes my life easy. Standing at the back door I managed to take quite a collection of pictures. There are captions for those who need their memories jogged, or who don’t know their great tits from their blue-footed boobies…

Montpellier

Scientific conferences: everyone thinks they’re just glorified booze-ups but more often than not you spend nine or ten hours a day sitting in stuffy rooms in a concrete box located in an industrial complex in the suburbs of a city you would never have visited if you had the choice. Luckily I spent last week in Montpellier, where they have beaches, sunshine and 30C. Yet somehow I still managed to spend nine or ten hours a day being bored, confused or, occasionally, inspired. Now Last week was the Euromat conference, during which I pretended to be a materials scientist and learned about composites, hip replacements, solar cells, railway line degradation and hundreds of talks about carbon nanotubes. This week, I’m doing it all again. Geology replaces materials, but the rain of Switzerland replaces the French sunshine. More on this later, once the freezing cold and shocking prices have properly kicked in.

In the mean time, here are some photos from Montpellier.

 

Parakeet – a pretty pest?

A recent newspaper report said that wild parakeets were a danger to British wildlife. Escaped (or carelessly released) into a reasonably warm environment, with plentiful food and nesting opportunities, they’re larger than many garden birds and could outcompete our native species. I’d find it hard to shoot this little guy though, seen in the garden over the Bank Holiday weekend.