After the first overnight crossing, we arrived in Kirkwall, Shetland Islands at 07:00am, had breakfast on the ferry, then disembarked to start a two-day tour of the archaeological highlights of the islands. Mousa Broch is an iron age round-tower, from around 100BC, still surviving to nearly its full original height. You can see from the […]
I had a big birthday last week and was determined to spend it somewhere other than at work. Last year, I was running an equipment trial up at Durham University on the day of my birthday, and ended up buying a small iced cake from a bakery and taking that into the lab to share […]
I’ve been doing more tours of university physics departments, up and down the country. Last week it was UCL and Birmingham; this week saw two separate visits to Loughborough, as an industry guest presenter at a summer school on systems engineering for physicists. I could have done without making two separate trips there, but diary […]
Malvern Theatres has put on a few plays over the years from the Agatha Christie Theatre Company. They seem to have run out of Agatha Christies plays to produce, however (which surprises me somewhat as she wrote dozens of books), and have now metamorphosed into the Classic Thriller Theatre Company. Their first production in this reincarnation […]
Mullion is far too far away for me to consider driving myself there. It’s also rather difficult to get to by public transport. From Mullion, I caught a bus via Helston to Redruth (a journey of well over an hour, though the scenery was lovely and you get a good view over the hedges due […]
On Bank Holiday Monday, the plan was that Cousin David and his brother Ben would meet his cousins and some of Stephanie’s friends at the Polurrian Bay Hotel, and then scatter her ashes on the beach below. The hotel is in a beautiful clifftop spot, just outside the village of Mullion which is about 20 […]
I had a free day in Penzance last Sunday, before meeting Christopher’s family on the Bank Holiday Monday. I hadn’t realised quite how close St Michael’s Mount is to Penzance – a walk along the coast of only about three miles. The first mile or so is a bit industrial, as the coastal path is […]
Yes, I know that I’ve only recently been on holiday to Cornwall, but after I’d booked the trip to St Austell over Easter, it became clear that I’d be going back just a few weeks later. This wasn’t such a happy occasion – it was for a family funeral. Cousin Stephanie was Christopher’s mother’s cousin, […]
