Katrien’s inaugural lecture

During the tenure of our previous VC, inaugural lectures weren't a thing. This VC is clearly in favour of them. And the first people to be promoted to professor in our School happened to be the celebrated three ladies. Three female professors in a School that before then had only had one in its entire history. I liked that it was them who were kicking off this new tradition. On Valentine's Day, we had been able to witness Yueng’s lecture, which was mainly about polar oceans. And now, wedged between full days of student presentations, we would get Katrien’s lecture about geophysics.

I was early. I got a little chat in with Katrien herself. Then one of her postdocs joined us. And after a while the postdoc and I found ourselves a seat while the room was filling up nicely. Let the lecture begin!

Katrien started out explaining what geophysics even is. And then she did a sterling job in explaining why it matters. She explained how you can sometimes do an entire palaeoenvironmental reconstruction just on the basis of the surface topography of the sea bed. She mentions that if you want to build a windfarm somewhere, you need to understand where you are putting it. How strong are the sediments where you put your turbines? And can you predict its strengths on the basis of geophysics? And if you put a wind farm somewhere, you are probably changing the sediments there. Changing flow patterns of the water will cover some surfaces with sand, and might wipe other surfaces clean of the stuff. For instance. If you are a sand eel, you really care about that sort of things. And if you are something that eats sand eels, you obviously do as well.

Katrien being introduced by the VC

Starting her talk

I really enjoyed the talk. And there were some interesting questions. But afterwards there was very little happening, just like the previous time. There was coffee and there were brownies, but I still don't understand who drinks coffee at this hour. A lot of people immediately left. I had a little chat with my master student who was there too, and then I got collared by a lady from the general public who wanted to know if her relative, who lived abroad, could perhaps visit the school on a day when there was no open day on. She was interested in marine science.

I chatted with her for a bit, but I was aware of the big day ahead of me. So after a while I made a glorious retreat. Time to get home and get ready for the dissertation presentations! But I think Katrien sparked an interest in geophysics in quite a lot of minds now…

Preparing the dissertation presentations in record time

The apotheosis of the dissertation module is always difficult to organise. There are normally only some two weeks of teaching after the Easter break, and a lot has to happen in that time. The presentations need to take place, and deadlines for both presentation slides upload, and for the dissertation itself, have to fall in there sometime. Preferably not all the way at the end, as that would mean it is difficult for students to get an extension. Ideally, there would be time between the presentations and the dissertation deadline, that the students can use for incorporating the feedback they got on their presentation in the dissertation.

And there is some logistics there too; I need to make a talk schedule, and a conference booklet with all the talk abstract in them. And of course, I have to make the latter in between the deadline for the file upload, and the actual presentations. And that can be quite limited time!

This year the students had to upload their slides and their talk summary the very Monday after the Easter break, and did their presentations on the Thursday and Friday of that week. The deadline for the dissertation was the Friday after.

For me, this meant that although I had been able to make a schedule beforehand (but not until after the Athena Swan submission), I couldn't start on the conference booklets until Monday. Everything had to be ready and printed by Thursday morning first thing. And it was also Monday that I could start downloading the presentation slides and get them ready for the conveners. Sounds doable, right? It was still a bit of stress!

That Monday I was in the field. That Tuesday I had presentations in another module all day. It was Wednesday I would have to manage all of it. It is not as if I had an interrupted day for that; I had a lecture in the morning, and a staff meeting in the afternoon. And I couldn't work in the evening either; that was when Katrien would have her inaugural lecture. 

I was a bit wild-eyed that day. Technology didn't help. I had been making booklets, and sorting PowerPoint files into folders, on any computer I found myself logged into. All should just be on OneDrive, accessible from anywhere. But when I got to my office and opened the first file to print it, the talk summaries weren't in it. I accessed the file from a different direction; still nothing. I went into Office365; there it did show up with the talk summaries included. But when I clicked "open desktop app", they vanished again. Technology is supposed to help you! Why was this happening? But I did manage to copy the entire file content over into the desktop app, and print the file that way. First file done. I had quite a few to do.

About half the printing done

The printer I normally use gave me an error message at some point, and refused cooperation. I just went to one printer further away, and that gave me an error message from the start. I would have to find more remote printers! I went to the adjacent building with my last printing, and to mine relief it worked. The only drawback was that it didn't seem to be able to insert staples. I had to do that by hand. Not ideal. But I got it done! And by the time I had to leave to go to Katrien’s lecture, everything was ready! Success!

That was the point I could relax. From there on, everything would probably organise itself. And now it was up to everybody else to be stressed! 

Badly organised day in the field

We had one more field day in the diary in our "geology of Anglesey" module. It's a day that often clashes with the dissertation presentations, so I have missed it several times. This year I was available. I didn't know if Dei wanted me to be there or not. He is very busy, so he sometimes needs a bit of prompting. I started mailing him to ask what the plan was. He just asked if Jaco and I were available. I confirmed. 

I didn’t hear anything so I assumed he didn’t need me. But on Sunday I decided to check anyway. The trip was Monday! It turned out he needed me anyway. He said I might as well meet at the beach. He specified the car park. 

I got there, surprised to not see Jaco’s car. He tends to be early. I got into my welly boots and had a coffee. Nobody appeared. It was a bit like an earlier trip, where Dei had figured wrongly I wasn’t coming, so just left me to my own devices on this same car park, while the others were on the other one. I figured that if nobody would show up half an hour in I would just go home. If you want me to contribute to your trip, then at least have the decency to tell me beforehand (during working hours), and direct me to the actual RV! 

I checked my phone. I had a missed call from Dei. I phoned back. They were indeed at the other car park. Dei said I might as well stay there; the group would walk past on the way to the beach. But I didn’t. I figured it was bad enough I had been sent to the wrong place. If I would just tag along on the way, I thought the message would be that men explain geology, and women tag along as assistants. Not on my watch. I got there just as Jaco was about to start his spiel. 

The first half of the trip is just Jaco running around with his hands in the air, being totally absorbed in the geology. He does it well! But I was still a bit grumpy. And I made sure to tell Dei that I wasn't pleased with how things had been going, and I expected better from him in the future. I hope that helps.

Beautiful rock

When Jaco had pointed out everything he wanted to point out we decided to have lunch. We figured a little grassy field in the dunes would probably be the most sheltered spot. It was indeed very pleasant!

After lunch the students were tasked with actually measuring the orientation of the strata. They tend to not have done this before, so in the beginning they struggle a bit. We each took a few students under our wing. And we clambered over the rocks to find good places to measure. The weather was nice, I felt useful, and my students were good company. My mood brightened again.

Lovely rock pool

We worked quite fast. In not too much time we were finished! And then we admired a few seals who had swum into the bay.

When all the measurements are done, Jaco tends to collate them, and discuss with the students what it means. But I was thinking of the dissertation presentations that were nigh, and for which I had a lot of preparations to do. I figured I might let Jaco do the data spiel without me. We would walk past my car anyway! So I peeled off. Does that mean I was now doing to myself what I had been grumpy about Dei doing to me? You could argue it is. Women don't explain the results to you. But it felt different as the decision was mine. It is not the same if I am just not deemed important enough to even know where we are meeting!

Altogether I left in good spirits. And that's the important bit. The day started shit, but luckily some stunning geology in the sun with nice people sorted it out. As it should!

Not entirely successful rescue training

If we as North Wales Cave Rescue get called out to assist humans, it is most often in CRTT. (Dogs are more unpredictable.) So we had decided we should do a big communications check. We wanted to try if it was possible to establish communications from one mine entrance to the other; both above ground and underground. 

Above ground the issue is that there is an hill in the way, that radios struggle to get past. But we would bring a repeater, and see if that would sort that issue out. We could also check if it was possible to establish communications between the mine entrances and the respective parking lots.

Underground we use Cave-link; it uses the rock as an antenna. And in theory it should be possible to set up a surface Cave-link at one entrance, and communicate all the way to the other entrance. But that is the theory! We would find out what the practice would be. We wanted to first establish contact with a location in the mine quite close to where the surface Cave-link was, and then move the underground Cave-link to the middle of the system, and then to the end. We would find out if it had sufficient reach! And if not, we could try out how far we would have to move the surface Cave-link to re-establish contact if the underground Cave-link would move further towards the other entrance.

I got to the parking lot in good time. In the weekends, that parking lot gets very very busy! And I already found Jonty, our training officer, and Nick, another team member making plans. I joined them. The rest of the participants appeared as well. It was a classical cave rescue demographic: except me, all men (plus one dog!). We subdivided ourselves into an underground team of four, and an above-ground team of three. I would be in the former. So I got into my kit.

We all walked to the entrance of Rhosydd. There the two people who would place the repeater peeled off. The rest of us continued to Croesor. It was quite windy (that seems to have been a complete constant in the past weeks) but otherwise the weather was fine, and the views were great! And we managed to keep communications via radio quite long.

Walking up to Cwmorthin 

Above Rhosydd

Beautiful dam along the way 

Looking down on Croesor

Once there, Ed set up the surface Cave-link, well the underground crew took the other Cave-link with us. We had planned to set it up some six minutes inside the mine. So we found a spot, rolled out the antennae (these are 50 m long; this is not trivial), and then switched this thing on. At least; that was the plan. Nothing happened.

When we were sure we couldn't switch it on I went outside to tell Ed. And Ed had radio contact with Cave-link specialist Tony. The diagnosis was quick: it probably had a flat battery! That was a bit of a bummer. That meant half the training had gone straight down the drain. I suggested to Ed we would bring the useless Cave-link out, and then just do the trip anyway, as two of us hadn't done it in a fair while, and wanted to be more familiar with this venue where we were needed so often. One of them was me; I hadn't done it in nine years! Ed thought it was a good idea, so I went back in to tell the others. I sent Jonty out to agree new callout times with Ed. And I sat down to have a sandwich.

Towards the end of my sandwiches I noticed we still had the Cave-link. Jonty had forgotten to bring it out! That was a bummer; now we had to bring it through the entire system, and one of the two pelicases it comes in is quite heavy. I hadn't been carrying much so far, so I stuck it in my bag.

When Jonty got back we got ready to move. We were close to the first pitch, and I went down it. I started walking towards the second one, but not much activity happened behind me. The men shouted at me that there was a technical issue. And a while later they shouted to ask if I could check if there perhaps was a telephone in the pelicase. There wasn't, but that told me what the so-called technical issue was. Jonty has lost his phone! So he quickly decided to go back out. And Nick insisted on coming with him. That only left two people, and not just any two people; David and me.

I have a problem with David’s societal views and how he expresses them. I am sufficiently polite to him, but I do not enjoy his company. So I suggested I just prussick back up and we abort the whole thing. But then my sense of duty kicked in. This was my opportunity to get more familiar with CRTT. And David is a team member, whether I like it or not, so in an emergency there is the possibility I will have to work with him. So I shouted up I was willing to continue. And then David came down.

At the top of the next pitch I was confused. I heard voices, and saw a little bit of light. We knew there were two cavers in the system; we had seen them go in. But they should be way ahead of us! What were they doing so close to the entrance? Had they encountered a problem and had to turn back? In that case, we probably would have to turn back as well. We waited for a few minutes at the top of the pitch to see if they would appear. They didn't, so we went down anyway.

The next obstacle is a zip wire. I had done an old version before! It was a bit of a faff to attach myself to it. I was wearing a double set of cowstails, as I know my normal cowstails are not compatible with the use of a tandem pulley on a zip wire. And coming off on the other side was interesting as well. That is easier for tall people!

Then we got to the ladder bridge, and the traverse, which has been made an awful lot easier since the first time I did it. Then there was the first wooden bridge, that you can just walk over. And soon after that the Bridge of Death, which I remembered as interesting if you're not very tall. In the middle of the bridge you have to move whatever it is that keeps you attached to a wire to the other side of an attachment point. That was okay! No issues. Coming off on the other side was more interesting.

When you've done that, the next thing is the boat chamber. It is a flooded chamber with a canoe in it, which is attached to a length of polyprop rope that is fixed to both sides of the chamber. The idea is that you pull it towards you, gently lower yourself in it (you access it from a vertical drop, so you have to get from the rope straight into the canoe), pull yourself to the other side, and then get out. On the other side you can scramble up the wall.

We met the other two cavers again. They had probably just been taking pictures or something. They said the canoe was giving them wet bums. Oh well!

When they were done we pulled the boat towards us, and David lowered himself first. It was not just a bit damp! The thing was lying really low in the water. It looked a bit scary. I made sure to put the waterproof case with my phone and car key in it on my person. If the canoe would go down, my pack would disappear immediately; the heavy Cave-link case would see to that. I made sure it wasn't attached to me in ways that are difficult to undo if you are suddenly in ice cold water.

I really gently lowered myself as well, and we were on our way. For a few metres. It looked like the rope had snagged, so I prussicked back up, released the rope, and lowered myself again. Attempt number two! This time it worked. And it felt very wobbly in precarious, but we did get to the other side without capsizing. Success!

Once you get to the other side of the boat chamber, you've done all the obstacles. There are a few collapses you have to scramble over, but that's it. If people have made it that far, their only enemy is the difficulty of finding the exit.

We came out and found (most of) the cold surface team. Two people had already gone home. We went back to the cars and headed home.

I think we need to do this exercise again! We are alright with surface communications, but I still think it would be a very good idea to try out the Cave-links in this system. Let’s see when Jonty gets away with putting another full day training in the calendar! 

Flour mishap

I buy my flour, and everything else I can, in the local whole foods co-op. I really like the place! But it has restricted opening hours; two hours on a Friday, and four hours on the Saturday. It happened a few times in a row that I was away during both intervals, so my flour stock was running low. Luckily, one Friday I could make it again, just in time to buy wholewheat flour before it would run out. And the day after I had to bake bread again.

I emptied the last remnants of the old bag into the bread machine and opened a new bag. And jumped! The flour was white! There must have been a stickering error going on. I had to bake white bread! 

I could have gone to a normal shop, of course; they have wide opening hours. But I wanted to go to bed. So next morning I was greeted by fresh white bread. 

It’s so trivial! But I really like my bread wholemeal. I will pop to the supermarket for some bog standard wholewheat flour before the wholefoods co-op opens again. Having to make do with white bread once was good to show me just how much I love my bread the way I normally bake it. Back to normal asap! 

Ethiopian food in Tregarth

Susan has spotted that at Moel y Ci, the farm with shop and café, sometimes hosts a pop-up restaurant. She had seen an announcement of an evening where they would serve Ethiopian food. We had tried to go there, but it was cancelled due to family circumstances. We managed to book on a later iteration. And that day had come! Unfortunately we had to go with only the three of us; Martin’s plans had changed and he couldn't join us this time.

Susan picked me up. It is a bit long to walk, and they are not cyclists. On the way we passed Charlotte. And she was going the same way!

When we got to Moel y Ci we realised we didn't know where exactly this dinner would take place. Clearly not in the café! Susan looked up the instructions. They said we had to get past the café, so we started to walk in that direction. That way we bumped into Charlotte again, who told us we were going the wrong way. She had been before! That was fortuitous.

She was going to meet up with other friends, but it was nice to be able to introduce her to Sue and Dean, and vice versa. And when we got in we were pointed to a different table. Charlotte's friends were already there; at least quite a few of them.

More people came in. To my surprise, at some point, a cave rescue couple came in. Or rather; a Llanberis Mountain Rescue couple who happen to also be in the cave rescue team. They joined us! That was nice. More introductions followed.

I was quite peckish after my very windy walk earlier that day! And I also liked that I had remembered to bring some beers. I had two alcohol-free ones and a real one. They don't have an alcohol license, so you are invited to cater for yourself. So the starter and the first alcohol-free beer quickly vanished.

I hadn't had Ethiopian food since I left Amsterdam. The others had never had it. They were impressed! And I already knew what to expect. It was really good. And I could have eaten the whole thing. But I knew there was going to be a dessert, and we had also been invited to bring Tupperware for any leftovers. So I paced myself, and saved a portion for a later date.

Pic by Susan

The real beer also easily vanished. But by the time I had finished the second alcohol-free beer I had had enough beer. Good planning! 

The dessert was brownie with ice cream, and that indeed completely filled up any remaining space in my stomach. And then it was time to go home.

I had had a great time! And the others too. It seems that these evenings book up really quickly. I still hope we can do it again!

Race recce with Kate

Kate was back! She has been off skiing forever but she was back. And she was up for meeting up. And she had an idea of what to do: in September she will do the Dragon’s Back Race, and she wanted to scout some of the route. Was I interested in doing Cadair Idris? I thought that would be ambitious. I was going out for dinner with Sue and Dean later, so I had to be home at a reasonable time. Even getting to the start of a hike that is 1.5 hours. It sounded like it could get hurried and stressful! Not my favourite kind of hike.

She then suggested a different part of the route that started at Sychnant Pass. That sounded better. We settled for it. And she came to pick me up.

When I stepped out of the door I could already hear Bryn bark. He was glad to see me! Soon after that I heard the ‘whump whump whump’ of his tail against the panels of the car. He is a sweetheart.

We drove up to the pass and on our way. We started on a path I had never done before! But it was beautiful. And after a while it came back to a route I am familiar with. I have, for instance, done that with the other Kate. And our goal was Tal y Fan. And from there to Bwlch y Ddeufaen. And then back.

It was really windy! That is a bit tiresome. You have the constant howling of the wind in your ears. But it was largely sunny, and dry, and the ground was not as sudden as either of us had suspected. So it was a great day anyway! And we didn't let the wind get in the way of catching up.

Bryn’s wind face

Sea views

Dreamy house

Kate had been ill not too long ago, and wasn't quite back to normal fitness levels. So the uphill bits were a bit trying for her. She even suggested not actually going to the top of Tal y Fan! That's not like her at all. We went anyway. We took one submit selfie and then quickly retreated. It was so ludicrously windy up there! And we binned Bwlch y Ddeufaen.

View from the top 

Summit selfie with wind hair

Below the summit we had lunch. I managed to eat all of it myself, in spite of Bryn’s efforts. A bit later on Kate had to wrestle him because he wanted to eat a sheep’s bone. She thought it would be bad for him. He wasn't going to give it up without a struggle! 

When we got back to the car I was glad to get out of the wind. I was really glad we hadn't tried Cadair Idris! Imagine the windspeeds up there. And I don't think Kate would have quite enjoyed the ascent. 

I got home in good time for the dinner, so I even had time for a bit of DIY! And I hope that some other day in the not too distant future, and a less windy day at that, we can scout Cadair Idris after all…