The real point of this weekend was to meet and — hopefully — bond with the people who are going to be attempting Kilimanjaro with me. Here is a selection of them, at least. A good weekend, I think we’re more ready than we were on Friday anyway.
The main reason I have headed in this direction this weekend is to attend the preparatory, ‘training’ weekend for my organised trek up Kilimanjaro, which is starting in late July. The weekend was held where England meets Wales at the beauty spot of Symonds Yat, above the Wye valley, another place (like Aberystwyth) that was a) somewhere I’d never been and b) really, rather attractive. This has got to be the most rustic passenger ferry in England. Or, indeed, Wales.
Yesterday the weather was quite poor but this morning, at least, it was glorious, and Aberystwyth clearly comports itself very well in such conditions. There are only about 23,000 people here (even when it has its full deployment of students) but it is still the biggest town for about a hundred miles in any direction. Yet this morning in the sun it felt quiet and peaceful and looked very beautiful. Maybe it’s not the same on an August holiday weekend — but I do not know the place well enough to tell for sure.
For the second Thursday in a row I went off on a trip outside England and into another nation of the UK — this time Wales, its first appearance on the blog. I am visiting a colleague in Aberystwyth, a town with more books per head of population than anywhere in the world, apparently. Later in the day she took me to a place in the hills above the town, a centre devoted to maintaining the population of red kites (Milvus milvus), handsome birds of prey. The birds gather to be fed every day at 3pm. This was my best attempt at capturing the flock as they came down and feasted on the bounty, they all move damn quickly and I don’t have the equipment to freeze their movement in the way a pro would. But I like the one on the bottom left, caught looking at the camera.
Three stallholders, or possibly visitors, and Audrey Hepburn in a birdcage. A typical scene at Hebden Bridge’s weekly Wednesday flea market.
Scaffolding has come and gone and come again at Hebden Bridge station over the last few weeks — but there never seems to be anyone actually working on or around it.
One of those days where it threw it down with rain for my journey to work — including the walking outside bits — and then two hours later it was glorious sunshine. It’s the gap between teaching and exams so the campus is relatively chilled out. These two seem to be getting on well even if they do only have one leg between them.
Left Dundee this morning after an enjoyable stay. Anyone travelling south from there by rail will begin their journey with a crossing of the Tay Bridge, scene of one of Britain’s worst rail disasters when the original, and poorly-built, version of the bridge collapsed in high winds in 1879, taking a train and 75 people with it. (The only survivor was the locomotive, which was salvaged and remained in service for another 50 years.) Fortunately for us all, the replacement bridge was built rather more durably.
I know this photo teeters on the brink of being deliberately bad but hey, I’m feeling experimental. The rain was sheeting down outside the windows as I crossed on the 0924 Dundee – Edinburgh service, so this is the best I could do. And, of course, this photo is taken from the rail bridge — but it’s a photo of the newer road bridge (completed 1967), with the still-extant shipyard behind.
You didn’t think I was going to come all the way to Scotland to work and not get a walk in, did you? This is about an hour north of Dundee by road, the southern edge of the Cairngorms National Park. Here we are about 2,600 feet above sea level, at the head of Glen Clova. A good walk today.
I am here in Dundee to finish off writing a paper with my colleague Annalisa and this task was undertaken today at her house; and this is the man of said house. The rest of us are just staff. Milo becomes the third cat in a row to feature on this blog where I’ve known its name, after Harry and Mathilda, the last two CCSs (Cheap Cat Shots).
Being 42 