One Half of a Whole

I had my first hot shower in over a week last night, and boy was it good. Rather kindly, Claire, one of the staff here, invited me over to her and her partner's gaff for a hot shower, a home cooked meal and a proper bed. It was a more than generous offer I couldn't refuse and it was probably the best shower of my life. The only one that has possibly topped it was the one after climbing Scarfell Pike a couple of years ago. Now that was a well earned shower. Anyway, I had a shower, she cooked us up some wholesome grub and then we went to the pub for a few jars. It was great to actually be interacting with people of an evening, and certainly beat drinking alone. Both her and her boyfriend, Ben, are very laid back and easy to chat to so it was a great evening all in all, and hopefully will become a bit of a regular fixture. I got to see my first World Cup game as well, Brazil vs. North Korea, which was quite an interesting match. North Koreans are unable to leave their country due to the regime operating there (not sure how the team swung it), so apparently all of their supporters were hired actors, madness!

Erstwhile, I've been out in the field all week which has been a treat as the weather here is unbelievable. It's so hot and I'm scanning the coastline all day so I really have nothing to complain about. I think the stink has started to set in though, as when my lift arrived this morning the first thing she said was "you smell clean!" with an air of surprise. Oh dear, I must be used to my own stench.

I have only just worked out how to focus my camera for close ups after a mere six years, so here's a few snaps utilising this function.

First off we have this chap:
And in case anyone's interested, this is one of the species I'm looking for; wild chives:
And another one, sea beet:
And just for Sam, a dwarf ox-eye daisy:
All this blogging is preventing me from working so I best hit the books.

Tata for now.

In At The Deep End

Despite being a practicing atheist, I'm inclined to agree with the above.

Today was my first proper day in the field. It felt like my first day at a new job because when I started I really didn't know what I was doing. All weekend I had my methodology solidified in my head, but when I went to put it into practice I very quickly realised it didn't work. I found a great spot straight away and got to work, but some of the things I'm expected to do (such as do a sketch of every site, for every species I'm focussing on) are simply unreasonable. So, I stuck to the agreed methods to start with and eventually tailored them to suit me, and as it's my project, I didn't feel to bad about it. I eventually managed to survey everywhere I'd hoped to today, but the data is useless because I'm using ludicrous map coordinates instead of longitudes and latitudes, and I'm going to have to repeat everything anyway next week because I need to take samples but won't get the equipment until next week. Still, I know where everything is for when I return, and I got a lift down from another couple of students doing similar work. They were very accomodating and offered to hook me up with some software and literature I'll need at a later date so all was not lost.

I'm starting to wish I had more time to do this project now, because this week will be fairly useless, and most of next week I'm in Birmingham doing a presentation, leaving me realistically about seven weeks to survey the entire Lizard. However, I don't think I could handle living in a caravan any longer than I have to, and being away from certain people back home is harder than I initially thought it would be. I'm just not convinced my work will be of much use due to the time constraints, but I must stay positive and do the best that I can with the time I have.

So on a more upbeat note, I was enjoying the most southerly point in Britain today, Lizard Point.
This really is one of the most fantastic coastlines I've ever seen, look at this beach!
This was today's lunchtime view:
As you can see, I'm not complaining about the location. I just wish (as always) I'd had more time to properly prepare. I only had one week between starting this project and finishing my last one and am only just realising how much background research should have been done to make this a useful project. But I'm making good connections hopefully, and who else can say they lived in a caravan on the Cornish coast for a whole summer?

On another note, I watched Blade Runner last night for the first time in ages, and as amazing as that film looks, Harrison Ford really can't act. Great story, incredible direction and cinematography, but come on Ford, put a bit of effort in! Actually, maybe he shrewdly played the part woodenly to imply he was in fact a Replicant. Hmm, maybe I'll rewatch...

The Sea Is Wet, Did You Know That?

It's been a weekend of ups and downs. Yesterday was a write off, I waited all day for the reserve manager to turn up and give me a lift into the nearest town for some campling supplies. Frustratingly, he didn't turn up until 4pm, and seemed slightly bemused when I asked if we were still heading into Helston. We didn't in the end, so I was stuck in the caravan all day. I did get some work done, but it was such nice weather that it felt like I'd wasted the day.

Today I decided I'd make my way to the sea. The closest shore to me is Mullion Cove, and I wanted to get there on footpaths as opposed to roads (mostly because the roads have no pavements). The weather was glorious so the walk there was brilliant. I overcame my equine fear, stumbled through a field of cattle, and laughed far too much at some sheep. It took me about an hour to get there, and it was great scrambling about on the rocks. I saw this fellow:
I enjoyed the view of Mullion Island (which I would like like to swim out to at some point):
And I enjoyed a spot of lunch here:...enjoying this view (but not in black and white obviously, I'm not a dog):
So that was all lovely, and I was feeling very alive and full of enthusiasm. However, then the clouds gathered and the day took a wet, wet turn. So here's my 3 point guide to getting ill:

1. You may want to prepare for this by having a few beers the night before, skipping dinner, and having a terrible night's sleep. This will help in the long run. Also you should set off on your travels fairly underprepared, ideally with a Gap waterproof that is not in fact waterproof. You want to start on a sunny day, and get a little sunburned on your way to your destination.
2. When you notice the clouds looking menacing, don't put on a coat. Convince yourself it will pass. Then when it does start raining, make sure you get as wet as physically possible. To ensure this, wear jeans and make your way through fields that consist primarily of long grass. This way everything you're wearing gets well and truly sodden. Make sure you can hear your socks squelching in your shoes, this is a sure sign that you are soaked to the bone.
3. This is the most important one. You must be staying in a caravan with nowhere to dry your clothes, no heating, and no hot water. Remove your clothes, run and turn the water supply on in your pants, and treat yourself to a nice long cold shower. Then sit back, and enjoy the strange burning feeling all over, even though you know you should be freezing.

And it all started so well.

The Hat Came Back

Good gravy granules it's hot in this part of the world! I'm not complaining though as I have no hot water in my caravan so I've been enduring prison style cold showers. My tactic is to exert myself to the point of exhaustion during the day so that by the time I retire to my caravan for the day I'm so hot a cold shower is a relief. I haven't braved one in the morning yet though, so it's a boiled kettle and a flannel on my "important areas" to start the day. The water situation is quite dodgy here, I can't drink the tap water as the supply comes from an old slaughter house and supposedly has a queer, blood tinged taste to it. Therefore I have a 5 litre bottle of drinking water to keep me going which should be interesting this weekend when no one's here. Last night as I was cooking there was an almighty explosion and water erupted out of the sink and hit the ceiling, soaking the majority of the caravan. As you can imagine, I shit myself thinking the gas had blown up, but alas it was merely the pressure being too high in the feed to the taps and so the join broke. It seems to be fixed now though, although the carpet is still sodden.

I didn't really know what to do today, I was planning a day of office work because the weather was meant to be abyssmal. However, Johnny Sun slipped his hat on so I set about exploring the area around my caravan and surveying any of my target species. Incidentally there weren't many about (I only found one species at one site) so I busied myself taking photos of anything interesting I could find.

So first off, the dragonflies (or maybe mayflies, I really should know this) were out in force, and I managed to catch one mid flight, although it's not as good a picture as I'd hoped.
I also came across this little bugger. These spiders are literally everywhere on the heaths, but I quite admire the way they set a trap and lie in wait...
And then I stumbled upon a group of horses. A bad time to realise that I'm quite scared of horses really, when I got near them they all looked up and I suddenly panicked because if they charged, I'd definitely be a dead man. Plus I was wandering around on my own so probably wouldn't be missed for several weeks. If you look closely though you can see the sea.
And below is my dangerous find of the day. This is a makeshift electric fence running off a car battery, with no warning signs. Nice.
I think that's covered everything, it will be a strange weekend here on my own but I'm hoping to do some exploring along the coast to stave off "the crazy".

I found my hat by the roadside today which blew off a couple of days ago. Good old countryside.

Garden Party

I have had to stay in the office today to plan out where I'm going to be visiting over the next couple of months, and decide if it is plausible or not. It's not. So tonight my task is to outline the key areas I need to be doing my survey work in order to maximise my time here. Rather brilliantly my key areas are all coastal so I'll be spending most of my time by the sea, a pleasure I've never had in Birmingham. But before tucking into my work for the evening I had a wander around what I like to call my back garden and thought I'd share a few photos with you.


I can't complain really. The quality of pictures will improve by the way, it's just the only chance I've had to get out and about at the minute is in the evenings. I'm quite fascinated by wind farms. I don't see them as an eyesore at all, and the fact that they're creating clean sustainable energy is brilliant. Saying that, I'm informed that there are several negatives associated with them, one of which is the enormous amount of concrete needed to keep them in the ground (we're talking thousands of tons), and mixing this concrete uses a LOT of energy. Not very green, although I was trying to find some hard evidence for this but came up blank. You can read about the pros and cons of wind power here if you're at all interested.

Elsewhere in my world it is very quiet. Thanks to my least favourite of all the laws; sod's, my iPod broke the day before I left and so I'm faced with no music. Luckily I transferred a load of music onto my girlfriend's computer just before I left as she threw me a rather brilliant dinner party, and I still have said music on my memory stick so I have about 20 albums to keep me going. I'm also spending a large amount of my downtime watching the Sopranos, which I think I've already mentioned but I simply can't get enough of it!

Okay, food, Sopranos, work.

Then more Sopranos...

My Life In A Caravan

I've reached an age now where I've decided I need a good set of waterproofs...

As several of my one followers will know, I am now living down in Cornwall in a caravan to complete the final stretch of my Masters course. I am conducting a survey of the Lizard and looking for seven important crop wild relatives. I have embarked on this two month stint with mixed feelings; I'm fairly sure this is the sort of work I want to be doing when I leave education, and what better opportunity to sample my desired profession. But my word I'm a long way from home. I think the whole experience would be slightly easier if I wasn't living in a caravan in the middle of nowhere. Here is the caravan by the way:Here's the old slaughter house I'm next to:
And here's the dead flies stuck in the window of the caravan:
So as you can see, not exactly luxury accommodation, but as no funding was offered for this project, I've not done too badly. The evenings are somewhat lonesome, but travelling around spectacular coastline all day makes it all worthwhile.

I'm hoping to update this fairly regularly now I'm hooked up to the internet, but as I'm not as computer savvy as I thought, I will draw this to a close for today as this has taken me about an hour so far, and a gang of four Shetland ponies are eyeing up my caravan as a scratching post.

The trials of conservation.

Fast and Bulbous

I am currently neck deep in my first of two theses this year, but the finish line is in sight it seems for number one, after an overly long extension gained after being stranded in Portugal and then going on a field trip to Syria. As such, I have very little time for this blogging malarkey, but due to blog pressure from my girlfriend, I thought I would treat you to a slice of life I found on my computer during a recent procrastination marathon. It is basically a diary I started but never completed last year when my house mate contracted the dreaded swine flu and we were all quarantined. I thought it would be an interesting period to document, but, based on the fact I only made two entries, I assume it wasn't. Anyway, here it it...

Day One – 22^nd June 2009

I haven’t been to work for almost three weeks now, it will be 4 weeks exactly by the time this is over. There is a global pandemic, a virus dubbed swine flu, and today it was confirmed that Mike, my housemate, has it. He’s had a rough weekend, struck down with a savage flu that has practically immobilised him. He was tested on Friday morning and left waiting all weekend for the results, but at lunch time today he received the call from the clinic to confirm that he did indeed have swine flu. All our names were taken and an order was put in for us to receive Tamiflu, the course of drugs that eradicate the virus. From this point on a mild, and slightly amusing, panic spread through the house, with everyone’s ear glued to their phone, warning everyone we’d been in contact this weekend that Mike had the swine flu, and we might too. It’s highly contagious, we’re told, and we should remain at home and not allow anyone round or visit anyone. I’d told work about my situation, and after various phone calls I was advised not to go back in until next Wednesday at least. I got the feeling they were suspicious about the whole situation as I had been on the phone to them several times, each time telling them conflicting opinions we had gathered from various GP’s and help lines. In reality I was just keeping them in the picture, and I still feel guilty because as of yet I have no symptoms. The aforementioned conflicting opinions caused a great deal of confusion as to what we can and can not do. We have agreed that we should stay in the house, in quarantine in essence, but Gemma and I are technically allowed to leave the house as we aren’t displaying any symptoms, but we would save this power for only when it was really needed.

We’ve broken quarantine a few times today. Steve’s dad came round to check out some scaffolding the neighbour offered to me earlier when I got talking to him having a smoke outside. I decided against mentioning the swine flu, it would only cause unnecessary panic. Also during a viewing of Gonzo this evening, Gemma had to run to the off licence for cigarettes. So we’re not being as strict as perhaps we should be, but the advice we’ve been given ranges from touching everyone you see without consequence to staying locked in your room, only emerging in an emergency. Very confusing. I haven’t left the house yet personally, and I’m unsure how long it will be until I do.

I sat awake, stoned, watching the planes, romanticising about this illusion of gifted time and all the things I could do with it.

Day Four – 25^th June 2009

Michael Jackson died today. I had a mixed reaction to the news, to be honest I wasn’t a fan of the man in his later years, he seemed to be wasting his talent and after a quick buck. However, when you visit the records he made during his peak era, Thriller, or Bad for example, you realise this man was practically a genius! Firstly, you put on a Michael Jackson single and you won’t be able to keep still, the beats and bass lines are infectious. Secondly, and for me the key to his success, is how percussive his voice is. Before every phrase there’s an “oh” or an “ah”, mixing in with the beat and just causing you to want to dance more. I suppose I should mention his dancing, because that boy could dance. Really bizarre moves as well, very original but often bizarre, for instance pulling your trousers up, bending your knees and relaxing. But he made it look effortless. I don’t know if he’ll be missed necessarily, in truth I think he’s been missed for years now, but it is sad to see such an icon decline the way he has, from being the biggest name in pop music and having a theme park in his garden, to dying a pedestrian death in hospital from heart complications.

Elsewhere, the swine flu seems to be leaving our house. Mike seems to be going through stages of getting better and suddenly having to go to bed. He’ll finish his course of drugs tomorrow and so he’ll be safe to leave the house, and has already said that he wants to just get out of the house, which is perfectly understandable. Gemma, Steve and I have spent most of the days sorting out the garden, and it’s nice to have the opportunity to do so. Yesterday we had a fire to burn all the waste from the garden, much to the annoyance of the neighbours. An old gent from three doors over just kept shouting: “Hello, do you know it’s illegal to have a bonfire?” It’s not, by the way. We just ignored him and became increasingly drunk in the day time, resulting in a group nap at half seven ready for the rest of the evening. Today we had a similar day, except this time we informed the neighbours we were having a bonfire, out of courtesy, and they were fine with it, which meant we were able to burn everything that was left in the garden, so it’s almost ready for the grass now. We wound down in the evening playing Beat It on Guitar Hero and listening to the Jackson 5 at ear splitting volume.