Blister in the Sun

Ho ho, I'd like to meet the genius who created this classic edit.

Another long day today. Not to be a curmudgeoning old man or anything, but despite the spectacular scenery...
...the work is starting to get slightly monotonous. I seem to only be able to walk a few metres before I have to stop, unpack all my equipment and battle with my recording sheets in the wind. I think it would just be more enjoyable, and in fact easier, if I had someone to help me. Unfortunately the guy who was supposed to be coming down in July to assist has had to cancel, unsurprisingly due to a lack of funding. I'll stop moaning though.

I had done everything I could by 3:30pm today, and rang my lift to see how they were getting on. They informed me that they'd be a good hour yet, and as I'm not the best at just hanging around, I decided I'd attempt the 5 mile journey back on foot. It was actually very enjoyable (and I never turn down an excuse to try and build up my chicken legs), although when I was about a mile away one of the staff drove passed and offered me a lift, and it would have been rude to refuse. I was making good time though, I'd only been walking for an hour. There are no pavements on the roads here though so the walk did have its hairy moments, mostly involving stubborn lorry drivers. It did give me a chance to get reacquainted with Why?, specifically their album Elephant Eyelash, which is fast becoming my favourite release of theirs. If you've never heard them you're really missing out.

There were loads of artists out today which was nice to see:
This was a slightly awkward picture to take, as the woman on the left is painting in her bra, so it basically looked like I was just taking a picture of her. I wasn't, for the record.

I better get back to the books, I'm a day behind on writing up my field work, but it's taking me hours. I'm desperate to get it all out of the way by the weekend though for a well earned few days off in Falmouth, happy days!

Box of Rain

First off, apologies for the lack of updates over the last couple of days. I've received all of your angry letters and attempted to respond to as many as possible, but I'm only one man with one pen. The truth of the matter is I've been suffering from quite severe headaches, which is quite a new experience for me. I think it has something to do with the intense humidity, and from constant temperature changes thanks to only having cold water. I'm sure staring at a computer screen can't help much either. Anyway, I'm all better now, and some how soldiered on, I really deserve some sort of gold plated medal (preferably one where once I remove the gold plating, there's some sweet sweet chocolate inside).

I had my first unexpected visitors the other night in the form of the local youth. They were after firewood from the enormous pile of wood that resides behind my caravan. I flat out refused, and realised afterwards this was possibly a bad idea as I have no lock on the caravan. They've not returned though and I have gained the occassional nickname of Nightwatchman amongst the staff, much to my delight. I think it also highlighted the fact that it's not the safest situation they've put me in here, although in fairness Cornwall has the lowest crime rate in Britain (I think), but on exiting the building yesterday Ray shouted "be safe!", which was followed by several cries of "yes, be safe!". No offers of a house yet though.

Today I've been out and about on the east side of the Lizard peninsula, and managed to bag a lift there and back which is always a bonus. Below is the Devil's Frying Pan, which I looked out over whilst stuffing my face with sandwiches. The place names around here do make me laugh, they're trying so hard to be cool and different, but often are not successful. Impressive though.
I also tried my first batch of Cornish fudge today. My word, it was an explosion all over my unprepared tastebuds. I will try to bring a stack home for everyone if I have any money left, it really is incredible stuff.

Whilst wandering today I decided to just listen to bands beginning with "M", after being heavily influenced by Sam's word association game in iTunes, although I won't steal her thunder and describe that here! This made me want to listen to all of the albums on my iPod and attempt to rate them all. However, the first band on my iPod is A. I put their album on, enjoyed "Foghorn", and then realised how awful they were, and realised there was no way I could sit through two full length albums by them and so gave up almost instantly. My brother warned me this would happen but I thought I was made of stronger stuff than that. It did prompt me to listen to ABC though, and that was bloody great!

I'll leave you with a picture of Foxglove, a flower I'm quite obsessed with photographing, and in fact it still makes me laugh when I think about foxes actually using the flowers as gloves. Simple things.

4-1, It's Lucky I Don't Really Care

I awoke this morning to the sound of someone messing around with my water supply. I assumed it was Ray, my supervisor here, so got up so as not to appear lazy. When I opened the door though, he was nowhere to be seen. This either means cabin fever's setting in or some passer by was curious as to why someone would live in such a fly infested caravan.

Today was seconds away from being a write off; I woke up feeling awful and didn't know whether it was just hayfever or the onset of a cold. Thankfully I took a tablet, manned up, and headed to my favourite walking destination, Mullion. I decided I'd do work today though as I'm going to be taking next Friday and Monday off for a long weekend in Falmouth with Sam, and didn't want to be referred to as "that work-shy gypsy". In fairness they're all so laid back here they probably won't even notice I'm gone, but I am a pretty paranoid individual (see paragraph one). I got some good field work done, but won't bore you with too many of the details. Instead, here's some pictures.
These are horses. Yep, that degree money wasn't wasted mum and dad. I took this though because the brown horse (can I call him that?) is actually blindfolded. I searched for a while but couldn't find any eye holes, so I was hoping someone might be able to shed some light (no pun intended) on why this would be of any benefit to anyone?

Below is a Sea Carrot, one of the species I'm surveying, and for some reason have become mildly obsessed with:
And here are my current neighbours, who I am trying to teach musical culture to. In fact I must get a recording of them one day to put on here because they all sound like someone doing a bad impression of a sheep, as opposed to an actual sheep. Don't tell them that though...
And last but not least, the leak came back today, but not in such a severe manner, so here's the piping I had to tighten up yet again whilst risking my life bent over an electrical device:
Over and out.

A Single Spark Can Start A Spectral Fire

I was going to do a token post today to pass the time, thinking I could just mention I've been stuck doing desk work for the past few days and talk about my brief jaunt into Mullion. However, on returning from my supply run, I experienced my second big explosion, exciting times.

I'll set the scene: it's baking hot down here still and I'd just walked the two miles or so back from Mullion with a rucksack full of edible treats. Keen for a shower, and actually relishing the fact that it would be cold, I popped the water on at the tap, as always, and returned indoors ready to cleanse myself. No sooner had I placed a foot back in the caravan I heard an almighty bang and the sound or furiously gushing water. Curiously though, I couldn't find where the water was coming from, and for a while assumed the fridge had exploded. I went outside and saw water pouring from the bottom of the caravan, but still no explaination as to where it was emerging from. At this point I was more confused than panicked, but refused to turn off the water at the tap until the leak had been located. I then suddenly thought it must be leaking under the sofa, as this is where the water flows through the immersion heater (which sadly still doesn't work). No water there either, but I could still hear it coming from the fridge. Then it dawned on me; clearly it was bursting out from behind the fridge. Now, as I haven't shown any pictures of the caravan interior yet, here's a couple of snaps so you can get perspective:
You can see the fridge just slightly on the second picture behind the red bag. And above that is my wardrobe. I knew there was only one thing for it, I had to destroy the wardrobe to stop the leak. Now this is going to sound like I'm trying to make myself look all macho, but I assure you it's merely the truth: I had to punch apart the wardrobe. This was a necessary evil because I have no tools with me. Anyway, it was fairly easy to dismantle (not so easy to repair mind you) and I soon found the pipe which had become disconnected. I stuck my hand in there and rooted around, trying to grab the various clips and grips I'd need to tighten up this mother. Only as I was covered in water with my hand down the back of the fridge did I think that this was actually an incredibly bad idea seeing as it's an electric fridge. I survived unscathed though, and was actually quite pleased with myself because I'd fixed it myself and not just gone running to the closest "grown up". It made me feel like a real life man, and very satisfying it was too. Also I realised that the drip I'd been trying to locate for the last couple of weeks must have been coming from here also. Thankfully, the dripping has now stopped. This is the state of the wardrobe, although it doesn't look too bad as by the time I thought to take a picture I'd pretty much put it back together again:
That doesn't show anything really.

It's all one big adventure down here.

Am I Pleased To See You Or Have I Just Stuck A Canoe In My Pocket?!

Don't be alarmed readers, I've just been enjoying a bit too much Blackadder.

Today I was back in the field after almost a week off, armed with the seemingly dozens of extra tools I was gifted back in Birmingham. The day began relatively badly, as when I arrived at the first site I realised I had no idea how to use any of the said equipment, but I soldiered on and got some good, if slightly inaccurate data. I also ran out of batteries in both my camera and GPS device, so had to keep swapping a spare set between the two which got fairly annoying. I'm now taking samples from each site though, and for once felt like a proper scientist; putting leaves into bags pre-filled with unusual looking globules to the curious glances of onlookers.

I made my usual treck over to Mullion this evening for some groceries, but for once it was a real joy! I had my iPod blaring for the first time in the wild since I've been here, and the sun was beating down on my back. I'd forgotten how good it feels to soundtrack a walk using the Shuffle function. A lot of the time it's bang on the money, and today served up some sweet reggae courtesy of The Congos, forgotten classics from Sneaker Pimps, elecro-pop from XTC, and rather fittingly some cheese metal from Dio (RIP). It was perhaps due to the fact that I've been without my whole music collection for some time, but I simply couldn't get enough! I kept coming up with dream playlists in my head, but am holding off currently as the iPod is still not working at full speed. It seems some albums it simply can't play, but as of yet nothing major has been lost in the ether.

I'll stop gushing about music now anyway, as I should be doing some work. It's nice to be able to listen to music whilst I do it though! The next few days will be filled with desk based work unfortunately, although I'm hoping this will help to pass the weekend; I think I got a little too used to being back at home...

Album Five, Track Four

Don't panic readers, I'm still alive, I've just been home for the last few days. I was back in Birmingham to do a presentation based on my work down here in front of the other students, my supervisor and an outside examiner. I was impressed with everyone's work, I think we'd all done it a bit last minute but to be honest I think the talks were all the better for it. Personally, I find a lack of structure to a talk actually makes it better and sound more confident. If you script what you are going to say you end up panicking about forgetting what to say next and stumbling over your words. Of course a well made PowerPoint presentation helps, which I didn't have particularly, but it seemed to be enough to get the point across so I was happy with that, and everyone got positive feedback.

It was great being back I have to admit, the sun was shining and I got to see a lot of my favourite people and have a hot shower every day, what a luxury! We seeded the rest of the garden so when I return next there may be a complete lawn inviting me to relax upon it. In other news, I took my broken iPod into the Apple store where I was told it was beyond affordable repair, but unperturbed I smacked it against the wall a lot (mimicking a "tip" from one of the staff) and it worked! It keeps randomly stopping but for some reason it can play my numerous Gervais shows without interruption so that kept me entertained on the train journey today. I got back at about 6:00pm (my lift had turned his phone off during the football, extending the journey slightly), and now I'm at a bit of a loose end, but I'm sure I can try and locate some drips to keep me occupied.

It's very quiet here...

Last Time...On Lost

Yesterday I spent most of the day at the sea looking for my various target species. Beyond the flora though, the absolute highlight for me was seeing a Basking Shark:
Granted, you can't see a lot here, but I was very excited. I love sharks, nature's perfect animal in my eyes. At one point a guy ran down the beach and in true Jaws style started shouting: "Shark! Shark!" I was sampling with a botanist yeasterday, and to me botany is like learning a different language. In fact it is a different language because everything is in Latin. I'm starting to get the hang of it now though, and as with anything, the best way to learn is to keep doing it.

In evening I thought I'd go for a walk as it was such nice weather still. This turned out to be a mistake as I got horribly, horribly lost. This all came about because, having now overcome my horse fear...
...I now have bovine fear. I think anyone would have in this situation though, because the gate I needed to get through was suddenly occupied by around 60 bolting cows. They must have been being herded by the farmer for some reason so I thought I'd find an alternative route to the nearest town. It was times like these that I wished I'd listened more in Scouts, as I ended up in a field with no landmarks anywhere around me:
After a mere hour and a half aimlessly wandering around, I finally found Mullion and treated myself to a few beers. Unfortunately the journey had taken it out of me so much that I woke up in the middle of the night, beer still in hand and just had to go to bed. Ah well, it should all be aiding the removal of my chicken legs.

Today I went out sampling early and managed to tear my legs to shreds in thick spikey heath. I was heading for a rocky outcrop where I was assured I'd find Wild Chives. I didn't, so defeated I returned to the caravan and got myself ready for the big trip back to Brummington.

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.