Whale Tale

I was just getting the paints sorted out for the next section of the picture I’m doing for the RSPB reserve, when the Reserve Manager appeared at the door.
‘There’s a minke whale in the harbour at Fraserburgh.’

What could I do but down tools and go see…..?

You may well have seen this in the national news – young minke whale followed a fishing boat into the harbour and got stuck. (If you were looking closely (hi Sue!!), you may even have seen me on the evening news report, one of the many watchers on the quayside.) I was in two minds about going to see it – these things nearly always end up in tears, and I didn’t want to be a voyeur on a sad tale. On the other hand, I did want to see it – I didn’t believe that it could actually be in the harbour itself. But it was.

Standing on the quay, we watched as the whale circled the harbour pool, coming up to breathe every four minutes or so. It didn’t seem too stressed, though there would be no food for it. There were no ship movements as the big pelagic trawlers were tied up, though this may have confused the sonar picture. Why couldn’t it find the gap and the way out to sea?

One of the gang went off to find out what was happening. Apparently, on the entry to the Balaclava Basin (the bit of the harbour in question), there is a concrete ‘lip’ – at low water there is about 3 metres of water over this, and chances are the whale’s sonar was bouncing back off the lip and making it think there was no way out. To make matters worse, if it got over the lip, the harbour wall was straight ahead, leading off left at an angle towards the open sea, but a sonar picture could well seem to show no exit.

The whale circled. A couple of grey seals wandered in, to see what all the fuss was about – they sometimes get fed from the quayside, so possibly thought their luck was in. They made their way out with no problem, but the whale kept going round and round. I had a real sinking feeling about this. I perched on a set of steps by one of the fish warehouses, and felt slightly sick.

Nothing to be done. High water wasn’t until mid-afternoon, and there would be attempts to lure it out then. So I went back to painting rushes, reeds and reflections, and kept an ear on the news. One of our regulars reported sighting larger whales feeding off Rattray Head.

The first attempt failed. I watched familiar faces crop up on the news reports, explaining the plans to help. The whale started to look weary – the dorsal fin started to droop. I began to think this would go the way of so many recent whale encounters in Britain.

Thankfully, I was wrong.

It took several days and a lot of effort, but as you’ll probably know, the whale escaped safely to sea. What wasn’t on the news was that I paid for my prurient curiosity – in perching on the steps of the warehouse, I got at least ten ant bites. That’ll teach me.

Blackbird Hiatus.

Guess you may have been wondering where I’ve been.

My life has been subject to blackbirds. Comings and goings have all been closely monitored, and commented upon, usually loudly. To venture out through my door, for a while, became almost a crime, punishable by pain in the eardrums.

They have been nesting in the honeysuckle by the front door. I didn’t realise to start with until, looking out through the window one evening, I noticed the female with a huge beakful of grass and twigs, determinedly poking about in the leaves beside the window. To put this position into perspective, the nest was built at my eye level, halfway between the door and the front window, less than a metre from the door itself. Going in and out, I found myself confronted by a beady stare: what are you doing now? How dare you?

I guessed she was laying eggs after a week. Blackbirds have nested in the garden before, but usually without success; on the window-ledge, they were ousted by the jackdaws, in the fuchsia bush they gave up when it was very windy. Now there were two birds, taking turns in brooding whatever lay in the cup of the nest. I resisted the temptation to look and see how many eggs they had – if she wasn’t sitting when I went out, she was lurking in the bushes and chuntering at me, an under-the-breath muttering of ‘well, get on with it, go to work, go away’ that was oddly compelling. In the evenings I watched them through the window, high-fiving with wingtips as they changed over brooding duty. They are not very elegant birds, and did everything with a great fuss and kerfuffle.

Then came the day I saw her coming into the nest with a huge caterpillar. I rang Mum: ‘we have babies!!’ The female did most of the work, aided occasionally by her more laid-back mate, who seemed to expend most of his energies on singing from the TV aerial, announcing his territorial claims to the other blackbirds down the road, who tend to dispute his ownership of my small garden.

Feeding continued apace, more and more caterpillars sacrificed to growing young. I wanted to blog, to tell everyone, but had the uneasy feeling that to do so would be the kiss of death, so kept quiet. One evening, there was a great scuffling in the honeysuckle, a flurry of wings and an inexpert flapping. They had fledged. As is the way with blackbirds, they immediately hid, and kept very quiet, except when the youngsters tried to fly – this was more a controlled crashing around the shrubs. The starlings in the chimney fledged at around the same time and were nowhere near so discreet; flappings and shoutings and persistent demands for food from every rooftop and telephone wire. I think the blackbirds thought the neighbourhood had gone downhill.

I see them occasionally now, speckled brown and still inexpert, lurking around the garden, skulking amongst the plant pots. (I think there were at least two young raised.) My life is my own again, without the constant criticism.

A bit later in the year, I’ll take the old nest down, and use it at work to show the children how it’s done. Maybe they’ll try again next year.

On Being Spotted – a cautionary tale.

One of the lesser joys of working with children is the potential for catching things from them. Until recently, this has been – in general – coughs and colds, mostly easy to shake off, but this last week has changed the record.

Last Tuesday, I had a headache. I put this down to working on the computer all afternoon, concentrating on the end of year accounts and getting my reports up to date, ready for the evening meeting with my Management Committee, and the actual meeting itself – never the most stress-free of occasions! Paracetamol (and a small bar of free-trade chocolate!) made me feel better, and carried me through to 9.00 pm and my eventual supper.

Overnight, I felt horrible. Woke at around 1.30 am, couldn’t stop shivering, my feet were freezing, although I was quite warm otherwise, so at around 3.00 am I threw my dressing gown across the bottom of the bed. This seemed to solve the ‘ice-block on the end of the leg’ problem and I dropped off to sleep, only to wake at around 6.00 am absolutely roasting! And I mean boiling. Well, I put this all down to being a woman of ‘a certain age’, and headed back into work, to go over the accounts with our treasurer and figure out why things weren’t coming up in the right columns in the computer printouts. We sorted it out, and felt rather pleased with ourselves, and I headed off to get ready to travel down to Mum’s for the Easter break in a small haze of achievement. Still felt ‘heady’ but put it down to the lack of sleep, and thought – ah well, it’ll be OK after a decent night tonight and then we’ll be off on holiday and I’ll be fine. Had a shower before bed and was slightly askance to find a few spots here and there – put this down to excessive sweating, and possibly a change of hair conditioner.

As we drove South on Thursday, with the dog mumping and grumping in the foot-well as usual, I noticed one or two more spots appearing on my arms. Odd, but it could still be a minor allergic reaction, so I thought no more of it.

Friday morning, things were very different. I looked in the bathroom mirror, and realised I was turning rapidly into a Dalmatian. This was NOT an allergy, but a definite spotty outbreak. We consulted the family encyclopedia. A virus – measles, rubella or chickenpox seemed the most likely. I felt OK, apart from being concerned I would frighten passers-by, but it would be useful to know what it was I had, and how long I might have had it, and who I might have infected on the way and now needed to tell…

Process of elimination on symptoms brought us down to – oh joy – chickenpox. As a mate of mine who caught it a couple of years back said – ‘I’m covered in unsightly bobbles!’ Every time I looked, there were more – my head felt like it had a bad case of sunburn, and my skin like someone had planted a crop of lentils just beneath the surface. And then highlighted the subsequent lumps with red paint. And then stuck little dabs of custard on the top of the lumps…

So the holiday has been spent quarantined. Infectious until tomorrow. Can’t do all the things we planned to do – no trip to IKEA, no trips to more garden centres, no taking the rubbish to the tip…hey, maybe there’s an upside to this after all!

Perhaps not. It’s been itchy, sore in places, and for one who is no oil painting to begin with, the join-the-dots facial embellishment is not a terribly successful look. But apart from that first night, I’ve felt fine. I haven’t even lost my appetite – in fact the major gripe has been frustration! I’ve been trying to find out what the ‘join-the-dots’ puzzle actually makes when done, but unless it’s a map of the far side of the moon, craters and all, I’m flummoxed. It occurs to me to wonder – if they’d all joined up, what would have happened then? Would I have turned into a chicken? Why is it called chickenpox after all, if not?

But it’s going away, fading and drying up. Somewhere in Aberdeenshire there’s a parent who’s been sat up with a spot-ridden child, the statutory bottle of calamine lotion, and far more worries than we’ve had. But, looking at the possible complications, far fewer potential major side effects. We used to take these things in our stride – measles, mumps, chickenpox, and the rest - we used to deliberately try to get our kids infected early in life, when the risks are lower. I know this was the case with me – I just didn’t ‘catch’ the darn thing when I was supposed to, though we thought at the time I had. (Moral of the tale – one spot doth not a pox make!) Nowadays, we go straight for the inoculation. I’m not sure which is the better move, myself. Being left to catch everything has resulted in me having a resilient system that fights infection, and this has been an exercise in patience more than anything else.

Now I need to know – was the one apparent (measly) measle I had back in 1960 the real thing, or is that still lurking out there too, waiting for me?

Doggerel

i'm being stared at by a nose -
the other end's a tail that goes
around in circles, up and down;
a hairy dog that's small, and brown.
she's fond of cheese and walks and sleep
and blankets left all in a heap;
she mumps and grumps
and moans and groans,
she bounces, flounces,
chews up bones.
a welcome bounce can soothe your woes
but i'm being stared at by a nose.....

The Stare - DogBlog II

I am being stared at by a nose. It’s attached to a small hairy dog, who thinks there is an outside possibility that I may have cheese about my person. Or within reach. Or in the same room. It’s a penetrating stare, which has little to do with eyes (well, they’re getting a little less than perfect), and she’s able to maintain it for hours. If I move chairs, she shifts round to keep The Stare on target. I am – to her small doggy brain – She Who Gives Cheese.

In the same fashion, Mum is She Who Walks. If she moves from the sofa, she has a hairy shadow. Just in case she’s going out. Even if it’s only to the kitchen. Or to the bathroom – we get accustomed to being escorted (and mump-grumped at while we are in there). The Stare (it has developed a personality of its own) follows us wherever we go.

The joy of dogs.

Happy Mother’s Day

‘You have got to admit,’ I say to Mum, as we peer out into the gloom through the windscreen, ‘there are not many mothers that get to celebrate Mother’s Day like this.’
‘Hmmm.’ she sounds singularly unimpressed.

It’s 5.30 in the morning, in the dark, and there is a howling gale blowing from the north-west. Somewhere out in the dark, there are geese….. yes, it’s counting time again, and here we are, waiting for take-off!

A harsh rattle of sleet hits the back of the car, and the sky grows a bit lighter, lowering stratus clouds flying away above us, dumping their load of precipitation as they pass. At about 6.00 a.m. a few geese can be made out struggling through the murk, fighting a strong head wind that blows them straight back to the loch, where they give up and land again. The rooks and jackdaws are enjoying the wildness, tumbling and diving in the wind, but little else seems to be happy about it. Three roe deer cross the field, pausing to check out the car parked in the middle before springing easily over the fence and heading for the shelter of the Badger Wood. The wind rocks the car, and a gusting veil of snow reduces the visibility to a few hundred metres. I wipe the condensation from the windscreen and crack open the side-window a few millimetres. The howl of the gale is too loud to hear what is happening among the geese that I know are out there, but cannot see. I put the window back up. We spread a blanket across our knees to try and stay warm, burrowing into our fleece jackets and pulling woolly hats low on our heads. In a gap between snow-showers, a few more geese try to make their escape, wheeling around overhead only to be blown back again. One or two groups of very determined birds actually manage to make it, heading out to forage.

The snow has built up on the window on Mum’s side of the car, blocking her view. We slide down the window to clear it, and a small drift falls in, onto her lap. A car pulls up behind us.
‘This is ridiculous!’ Vicky sticks her head in through the rear door ‘we’re abandoning it for today. Breakfast back at the farmhouse!’
We are not sorry to retreat.

Later, after bacon butties, we go over to the visitor centre to see if we can see anything. The field to the left of the centre is full of geese, packed in tight, heads tucked down into feathers or feeding in a desultory manner on the grass. Fortunately, the winter has been so mild (until today!) that it hasn’t stopped growing, and they can find a decent meal. The few ducks visible are tucked well in under the banks and in the reeds. There’s no sign of the visiting sea eagle; it’s either sensibly tucked down somewhere out of the storm, or – if it’s tried to fly – is probably halfway to Norway by now.

Before we finally go home, we call in at Kinnaird Head to watch the gannets wheeling and diving offshore. The sea is a mass of white-marbled slate green, foam whipping off every ripple and crest, breaking over the rocks, spume flying through the air. A couple of scoter duck, black against the whiteness, battle their way rounds the point. An eider rides the surge, white on grey. As we drive round the harbour, a large bull grey seal bobs up in the sheltered water, safe in his refuge. We take the hint, and go home.

Sex and Violence in Suburbia

Early March, and there is an amphibian orgy at the bottom of my mother’s garden.

Go out in the dark and there is a constant sound, a low throbbing underlying the distant hum of traffic and the barking of the dog in the next street, audible even from my bedroom. It’s the croaking of frogs. Recent warm weather has spurred them into amorous action, and they have gathered in Mum’s ponds to indulge in some hot frog-on-frog action. Huge billows of spawn bear testament to their activities, and there is a mighty splashing whenever we venture down the garden path, as they dive below the surface in a flurry of waving legs. In twos and threes, or even more, they cling together, each male trying to grab hold of a compliant female, even if he has to share her with several other males. He locks his forelegs around her ponderous middle and hangs on until she’s ready to lay her eggs, to make sure he’s in the right place at the right time. But it’s a wise frog that knows its own father, as any one of the attendant males could be Mr Right. Sometimes their cumulative enthusiasm is too much, and the female is so beset by suitors that she drowns.

Feeling rather the voyeur, I venture down the garden and try to count heads (or legs). It’s a losing battle, as they pop up and vanish all over the place, in the ponds or in the undergrowth – I lose count at thirty, and under the reproachful stare of many gold-ringed amphibian eyes, retreat to the house.

In revenge, they croak loudly all night.

Count the legs and divide by two.

Seven-thirty on a cold Sunday morning and there’s no sign of the sun.
The sky is starting to shade to deep blue, the fields around the car are a featureless mass, and there is a distinct aroma from the large pile of manure to the right. A chill breeze blows through the window, and my companion rubs his hands briskly, and peers through his binoculars into the gloom.
‘I think I can hear them.’
I stick my head out of the window. It’s hard to tell where the sound is coming from - definitely from in front of us, but there are elements that may be behind and overhead.
‘I think you’re right - they’re on the move.’
We stare hard into the darkness.
A flicker of movement? Yes - a darker mass moving against the sky, only visible in the reflected light from the sea.
‘Damn! Something’s put them up!’ I clamp my binoculars to my eyes and grab my click-counter. From the hollow to the right they come, a great streaming, clamorous flock, dark shapes stringing out, shifting, coming together and then moving apart, shouting reveille to the brightening sky.

Pink-footed geese, heading out from their overnight roost to feed.

So why am I sat in the cold next to the dung-heap?

It’s the monthly Wetland Bird Census. All over the country, hardy souls are out looking at lakes and lochs, estuaries and mudflats, counting geese, ducks and waders as part of a long-term survey designed to see what’s around, where it is, how many are there, and how the numbers are changing. Our ‘patch’ is the local nature reserve, and today there are five of us looking it over; one at the north end checking the beach, the estuary, and the grazing fields, one south, counting birds on the main body of the loch, one at the top end of the loch, checking amongst the reedbeds, and two of us on the western side, where the majority of the geese head out from the low wetlands into the surrounding countryside. It’s an unglamorous location, in the entrance to a stubble field on a low rise of ground, beside the aforementioned manure pile (awaiting the attentions of the muck-spreader). At least this time it’s to one side - last year the farmer piled it straight in front of where I usually park the car, completely blocking the view! I have counted geese from this place for years; sometimes from the car, occasionally from the reserve truck, and on one memorable occasion stood in a snowstorm in the lee of a large fencepost.

Today the geese are leaving practically in the dark, which makes the counting a little more awkward than usual. I swear they look for new ways to confuse me; flying low along the hollows in the land to suddenly pop up, or all taking off at once in a mass resembling an explosion in a bedding factory (we call this ‘feather-bedding’), or sitting tight and stretching the count (and my bladder-control) out for hours and hours!

I peer into the patch of sky between the manure heap and the rookery wood, where the flocks are just visible, black shapes heading westward. As they pass in front of my binoculars, I count them. At the other side of the car, I can hear Angus doing the same, the steady click of his counter as he tallies the flocks leaving to the northwest. There is little in the way of a break today, the geese seem determined to get to their feeding areas as soon as possible and as the light grows, we can make out more and more of them rising from the low ground in flocks of anything up to six hundred birds. We get some warning of large take-offs - the constant background noise builds to a cacophony of calls as they wheel into the air. Occasionally there are groups of whooper swans, huge and elegant, white wings beating steadily, small family parties with their greyish youngsters, or wheeling flocks of lapwings and golden plover in their thousands.

So how do we count them? It’s a question I’m often asked, and I’m often tempted to give the reply shown above… Actually, if they are in small groups, they can be counted individually. Skeins can be counted in groups of five, hitting the clicker every time you get to twenty. For bigger flocks, where the individual geese can generally be made out, count in groups of twenty (see how big a group is and then ‘size up’) - and as the flock gets bigger and more densely packed, work in fifties or hundreds. Or use combinations of these methods. You get better with practice! It’s not utterly accurate, but accurate enough for the census, and with the same people doing the count each time there is a type of standardisation. What they don’t tend to factor into the equations is the co-efficient of frozen fingers, steamed-up binoculars and windows, or random clicks of the counter caused by shivering!

It’s a dull, grey morning, with the sun hidden behind a dense layer of cloud. Inland there is snow, although it’s clear at the reserve with occasional sleet. A fox, thick winter coat fluffed up against the cold, trots across a distant field with the remains of a goose carcass; it’s nearly the end of the shooting season, so he’ll have to work harder for his breakfast next month. A buzzard calls from somewhere above us, a high mewing cry, and in the field beside us a large group of partridges fusses about amongst the remains of the crop, small bustling brown bodies popping up amongst the dry grasses and taking to the air in an explosion of wings.

The stream of geese slowly winds down, the last few family groups taking to the air, and we head back to the visitor centre to thaw out and count the ducks and waders on the ponds there. Afterwards, we tally up the numbers over bacon sandwiches in the kitchen. Around 20,000 geese in all - about twice the norm for this time of year, probably driven in by the bad weather further south.

Not a bad morning’s work, and next month, we'll do it all again.

Inferno Re-Visited

Dante was wrong. There are ten circles of Hell.

A foretaste of this last, and deepest, darkest circle, is vouchsafed to those who venture out at this time of year… From years of such observation, the full extent of the nightmare can finally be made known.

Beyond Limbo, beyond the city of Dis, at the bottom of the Pit, lies the Door. It glows with a hellish light, and is girt about with glittering sigils and symbols.

Above the door, an archaic sign reads ‘Lucifer, Asmodeus and Beelzebub, licensed purveyors of wines, spirits, beer, tobacco, despair and game. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’

The Door is guarded by a demon, who does not try to keep out the poor damned souls clustering at the entryway; rather, it forces upon each a torturous device of metal, wheeled and cage-like, and hastens them through the portal. Barriers swing wide of their own account, drawing the damned deeper into that which lies beyond. A hot, burning wind blows over the damned souls as they enter, a foretaste of what is to come. Eyes wide, the souls behold a huge cavern, stretching on for eternity, and find in their hands a piece of parchment, a list of such length as to take almost forever to glean from the serried ranks of razor-edged shelves that line the endless aisles…

And thus they set out upon their futile quest – to gather everything on the list in their trembling hands. For if they succeed, and gain the FinalCheckOut, they will be released from this torment, and will forever rest in peace – or so they believe, for none has ever succeeded in escaping. For many are the trials and tribulations that lie ahead, and loud is the Infernal Muzack playing all around.

The wheeled devices go not where the damned direct them, but follow a path of their own that takes the soul not past the cool Havens of the Frozen Foods but onwards to the Sprouts of Doom. A cry of woe rings the Vegetable Department – for Lo, there are no leeks until Tuesday! The hot breath of the mighty Heaters increases. And the damned are forced to loose their collars, and sweat breaks out on each face. One soul reaches the Infinite Shelf of Baking Products, but alas – there are raisins, sultanas, dried apricots, dried apple flakes, sunflower seeds, self-raising flour, self-deflating flour, organic flour, inorganic flour, gluten-free flour, flour-free flour – but no chocolate chips. Perhaps they have been relocated?

The damned soul beseeches a passing imp, pallid and be-spotted, which calls to its brood mate, ‘Sharon, where are the chocolate chips?’

The imp Sharon scratches the tips of her horns with her tail, tilting the festive baubles hung thereon, and responds, ‘Aisle 134,237,901, with the biscuits. Been there since the new EU regulations came in.’

The soul sinks its head in its hands and weeps.

In Seasonal Goods, a fight breaks out as one damned soul pounces on the last roll of wrapping paper and bears it off in triumph.

They cannot leave until their list is fulfilled, precisely As It Is Writ, with no substitutions or alternative manufacturers, for Our Dad will only eat a certain brand of beans. Which are currently out of stock. And no item shall be Past Its Sell By Date, for this renders it invalid. Should a persistent soul, after many millennia crawling the aisles, finally see ahead the haven of the FinalCheckOut, it is certain that the queue will stretch to the rear of the Great Cavern, beyond even the Bread Counter. And it will not proceed, for there will be those who try to substitute items, or who have forgotten the frozen peas. Or have cartons of milk that have split. And if by some chance the damned soul finds itself at the end of the eternally halted conveyor belt, the demon at the till will close the checkout as the soul starts to empty the trolley’s contents onto the conveyor. And there will be a wailing and a gnashing of teeth.

And ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ will begin again on the loudspeakers…

Travels with a Temporary Dog

For reasons that are too complex to go into, Mum has become temporary custodian of a small dog. Consequently, when Mum comes to visit, the dog comes too. Like now.



Looks cute and innocent, doesn’t she? Hah!

She is a ‘combination terrier’ - Lakeland, Yorkshire and Border, to be precise, but in terms of attitude and personality her breed is now designated ‘Monstrous Baskervillian’. It’s very deceptive; she is small, quite dainty in a fluffy sort of way, and all of 12 years old, so you would think age would have brought some sort of decorum to her.

Not a hope.

For a start, she hates other dogs. She wants to tear them to bits. It is, quite frankly, embarrassing - Mum takes her out, and if they meet another dog, the snarling-like-a-banshee begins. Other owners wave at their dog ‘Oh, it’s OK, they won’t hurt her’ and Mum has to reply - ‘no, it’s her that’s the problem!’ Now, if Mum sees another dog in the distance, she takes evasive action. The streets in my village are linked by a maze of alleyways between the houses, so it’s no problem to simply sideslip off one road on to another - but she feels she’s becoming known as 'the disappearing woman' - one minute she’s there, the next time people look up, she’s gone. I feel a myth coming on…

Then there’s the business with the food bowl. She eats the dried mixed biscuit stuff, and eats when she wants to - which is mostly at night. She likes the big meaty chunks, and eats those first, working her way gradually down to the boring beige and green bits, which get left until last. She doesn’t get a refill until she’s finished the last lot; at this point she lets us know by bringing her bowl into the living room and dropping it in a marked manner in the middle of the floor. She has been known to tip out the last few green bits onto the kitchen floor and pretend the bowl is empty. If we are busy, and ignore her, she is quite likely to whack one of us across the shins with the bowl. (Coming in from a long car trip and wanting a drink, she once threw an empty bucket at Mum) If she finishes her food at night, one is quite likely to find the bowl placed carefully in the middle of the bathroom doorway, where it can be stepped on during a nocturnal foray to the toilet…

She is also very vocal. Not in a ‘woof-woof’ or ‘yap-yap’, or even a ‘whine-whine’ sort of way, though. Nope. This dog makes a strange, throaty noise rather akin to the creaking of the front door of the Addams Family mansion. It’s known, colloquially, as ’mumping and grumping’. Like 'hrmfh.. grmph... urrrrnnn.... mmfphmmfph'. This happens when she thinks something is up - or if something is not happening that she thinks should be - like walks, or attention. In the car it's constant at low speeds, (she's quite settled if we're going fast) and the complaints when we go round corners and roundabouts increase in pitch and volume and can be expressed in Human as something along the lines of 'ohmigodyou'renotgoinginastraightline.. you'regoingroundsomething… your'egoingtokillus…augh'.....

She travels in the passenger foot-well - I tried using a harness in the back but being an escapologist of Houdini standard, this was doomed from the start. Plus, being attached to the seatbelt, she pulled this forward, and I was inclined to get a wet nose in my ear at inopportune moments. So the foot-well it is, ideally with Mum as guardian, and she’s reasonably OK there. One just has to get used to the idea of reaching to change gear and encountering a wet nose instead of the gear-lever. Going from ‘second’ to ‘dog-nose’ is not the most pleasant manoeuvre.

And she’s a drama queen. If we encounter a sudden bump in the road, she is quite likely to take off vertically. (I must point out - she doesn’t do this with her real owner. ) If you stand close to one hair of her tail, you’d think she’d been murdered. She has a range of facial expressions from smug to disdain to utter horror (like when we go out without her).

She loves people. She loves heat. She loves games and walks.

She reminds us why we haven’t had a dog for forty years……

Climate Control

The weather is being peculiar. Here at the end of October, it’s been ludicrously warm, interspersed with high winds and lashing rain. All of which conspires to give me a problem: windscreen fogging. The warmth means that as soon as it rains, and the outside temperature plummets, the residual warm air in the car (and this is with the heater on cool) hits the cold glass and - POW! - instant loss of visibility. Usual response - to put the blower on the windscreen - fails miserably, only causing more fogging. I try turning the heat up, as I do in winter - it just gets worse.

I try to approach this logically.

Fogging is caused by condensation - warm, moisture laden air passing over a cold surface, the water condenses out onto the surface. It’s meteorological.

I need to equalise the temperature somehow.
To clear the rear window, you put the inbuilt heating element on - this heats up the glass and stops the condensation. Heating up the windscreen - by using the hot air blower - does not have the same effect. It doesn’t prevent the condensation, it makes it worse, except for a thin strip at the bottom, which clears a bit. Hmmm. OK - so there’s even more moisture in the air now, with it being warmer. (And I’m melting…) So I need to take the moisture out of the air - dry it out. I stick on the air conditioning and the air recycling, whizzing the moist warm air through the drier, in effect, and not letting any new damp stuff in. This isn’t very effective, but does reach halfway up the windscreen. Something is working, I’m just not sure what.

SO - if heating up the screen fails, try the opposite! Cool the air down.

Turn down the heater, and blow cold air across the screen. This still fails to give me visibility. Take it down a notch - I stick on the air conditioning, turn up the blower, and wheee! The screen clears almost immediately. I freeze, but I can now see where I’m going.

So the answer, at least in warm-ish weather, is to cool down the air that’s actually hitting the windscreen - effectively putting a thin layer of icy air between the screen and the moist air. Now that’s quite logical, but given the meteorology involved, it leaves me with one question. When the moist warm air hits the icy layer, why doesn’t it condense out? My guess is that the cold air is moving too much - but I still wanna know - why aren’t there clouds forming just above my head?

Vehiculonimbus!

Being a Tourist – 16 October

Duties concluded, we are free to sight-see! This may take some time, so I recommend you get a cup of coffee (or the beverage of your choice) and settle in for a while.

I decide to have another lie-in; you understand, these are not late lie-ins, merely to about 9.00 am, when the noise of traffic, trams and people outside drives me out of my bed to the shower! I forego breakfast in the hotel and decide to do the real tourist thing – to find a café and sit outside, watching the world go by whilst sipping on a café au lait.
I set out to find the cathedral. Of necessity born of joint damage, I move slowly, so it’s a gentle amble, checking out the shops as I go, (and beginning to understand Liz’s fascination for the shoe shops!) and soak in the difference of the place. It reminds me of York, in a way, trendy shops giving way to the more tourist-trap versions as I near the cathedral itself. It rises from the houses much in the way York Minster – or indeed Beverley Minster in my home town – does; there is no clear view of the building, just glimpses of facades through gaps between other buildings. I find a road leading to the North doors, and stop to take it all in.



It seems to be red sandstone – the only time I have seen this before is St Magnus in Orkney – of course I may be wrong, not having a geological hammer with me (and I doubt I would have been allowed to take samples!), and the details in the carving are still very clear, which I wouldn’t expect in something subject to the weathering of centuries. The North Porch (apologies if I get this wrong, but I’m guessing direction!) is fascinating, and I stop at a café, order petit dejeuner and sit down outside to take in the view.
Croissant, café au lait, et cathedral.
On one side, the Wise and Foolish Virgins look smugly at each other. On the other, the Vices backstab the Virtues. Above the door, the Virgin Mary dies and is buried. Higher still, Kings on horseback ride around the sides of the towers, and above all – gargoyles. Crowding each buttress, each cornice, they hang out halfway to the sky, open mouthed at the antics below.



I love gargoyles! The chief beauty of Gothic architecture, for me, lies in the gargoyles. I wish our modern architecture had room for them, it would be so much more fun!
Off to my left, an old merchant house looks more German than French, reflecting the mixed nature of the Alsace region.



A strange noise attracts my attention. There is a man with a barrel organ to my right, and another group that I can only describe as the local equivalent of a mariachi band to my left, but another, deeper, more visceral noise underlies it all. Finishing my coffee, I pay the bill and go to find out what’s happening.



Russian horns! They look more like old brass telescopes, but the sound is wonderful. They play classical music, sounds Russian to me (but what do I know!) and it clashes deliciously, in a way that makes me want to laugh out loud, with the accordion/mariachi version of ‘Delilah’ that is still playing around the corner.
I wander back to the tourist office to meet up with Liz and Lucy, who are halfway through the walking tour, cleverly guided by mp3 directions. We head for the cathedral to see the astrological clock, only to find that demand means that the doors are closed before the 12.30 pm ‘performance’. So we wait for it to finish (quietly cursing!) on the steps below the outer clock.



Once the doors open, we make our way inside. The clock is a masterpiece of automata; created in the 1400’s, and repaired and extended in the 18th century, it has some of the oldest moving mechanical figures in Europe. But the first thing that meets the eye as you enter by the (probably) West gate is the Angel column. It represents the Day of Judgement, gospel writers below angels below archangels and holy figures, and it’s quite beautiful.



OK, back to the clock. It’s absolutely huge, and I don’t know if the picture gives any idea of how big it is. I apologise for wobbly bits in the picture, as I’ve stuck two together to show you what it looks like. What are we looking at?



Top left – a rooster, which crows – apparently represents Peter’s denial. Below this, a lot of mechanism which drives (bottom left, behind the grille) an ecclesiastical clock – which, I guess, is something that will tell the date of Easter or something of the sort – it goes into epochs and all sorts of things. The pictures are of the muse of astronomy, Urania, Copernicus and…umm. Guilty, don’t remember!
Top right – and below – the stairway that rises for the maintenance man (very narrow steps!)
In the middle: at the top, I think, it’s the figure of Christ and the apostles parade past him each day at noon - hence 12.30 – the clock works on astronomical time rather than official time (remember Leap Years?). Below that figures representing the ages of man parade at intervals – childhood, youth, maturity and old age. Under them, a black and gold globe shows the phases of the moon, and below that, the astrological signs revolve around the heavens. At the foot of these sit two cherubs, one with a bell (which rings the quarter hours) and one with an hourglass (which turns on the – half - hours?). Between them, there is a clockface with two sets of hands, one showing official time, one showing ‘real’. Under these - (I told you it was huge!) – and this is under the dark shelf at the lower third of the picture – are a series of Roman chariots representing the days of the week – today it’s Luna, in a chariot drawn by stags (how appropriate!).
The big disc below that shows the Earth, with hands that reflect the length of the day at this time of year. I’m guessing that the globe revolves to show the side of the Earth facing the Sun. Behind the man who is inconveniently standing in the middle is an orrery, mapping the heavens.
And one small detail, which I love and which I have failed to represent clearly, is the light coloured band to the right bottom corner. This has the months of the year on it, from top to bottom and back up again (and the appropriate sign of the Zodiac) and in the door to the right of it is a slit, which makes the midday sun shine on the appropriate time of year. I love this clock!!!!
On either side of the big disc at the bottom are the emblems of Night and Day. Day is a chap in Roman armour, who points at the current time. Night, on the other hand, is to be quite frank, a bit of a floozy. I mean, look at that frock…



Liz and Lucy head off to finish their tour, and I set out around the cathedral to se what they’ve already seen. It’s gorgeous, and not that huge – it bears comparison with either Minster – and has a number of rather enchanting features such as this -




On the left, a representation of the preacher’s dog, put there to keep him company during long hours in the pulpit! And then there’s the organ loft, hung like a swallow’s nest high in the vaulting, (I doubt it still works, but it’s amazing! And think of the organist climbing all that way up there…) After a while, I venture back into the word outside, blinking in the sunshine, and take a trip on the wee tram that runs round the old part of the city. It travels through the more picturesque streets, bucking over the tram lines, squeezing through the narrow lanes of Petit France, crossing and re-crossing the river. It’s a nice way to see the sights.
I met up with the others back at the cathedral, for quick refueling stop consisting of patisserie, and we head down to the river to take in the sights on the boat trip. The day has become warm and sunny, and we opt for the open top boat. For the first part, we cover relatively familiar ground, seeing the old part of the city from the water, traversing a couple of locks, passing the old washing stations and the tanners’ houses, before turning upriver towards the more modern elements of the European Parliament buildings.





It’s a relaxed and relaxing way to see the sights, (and you can get off on certain trips and see things more closely) and we finally wander back ashore with thoughts of shopping and coffee. Liz heads off shoe-shop-wards, and Lucy and I decide to be a little more leisurely and find yet another café –this time with a more Germanic flavour. But before we split up, I find another gargoyle, this time on the downspouts of the Rohan Palace…



Tomorrow we head back to Scotland, via Orly and Charles de Gaulle, over the cloud covered land, before dropping down through the grey layers to an Aberdeen little different for our absence. Tonight, wandering back towards the hotel, before a final meal at our favorite haunt, we see that we have made some form of impact on the city. In a plant-pot on one of the main shopping streets, Excalibur waits for the Once and Future King…



Random memories?

The panic of trying to by a tram ticket and finding the machine broken – and the delight in discovering how to get it to tell you what to do in English! And the tram system itself – regular, efficient, and cheap. And clean!!
The bats swooping over the Music Hall.
Small, silent, smiling children.
The Eiffel Tower, lit up and glittering at night.
Finding words in French that I didn’t know I knew suddenly at the front of my brain.
Sunrise through mist, and the cathedral rising through it, clad in scaffolding that looked like part of the building – a lacework tracery edging the steeples.
Discovering – as if I should have thought different – that kids are very much the same, wherever you are.
A wealth of very charming men!
Sun on the water.
Plane trees, reminding me of the old slogan – plane trees aren’t.
Market stalls, farmers’ market on Friday, antiques market on Saturday, neither of which we had time to see (or spend money in!)
Politeness.
The Eiffel Tower during the day, from the window of the coach between airports.
Nightfall rushing towards us across the clouds.
A crazy idea, that seemed to work!

Home again, how long ago it feels…

Encounters - 15 October

So I had a lie-in, of course…what did you expect?



Sunday morning in Strasbourg is relaxed. The trams still run, naturally, and there is a to-ing and fro-ing of people, but a lot sit out around the squares, just taking in the ambience and enjoying the sunshine. Which is what I did, for a while. Until I got into conversation with another taker of the morning air – he passed by with his dog, and smiled. Being polite, I smiled back. He commented on the weather, and I replied, in my fractured French. He enquired if I was German – no, Anglais. He spoke fractured English. He asked if he could sit down on the bench I was on. There was no-one else on it, and it’s a free country, after all. We began to chat – the usual niceties, the weather, where we were from; he was from Mauritius, did I know where it was – yes, in the Indian Ocean – he seemed surprised. He was an ex-sailor, he had been to England but had come to France and now had his dog. We considered how places had changed over the recent past – wages, job opportunities and the like.
Was I here with anyone?
Yes – I explained about the science fair.
Was I here with my wife?
I blinked, but reckoned he meant husband – no, some colleagues.
Was I married?
In retrospect, I guess this is the point where alarm bells rang. Quietly. And I should have invented a large hairy man lurking in the background. But being me, I told the truth.
No.
Children?
No, I work with them, which is quite enough!
‘Do you not like sex then? There is plenty in France! If you like women there are some hot ones!’ the conversation became more graphic.
I’m not exactly sure what I said here, but I made my excuses, politely thanked him for his company and scurried back to the safety of the hotel and the ‘Bringing the Cows Down the Mountain’ celebrations on the local TV channel. And the weekend meteorological programme.
I shouldn’t be let out without a keeper.

Meanwhile, Liz and Lucy had made their way to the Museum of Modern Art, and had discovered, amongst other things, the exhibition of erotica...

We meet up at the tent just before 2.00 pm, and as the doors opened, a positive flood of people come in, and it’s non-stop thereafter. Joanna has difficulties getting away to catch her plane, being in the throes of tree-making. One very small and utterly enchanting little girl comes in with her mother, and proceeds to make a tree, with my help. I can tell her Mum wants to get on and get home, but the wee lass is engrossed, and won’t quit until the tree is completed to her satisfaction. Mum has the rueful, ‘I know we’ll be doing this at home’ look I’ve come to know, but she is very patient. Eventually, they leave, clutching a tree, partly in pieces – I’d explained it was best to take it that way so bits didn’t become ‘perdue’. When I next look up, the little one is back again, busy with paper. She cuts and folds for a while and then silently presents her creation to me.
‘Pour moi?’
She nods, silently smiling, and goes off to find her mother.


Outside the stag herd grows apace. David the Security Man is now a convert ‘I thought this was stupid when it started, but it is all about families, which is the important thing - it is wonderful!’ he confides to Lucy.
One lad has been coming back for three days now, making part of a stag until he has to go. The first day, his half-built creation had ‘gone for recycling’ at the end of the day; when he came back and it wasn’t there he had set to and rebuilt it, and this time it was saved overnight – he’s back again today and is very intent on his task. He finishes just as the event does, and proudly displays his creature. He then has to go home on the tram (he was late yesterday, we expected him to be grounded!) and so leaves it, content that he has finished it at last. He takes the last of the ‘giveaways’ with him.


Time to pack up. The tent is stripped down in about 45 minutes, all the stands a mass of frantically packing people. We say a sad farewell to Eric and Delphine (and leave her with the last of the marshmallows!) The organizer is delighted – she reckons we’ve had 11,700 people through the tent since opening on Friday (I don’t know where the numbers came form, but there was semi-controlled entry, so maybe it’s not too much a case of creative accounting.) I reckon we’ve seen at least 700 to 800 of them on our stand(s) over the three days. She wants one of our stags for her office, and we give her my little fellow, as he’s small enough to fit and strong enough to have survived this far. I’m glad – I didn’t want to witness the moment when he would be broken up and sent for recycling. OK, so I’m daft! It’s not news!

The three of us head back to the hotel, to clean up and relax. From my window, I watch a distant plane draw a contrail across the clear blue sky, and am staggered that we have only been here four days; it seems much longer.
Then it’s out for supper at the tavern at the back of the square – a seafood and local produce place, wonderful langoustine bisque, steak the way I like it (shown to the grill briefly), and a large measure of beer. We make plans for our sightseeing trip tomorrow – Liz wants to do a walking tour, Lucy wants to see the astronomical clock at the cathedral, I want to do the river trip. The shoe shops are also exerting a certain call on Liz…

We agree to meet up at the cathedral at 12.15-ish, and take it from there. We leave the tavern, which has suddenly turned into THE place to watch the football, and head back across the square, early for a change. Above the Music Hall, small shapes are flickering back and forth. Bats, chasing moths drawn in by the lights illuminating the building at night. It’s air combat to rival anything previously seen in the skies over France, wingtip turns, dives and barrel rolls. The bats don’t have it all their own way, the moths drop like stones to evade their pursuers, sending the bats off course, skimming the roof tiles at high speed.

We watch, the only ones on the square looking up.

“Another Ten Hours of Fractured French …” - 14 October

And that pretty much sums it up – 9.00 am to 7.00 pm, straight through with no breaks! There is a phenomenal stream of people coming through the exhibits. One woman asks if we are to be a regular feature in Strasbourg – ‘the children need something like this, something to do, to gain their interest.’ More teachers ask for details of the activities. The second projector produced has no more effect than the first; the projector screen looks unused and lonely, and Eric and I decide to go for Plan B. I design a poster, and he translates it, we stick pieces of A4 together and I draw it out, and together we stick it up on the screen. It explains the rationale behind what we are doing on the stand, the theory behind ‘Simple Science’. My paper stag stands atop the wooden booth at the front of the stand, inviting explanation.



Outside, the Saturday morning school groups are head-to-head building stags. Security Man David shakes his head, and grins. Gradually the school groups give way to families, all ages involved in serious stag creation. Elegantly clad ladies crouch, sticky tape in hand, as their children get down to the serious business of rolling lengths of newsprint. I’ve wrecked my thumbnail taking staples out of papers, and today have brought my nail clippers to take up the duty. At home, I’d have had my penknife, but there are some things that just won’t pass airport security!



The herd grows bigger. Even Bill Oddie and Simon King haven’t got this many beasts in their AutumnWatch programme. Fortunately, ours are silent, although their makers aren’t; constant chatter and laughter mark the place outside the tent beside the monument. One teenage girl remarks that it’s the first time she’s had fun in this place. It’s not all children. Adult groups take part too; some serious paper engineering resulting in fine, upstanding creations with multiple-branching antlers – here, Lucy presents one of the finest of the morning.

And so it goes on, all day. Our French improves, more in desperation than by skill, and every so often we check our newly-produced lists of ‘words we need’ with Eric and/or Delphine. By the time 7.00 pm rolls around, we’re shattered, and head back to our hotel. I realise I haven’t mentioned this so far – not having had much time to think beyond paper and photographs.
It’s very nice, the Kleber Hotel, just off the square beside the crossing of the two tram lines. Each room is individually ‘themed’, and named as well as numbered – a blessing to the confused visitor. My room overlooks the tram station, at Homme du Fer (named after the first train), and is decorated in grape colours – fresh green and deep aubergine-purple. There is a flat screen TV – it’s taken me until now to find the French-speaking stations, to try and find a weather forecast. I’m surprised at how warm it is, 20C on the first day, and it stays pretty much the same throughout, although mornings are slightly cooler and misty. The heat means I leave the windows open, and all night long, if I wake, I can hear the soft rumble of the trams as they cross the junction below.

They blow their horns to warn of their approach, but seem to suspend this in the small hours – not for a lack of people, for the streets seem constantly busy – starting again at around 6.00 am. Liz is less fortunate – her room is near what is probably an air-conditioning plant, and is constantly noisy. Lucy has a room with two double beds, and we threaten her with being the venue for an all-night party on the last night.

We head for the Tête du Lard again for dinner. Tomorrow is the last day of the festival, and we work from 2.00 until 6.00 pm, and then do the final clear up – a short day, and an opportunity for a little sightseeing in the morning. Or for a lie in!

Paper Trees and Challenging Stags - 13 October

Hmm, Friday the 13th.
Actually, that’s usually a good day in my family and so it is today - my luggage has finally arrived! Oh, the joy of using my usual toothpaste - relegated to the hold baggage by security restrictions, along with shampoo and moisturiser- little things gain unexpected significance.

We open to the public at the tent in Place Broglie at 10.00 am, and it’s pretty constant from then on, with troops of visiting school children until lunchtime, followed by families in the afternoon and early evening. Our activities for this day, and the rest of the weekend, are constructing paper trees using only four A4 pieces of (recycled) paper and scissors- ‘pas de scotch, pas de colle’ as I grow used to explaining - and making ‘Highland Stags’ from newspaper and tape - papers cannot be cut or torn, and the tallest is the winner. All deer should have antlers, ideally branching, and both trees and stags should be free-standing. It’s an exercise in strength of construction, in counterbalance and cross-bracing, in planning and thinking through a design, and in the subsequent execution. We also relate it to the actual living things, to the shape and structure of a tree, with the roots to hold it up and a strong trunk, and to the way a stag has a strong neck to balance the spread of the antlers. Simple materials, simple ideas, and more complex than it appears. It’s a far cry from much of the other stuff that’s going on at the fair - we are next door to a wonderful solar-powered oven, designed for use in Central Africa to reduce the deforestation for fuel, and opposite us, something looking at all the things that cause pollution in homes - there is a particularly disturbing picture of a dust mite! There are stands promoting solvent-free glues and mastics, medicines, and to be quite frank, a lot of stuff that is beyond my dodgy translations! Much of the ‘hands on’ involves looking at pictures, down microscopes and doing quizzes, as far as I can make out. Which makes us even more of an oddity!

We are constantly asked what we are doing, how and why is this science, and when we explain, it’s like a light-bulb going on - teachers in particular want details of the activities to use for themselves.
Our fragile French is bolstered by the arrival of the inestimable Eric. He is serious, meticulous, and dedicated to correcting our linguistic mistakes.
He’s also great to have around - our explanations to visitors are often punctuated by cries of ‘Eric, what’s the word for…’ and he’s utterly unflappable.
Lunch is taken on the run - Liz dives out to the bakers for baguettes - and the paper forest grows steadily.

Outside, the herd of stags is also growing, much to the amusement of passers-by and the security man, David, who shakes his head in gentle Gallic derision. Lucy is brilliant at conveying what to do by means of a broad smile and one-word exclamations. ‘Voila! Formidable!’
‘Say it with conviction’ she says ‘…and you get away with a lot!’
The solvent-free glue man is entranced, and brings offerings of apple tart. I can’t resist having a go at building a stag of my own – he’s not the tallest of beasties, but quite stable and not a bad-looking lad, if I say so myself!

The trees seem to be the favourite of the smaller children, whist the adolescents - and later, adults - seem to enjoy the stags, often competing between groups to see who can make the tallest. Liz and Lucy are kept on the hop measuring and recording, and awarding prizes. I go between activities, taking pictures and updating the rolling slideshow - the projector fails utterly, so we have two laptops constantly showing pictures from the activities in Scotland and in France. In between cursing the vagaries of technology under my breath, I help out Annette and Eric with trees. In the middle of the afternoon, Annette turns into Joanna, also from the BA in London, a running handover punctuated by tree building. Joanna bravely dons the red t-shirt we all wear as ‘uniform’ (we look like a mis-matched punnet of tomatoes) and dives in.
In a similar vein, at 5.00 pm Eric turns into his sister Delphine - or rather she takes over the shift - she’s bouncier, less serious, and quite an artist in her own right - she has to have a go at making a paper tree - with astonishing results.


Suddenly it’s 7.00 pm, and it’s over for the day. We stagger as far as the café next to our hotel for dinner, and at some point before we collapse into bed, Lucy comes up with the title of tomorrow’s diary entry…….

Marshmallows and Spaghetti – 12 October

Morning arrives far too soon. After breakfast, we head out into the gathering daylight, to take the tram to our first destination.

The cathedral rises beyond Place Kleber, shrouded in the early mist. It’s busier than I would have imagined this early, with people heading out for their work, and the tram – a modern, sleek and very clean machine – full of commuters. We are heading south of the city, to a secondary school– to deliver our first workshop; building towers from dry spaghetti and mini-marshmallows (see, I told you I’d tell you why Lucy’s luggage was full of them!).

What’s this to do with science? Well, it is a great way to teach the basic principles of engineering – strong shapes (triangles) versus weak (squares), material limitations (the marshmallows can only take so much!), task constraints (limited materials), and the need for precision (you need to make sure your spaghetti strands are broken to the same length, or suffer the consequences in terms of tower instability). Using simple materials makes it very accessible, and the sheer daftness of some of the ideas makes it a lot of fun. We have to explain this many times over the next few days, starting with the contact teacher at our first school.

Annette is the picture of calm, armed with maps and directions, and we alight from the tram on a wide street, tree-lined and cool. A brief consultation and we make our way to our destination. The sun is starting to break through as, at ten to nine, we arrive at the school gates, and the mist begins to clear.

It’s not quite what we were led to expect – we thought we were operating throughout in the International Schools, where most of the children speak English. Not so. Is this the time to explain that none of us is fluent in French? This school is in an Educational Priority Zone (ZEP) – which means a certain level of deprivation, and a certain level of - umm – how do you put it in this age of political correctness? – behavioural challenge. Apparently. In fact, we didn’t see it – the kids were great. Admittedly they looked at us as if we were mad to start with, but in this job you get used to that. They listened carefully, they grinned, and they set to with a will. And made some wonderful structures.


We had two classes at the secondary school, before heading back into town for lunch, (having had no dinner, by this time we were ravenous!) - and a date with the International School in the afternoon – three classes of primary level children, from five years up. Now, we haven’t done this with kids that young before, so it’s a challenge! We decide, for the youngest, to make triangles and squares, and take it from there – and they came up with some terrific constructions; the main problem was preventing them from eating the marshmallows, even though they had been on the floor by then. Fortunately, English is the main language here and we can explain in more detail why not! It was still an extremely sticky experience for all of us, and I hope the school cleaners will forgive us…


School finishes at 4.30 pm and we take our leave, heading back to the tram and to Place Broglie, where the Strasbourg Fête de la Science is taking place over the next three days. Two long tents in the middle of the market place, one for talks and one for stands; we discover that we have one small booth in which to do both workshops – building trees from paper without using tape or glue or staples, and building stags from whole sheets of newspaper and sticky tape – both aiming to make the tallest construction possible. It just ain’t possible in the allocated space (given that the nuclear physicists next door have nicked six inches of our space anyway!). One activity will have to go outside – which makes our original plan of two or three to do the activities at a time while the other takes a break rather unlikely. We are due to get a couple of students to help with translations, which is a blessing!



We set up as best we can, although it turns out that the projector provided to show the running slideshow (my job) doesn’t cope well with sunshine. By 7.30 pm we’ve done as much as we can, and head back to the hotel, to clean up and check on our luggage. Liz and Lucy’s has arrived – mine is still stranded in limbo somewhere….I go to wash out things for tomorrow.

We are recommended a place called ‘La Tête du Lard’ for dinner. To British ears this sounds a little off-putting, but it turns out to be excellent. We try the local speciality, ‘Tarte Flambée’ – like a very thin pizza with bacon and onions and – well, a selection of other things, such as cheese or mushrooms. Delicious! And an alcoholic ice-cream sort of dessert, and – because we obligingly moved halfway through to accommodate a large group – a complimentary glass of wine from the management!
Tomorrow we need to be back at the tent for 9.00 am, so head back to the hotel and bed.

Here Comes the Night – 11 October

With a ‘thunk’, the wheels retract, and we climb from a damp, grey landscape into nothingness. Outside the window, blank grey-white. Inside, a narrow aisle lies between the leather-look padded seats, one to the left, two to the right. We swallow hard, equalising the pressure in our ears as the plane climbs, lifting above the thick rolls of stratus into a gap between the layers, the sky brightening as we ascend. Suddenly we pop out into sunlit blueness, over a fuzzy white blanket that covers the whole of Britain.
‘The weather’s better up here’ I try a half-hearted joke to cover my apprehension. The ironic secret is, I’m not that keen on flying. I gaze out of the window to take my mind off what I know of flaps and ailerons, lift and control procedures. I’m not reassured to see another aircraft away to port, leaving a clear contrail in the thin air. Sunlight paints it white, glinting off metal.
We’re heading for France. Strasbourg, by way of Paris (Charles de Gaulle), to be exact. It’s part of the European Science Festival, and we are Britain’s contribution to the year-long series of events, where each participating nation sends a team to another country to demonstrate ‘science activities’ for schools and the general public. ‘We’ are Liz, Lucy and myself, from Scotland, representing the British Association for the Advancement of Science (the BA), and we’ll be delivering some of the activities that have been used during North-East Scotland’s National Science Week over the last three years. Which is why Lucy’s cabin baggage is full of mini-marshmallows. And mine contains a laptop computer which makes it weight half a ton. And I think Liz has more marshmallows in her luggage, too. I’ll explain why later!

I continue to look out of the window, contemplating catching a few minutes sleep; it’s been a long day already, helping to run a training session for teachers on how school grounds can be used throughout the curriculum, and I could use the downtime. Outside, the sun is going down, a glory of coral and gold to starboard, catching the tops of the few clouds that rise above the flat layer below our wings. Away to port, where sky meets cloud, a thick dark-blue line runs straight as a ruler from north to south, moving inexorably towards us.
The terminator.
Not Big Arnie, but the edge of night, hastening across the face of the Earth as it turns away from the sunlight. Cumulonimbus rise below, edged in pink and gold, sending long blue shadows out towards the onset of darkness. I guess we’re somewhere over the Channel by now, and beginning our long descent towards Paris. No stars yet, but a deepening blueness, the last few glancing rays of light catch the tops of the cloud as we slide back down into the featureless nothing. The hard bump of clear-air turbulence rocks the plane, marking the gap between cloud layers. The flash of strobe lighting and navigation lights is the only illumination as we find more cloud and sink ever downwards.

No stars? Below lie constellations, glittering rivers of light and nebular clusters against the blackness of the land. I glance to starboard and am struck by the shimmering lights of the Eiffel Tower – good grief – it’s just there - just like its picture…
I’m still feeling faintly amused by my ridiculous reaction when we are instructed to fasten seatbelts for landing.

Wheels down, flaps down, bump. We slow down gradually, lights racing too fast for comfort past the wingtips. Taxiways lead inexorably towards hardstanding.
‘Passengers for Strasbourg and Pau will be met at the foot of the aircraft steps.’ We exchange baffled glances.
Right enough, we are met by a man in a yellow jacket, who hastens us and our cabin baggage aboard a minibus, and takes off across the airfield as if in the Paris-Dakar rally. We have very little time to make our connecting flight, and we have been battling a headwind all the way south from Aberdeen. This is how Air France solves the problem – personal escort by a charming chap called Pascal, who guides us all the way, reassuring us that it isn’t far, we will catch our flight, all is well… Charles de Gaulle is a vast airport – we’re at terminal 2F, we need to be at terminal 2D, but we need to go via 2B to go through immigration – and we must hike from 2B to 2D, which is no small distance. Red-faced and sweaty, I follow the ever-calm Pascal, who, true to his word, delivers us to the check-in for our onward connection to Strasbourg. We join the queue, which seems to be going nowhere.

This is perhaps the point to relate that Liz has a long history of being separated from her luggage on overseas trips.

The flight to Strasbourg goes without a hitch, an Airbus conveys us to our destination in wide-bodied comfort and around 45 minutes. We reach the baggage hall, and wait.
And wait.
One lone suitcase is left to make the endless circuit of the conveyor belt. It’s not one of ours. A lady from the airport comes to meet us. Our luggage has not arrived, it is still in Paris, it will be put on the first flight in the morning; if we could just accompany her and give some details? Dutifully, we do as asked. She gives us overnight survival packs, and tells us to call her if there has been no result within 24 hours.
We slump into a taxi to our hotel, and the lights of Strasbourg pass pretty much unheeded. It’s after 11.00 pm, local time, when we arrive, and meet up with Annette, who is the representative of the BA’s Head Office, and who has done the recce for tomorrow’s school visits. Breakfast at 7.00 am. I stagger into the shower in my room, and turn it on full blast, thanking whatever small household god drove me to pack a spare t-shirt, travel towel and clean set of underwear around the laptop in my cabin baggage.
Sleep, to the rumble of the city trams.

Bee in his Bonnet?

The new postman doesn’t like my garden. There are too many things in it. He leaves me notes – ‘can you cut back your bushes because of the bees’. He threatens to leave my post at other houses. I feel like saying – you’re a postman, you should be brave – after all, what about dogs? Surely a few bees aren’t a problem? They don’t want to bite your ankles! If I’m home, I see him bending down as he pass the window, preparing to duck under the honeysuckles that run along the wall and over the front door - and incidentally act as a porch, giving shelter when I come home in the rain and am grovelling about in my bag or pocket trying to find my keys. He doesn’t like the honeysuckle 'massive'. It has bees. And moths. And spiders. And various other wildlife. It shelters my snails. And one part of it has big blousy cream and pink flowers in summer, and the other has smaller, delicate white and cream flowers in the early spring, sometimes when the snow is still on the ground, and it defies the worst of the weather.
I don’t think he likes the fuchsia bush by the gate either. From small beginnings it has grown to about two metres in height, and three wide, and at this time of year it’s dripping with red and purple flowers, humming with honey and bumble bees, a clarion call of colour as the sere shades of autumn creep into the rest of the garden. But it doesn’t get in the way. It’s been trimmed back so it doesn’t hang too far over the wall, or get in the way as you come through the gate. There’s a clematis somewhere in the mix as well, a small-flowered blue alpine one, with feathery seed-heads late in the season. This also defies the weather and the salt wind to surprise me with its delicacy and toughness.
The last postman liked my garden – since he’s retired (and taken the job of school crossing guard) he also delivers papers, and we swap gardening thoughts and seeds as the year goes round.

But we all have to get on, and so every so often, I trim the honeysuckle. But not very often!

Aliens in the Undergrowth

Damp mornings, heavy with dew. Cobwebs - or to give it the local name, slammach, - hangs wet on the gorse bushes like pieces of cloud ripped off and caught up in the spines. Cows loom out of the fog, strange in the half-light. And in the undergrowth, something odd is appearing. Overnight, they have appeared, aliens from another world. They troop through the woodlands, small trolls transfixed by daylight, or raise their strange heads through the grass of suburban lawns. One or two are breaking through the pavement in the village. Others emerge from the bark of trees, or cluster in whispering congregations as the rain drips from the leaves on their heads, raising small clouds of fine dust to be carried away on the slightest breeze. They are friends, killers, and clean-up merchants.

Fungi.

It’s a great time of year for them, and after the warm summer, this damp autumn has brought them out in their hundreds. Much misunderstood, coveted by some and reviled by others, it’s time they had a proper place in our everyday lives. In fact they do - we just aren’t aware of it most of the time.
So, some years ago, a group of us got together to develop a programme for schools which looks at the wonderful weirdnesses that are fungi, to help children understand how they grow, and their place in the natural and unnatural world around us.

This week has seen ‘The Good, the Bad and the Fungi, 2006’. (Yes, I know! Groan!!) We have discovered spores and how they travel, how they grow into fungi, the mystical world of mycelium, how fairy rings develop, how the fungus got its spots. We have come face to face with a wide variety of the real thing - the red and white fly agaric waiting for the fairytale to begin: white-weeping ugly milk caps: the solid shelf of the birch polypore: clusters of yellow sulphur tuft: the delicate glistening white of porcelain fungus, high above our heads on the dead branch of a beech tree: the blotches of tar spot, breaking down the fallen sycamore leaves, and a host of others. We have discovered how fungi help trees and other plants to grow by exchanging mineral salts for food, how they break down dead material, and how some can kill through parasitism. We’ve considered how this fits into the environment, how dead wood provides food and shelter for other creatures and how fungi fit into food webs. We’ve played parachute games, blown up balloons, made badges, discovered the small beasties that appear when you leave fungi to rot - and we’ve had to clean up some of the aftermath too!

And we’ve learned to look very carefully into the undergrowth.

Equinox Days

Swallows improvise
A coda to the summer
On telephone wires

The opening bars
herald autumn’s symphony,
a fanfare of geese.

I’ve been doing a bit of time travelling over the past couple of weeks - my own personal TARDIS being a combination of my car and the road between North East Scotland and East Yorkshire. Unexpected necessity means I have been up and down twice in three weeks - eight hours each way gives time to observe the passing landscape.

It’s a bit of a contest between summer and autumn - which is further advanced? Earlier in the year, as the harvest was being gathered in, south was well ahead of north - now, with the turning of the season and the rapidly shortening days, it has swapped over, and the north has the autumnal ascendancy. Travelling up and down, I find myself moving between the seasons. Here in the North, the leaves are already falling, crisp brown and yellow, filling the guttering and clogging the drains. The autumn fogs lie heavy, hiding the hills and clinging in the river valleys, clammy in the residual warmth. Wearing a jacket keeps out the wet, but is too warm yet for comfort.

South, in the one short week between my visits to Mum’s place, her Virginia creeper changed colour from green to crimson, scarlet and orange, burning up the side of the house in one last defiant outburst. The leaves there haven’t fallen yet, but will soon lie in brilliant drifts along the driveway, waiting for the garden vacuum and the collection bags where they will lie through the winter, turning into rich leaf-mould for the garden. The hedgehog leaves tracks in the heavy dew on the lawn, but we haven’t seen her recently - too busy with motherhood, we suspect. The hedgehog box will be installed soon, to provide a snug retreat for her winter hibernation.

The country seems to have been split; south of the border the summer lingers with sunshine days and kick-off-the-duvet nights. Driving through it reveals ploughed fields and stubble, and the last calves of the year with their mothers. As the evening descends, straw bales rise like ancient monoliths, black against deepening blue. North of the divide, there is rain. The sky hangs low, like a grubby wet dishcloth, spray and rain mingling on the roads. Safety lies only in the dim gleam of red tail-lights, for little else can be seen through the mist. Returning home, I wonder if there has been a power cut - even the flares from the gas terminal are invisible in the thickness of the murk - only the occasional glow of houses as I pass reassures me that there is still a world beyond my windscreen.

Evening’s fading light
shows monsters in the hedgerows.
Gorse becoming ghoul.

In my eye’s corner
tree becomes giant, stone wall
turns to crocodile.

Sunlight cannot show
this hidden face of the land
only dusk reveals.