Friday 10th July - catching up

Bev continued to be disabled by a dry cough from time to time, causing her to have to rush out of several papers, so she eventually mostly abandoned attendance and got on with preparing her own, which was delivered on Friday morning, after we'd heard from Carolyn Lawrence, author of the Roman Mysteries. Bev's paper was successfully delivered and generated 15 mins of useful questioning. She was kind enough to thank her "personal assistant" for support.

On Friday afternoon we went ruin-chasing, down to Carmarthen Castle which I'd discovered on Thursday when I picked up the hire car. We'd waited 3 hours for the bus in Carmarthen on

 Sunday, 100 metres from the castle, and didn't realise it was there. Reaching its peak in about 1230, it was fought over several times before being abandoned in the 1600's.

On the way out of Carmarthen we investigated the Roman Amphitheatre, in amazing condition considering it was buried when discovered in 1928 during road-widening (which sliced off half of it). 

Back in Lampeter we found our way up to a tiny lake above the town; Martin, one of the College porters, had earlier driven me up as well as driving around Lampeter. He'd lived in Manly for a year about 10 years ago

Lampeter

Sunday 5th

We had our first ride in a London cab almost by necessity. First we were laden with bags full of books. Second, despite leaving plenty of time to transfer from the tube to Paddington station, we found that many tube stations/lines were out of action on Sunday morning due to maintenance.

We had a great train trip from Paddington, including a glimpse of the chalk horse for quite some distance. The coastline around Pembrokshire – from Swansea to Carmarthen is very pretty with unusually vast areas of beach, presumably because the tide was out. The train ride was followed by a too-fast bus ride from Carmarthen to Lampeter. The bus ride was scary. The hedge-lined roads are as wide as 2 buses, and the driver was going mostly about as fast as I'd go on a bike; much faster than I'd dare in a car. Wales so far is lovely; green rolling hills, hedge-bounded lanes, white sheep with black faces and lots of flower baskets hanging out the front of the shops and houses. These really brighten up the landscape when the sky is grey.  

Looking forward to the next week when we’ll be based in one place for the whole week. We’ve just got into Lampeter and set up in our room in the Thomas Lloyd Building of UW Lampeter. It is spacious student digs, with twin bed room, small sitting room and bathroom. The college grounds are leafy and green and wet at the moment from 20 minutes of rain that fell as we arrived. Another benefit of being here is that we'll have internet on all the time. We need to check that Federer wins at Wimbledon and follow the Tour de France which has just begun.  

Monday 6th
We were still pretty dopey last night. Heads are now clearing, like the weather. The rain/sun comes and goes quickly today, making a walk or run a chancey venture.

I'll bus back into Carmarthen to pick up a car on Thursday PM. This week I'm at rest, while Bev attends the conference sessions and polishes up her paper and Powerpoint presentation. I'm planning walks and runs. Actually Bev isn’t too well with cold symptoms increasing and a dry cough causing some real problems. A medical visit may be needed.

Lampeter hill run
On Monday afternoon the rain finally cleared for long enough that I could set off on a run. Headed South across Steffan's Bridge carrying camera phone which was also GPS. Found the longest hill I've ever run up, over 6km of continual upslope. 15km altogether for the run, but my left knee has suffered badly. All Tuesday I was going up and down stairs sideways without bending the left leg.

Bev managed to get an appointment at the local medical surgery on Tuesday at 11 and now has a ventolin puffer and some thick black cough suppressant. She’s quite crook and has to have the afternoon off from the conference sessions. (In fact she got to less than 1 day out of the first 4.)

Hill Forts walk

By Wednesday afternoon I was able to join a group on a walk out of Lampeter to find some iron-age hill forts. We missed the first trail marker and spent about an hour climbing barbed-wire fences, but eventually found our way back to the trail. A selection of photos is on my Picasa site at 

http://picasaweb.google.com/russpennell/LampeterWalk#

Cambridge

Fast train up to Cambridge Saturday morning, arriving at 9.30. Seemed a quiet town for the first hour, and we had a walk around Christs College in silence.

This being C. Darwin's 200th birthday year, Christs was an appropriate place to start. Christs makes a big fuss that C. Darwin was here as an undergraduate, preserving his name on the room allocations and recently creating a garden with his young image in situ.

Shortly after, the crowds descended upon Cambridge like a flock of pigeons, making our walk something of a disaster compared to the quiet ramble Rob and Tess seem to have had. Why? 

1) Saturday 2) warm 3) early July rather than May. For whatever of these reasons, there were thousands of punters and noisy ramblers, which rather detracted from the expected old-world charm.

Quiet punting on the Cam has been made a money-spinner, and too much of this good thing has destroyed itself. This shot has 13 punts in it, 3 of which have just collided, and was taken when we were on a small un-named bridge behind Trinity, viewing to the South. The stone bridge visible is Garret Hostel Lane, so I think Clare is beyond the bridge. That's a frame from a video taken with my still camera. I've taken too much video over the last few days. Means I've missed out on a lot of possible scenery images because the video res is too low for later still enjoyment.

Had a quieter time in the Darwin Endless Forms Exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, after we found that two Greek/Roman museums Bev wanted to visit were both undergoing renovations. Still, the closure notice on one advised us of its website URL, (http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/museum) so we can follow that up now we're back online. Bev also scored a lovely William Morris wallpaper print wrapped on an aluminium waterbottle, and later tracked down the CUP Bookshop for further research and expenditure.

A few days in London

We had a conventional flight over, other than the pleasure of an Airbus 380, with just a bit more elbow room, and seat locations that we had some control over pre-flight, so we could choose 2 on an aisle. Clearly quieter than the 747 we had for the New York trips, so much that our noise-cancelling headphones were almost unnecessary. Brief stop-off in Singapore; impressive terminal.

We set off for the British Museum after a bag-drop at the hotel, St Giles in Bloomsbury,

 but found other sites of interest as well. We hadn't packed for the 30 degree days we had in London, expecting legendary English weather, so were uncomfortable at times. Things got better later in Wales, where we had a week of cold rain.

Note the second band from the bottom!

Visited St Martins in the Fields

 but decided we didn't have time for the concerts.

Had dinner with Adam Buckmaster, the son of my cousin Frances, who we'll be staying with for a few days in Poole the week after next. He took us out to Camden Lock after dinner, then to a very noisy pub which asked us to move inside at 11 PM. At that, we huffed off and found a bus home.

Next morning went to Tate Britain art gallery to meet Elaine and Martin Jenkins and view the Richard Long Heaven and Earth exhibition. Could be life-changing, if you don't mind a long walk. 

Later they walked us up to Parliament.