It may or may not be an urban myth that the Eskimos have a huge number of words for snow. After a week walking the sands of the Dyfi estuary in mid Wales, I am sure that the Welsh should have at least as many words for sand. Fine sand, medium sand, coarse sand – this doesn’t do justice to the wide expanses of the stuff that fill this beautiful estuary. We stood on the dunes at the estuary entrance on Day 1, looked across the flats towards the far distant head and gulped at the prospect of visiting tens of grid points between here and there over the next few days.
There were small ripples that were hard underfoot, soft underfoot, dry, wet. Mega-ripples Continue reading
We had the first meeting to organise this year’s Haddington triathlon the other night. With all the new building that has gone on in Haddington in recent years and associated changes to road layouts, we have decided to alter the run route this year to separate the cyclists and runners at a few dangerous bottlenecks. One of our number is going to go out with my GPS to measure the proposed new route.
It seems that most of the Irish Sea – well, the seabed – has just arrived in my back yard, as a result of one of the quotes I did last week. If I had my camera, which I 
mislaid at Dunbar last week, I would show you what it looks like and why I am scared, very scared! It is one thing seeing a spreadsheet with a list of numbers of buckets and jars – quite another seeing it in the flesh. Meanwhile, I’m trying to get my microscope serviced and clear my cubby hole in the utility room where it looks like I’ll be spending rather a lot of the next couple of months. It’s the sort of thing I’d much rather do over the winter, but we can’t be choosy.