And we're back

Firstly, thank you to all my friends and family at home who have made the last few weeks a wonderful, if rather chilly, break! Great to see you and my apologies to those who I didn't catch before I left, particularly those in England who I'd hoped to get over and see. Next time, all being well!

As has been pointed out on a few occasions since I've been home, by at least one person, this Blog has not been updated in some time. On hiatus, temporarily suspended, sitting on pause. However, contrary to certain views, it has not been discontinued, as this post conclusively proves (kinda). It's just been superceded on the priority list for an extended period. To make life a little easier and to improve the odds of it being updated once in a blue moon, the posts will be a fair bit shorter and split up if necessary.

There's quite a bit happened since June, so I'll give up writing in real time and dot back and forward with random bits and pics.

So, since the bit of this blog that really matters is the photos, here are a couple from Hong Kong I happened to find in my Outbox.

[This is the view from Victoria Peak, the highest ground on Hong Kong island (but not in the entire Hong Kong region). A short funicular railway takes you to the giant Wok, providing the world's best 360 degree panoramas from a culinary implement. Hong Kong is occasionally described as an Asian counterpart to New York, though it has quite a different feel in many ways. In fact, it has 2000 more high rises than NYC despite its smaller population! This is looking North-West; the dark building near the middle is in the top 10 highest skyscrapers]


[Same place, different direction, believe it or not. This is looking South-East. Not many people who haven't visited are aware that, despite it's small size and large population, over 70% of Hong Kong is rural, containing beautiful mountains, forests and beaches]


[Busy market street in Kowloon, these stalls went on for the best part of a mile, threading through various streets. The camera was bought in Stanley St, a place famous for camera bargains, but apparently not always as cheap as Argos! That tip'll save you a 12 hour flight for a new SLR]

By the way, I got back to NZ fine, just in case you've got this far and are still wondering!

All the best
P

Christchurch Marathon

[Christchurch Marathon begins - a few of the near 5000 runners passing the starting line between the Town Hall and Conference Centre. You get an impression of how cold it was from the clothing! As it happens, Christchurch, being very flat, has one of the world's fastest marathons with numbers of marathon runners achieving their best times here. This year, the world record time for the fastest superhero was broken by Robin (of Batman fame) in just under 2:44. Gotham City can sleep safer knowing the Duo can even protect against competitive marathon runners]
As mentioned previously, last week involved a trip to Christchurch, to watch some friends run the half-marathon & 10km run. Thank you to them for the lift, company and their relatives for a place to stay on Sunday night!

Lovely scenery on the way up - it often seems to get a bad press from New Zealanders as it is a lot flatter than the rest of the country, but really it isn't wildly different from the countryside in, say, Lincolnshire and is actually pretty scenic if you aren't desperate for lots of hills. Not to mention the great views of the Southern Alps in the distance for most of the way along the East coast.

[If I remember rightly, this should be looking due West up the Waitaki River to some of the mountains in the distance behind - I'm told that this, politically and historically, marks the beginning of the South (of the South Island)]

Christchurch is considerably bigger than Dunedin, having about 1/2 population of, for example, the Belfast metropolitan area. However, I haven't had enough time to find out much about the city, having spent most of my time there watching marathon runners struggling through the Winter winds! Saying that, I did stay in a hostel in the middle of town on one of the two nights, which I can highly recommend - Charlie B's. The staff were very friendly, nice old building and I found the facilities plentiful and clean. Great job.
[Punting on the Avon - I've heard it said that Christchurch is one of the most English cities outside of the UK and it felt a lot like I could have been wandering through, say, Bristol on an November afternoon. A lot of the architecture and ideas are distinctly English, even as opposed to the other Home Countries though, as you can see above, it contains an interesting fusion of ideas from around the country. I have to say I really liked what I saw of the city-centre.]

[Christchurch Cathedral - this photo shows the Cathedral sitting in the middle of Cathedral Square, a central landmark in the city. Apparently the name Christchurch was suggested by a certain Oxonian though, according to a plaque on the Cathedral wall, there were no shortage of Christ Church alumni there at the time to put it the idea forward! I was fortunate to be able to get to the Sunday Evensong on Pentecost, thanks to the help of friends. It brought back many memories of Corpus being, aside from the Sermon, word-for-word the same service from the Elizabethan prayer-book! Christchurch Cathedral also has a particularly good choir and it was great to have the opportunity to hear them too]

Incidentally, I'm aware that I haven't mentioned much about what it's been moving from the academic system in the UK to NZ recently, which is much of the point of this Blog. My excuse is that I'm still finding out! In summary though, the general approach seems a lot closer to the UK than, say, most European or American universities, as I had expected. Still, to avoid running too long, I'll save that for the next post and simply stick a couple of photos onto the end (the other point of this Blog)!

[Bridge in centre of Christchurch, possibly off Oxford Terrace?]

[Evening light on way back to Dunedin]
[Some coast close to Palmerston a little outside Dunedin - not the much larger Palmerston North, which would be a considerable detour to the North Island!]
[Dunedin from somewhere above the Leith Valley - you can just about see the Harbour there and the University is probably between the crest of the house-filled hill below it and the shoreline. Knox is in line with the furthest left houses but on the dark green hill beyond.]

PS I've experimented doing captions in grey - if this makes it harder to read, let me know!

PPS Thank you to those who have emailed and I intend to get back to you asap - this will fill in some blanks until I do :)

Capping

A lot happens in a month and a bit - mostly reading journal articles and timetabling tutorials, but other stuff too.

Last week, I got the chance to attend a friend Jon's PhD graduation, which was quite an event. Otago makes a big effort for graduations and this particular one had 600 graduands processing down the street led bagpipers and senior University staff finishing with a ceremony in the town hall.

Jon and his family also very kindly invited me to the graduation dinner later and we ended up going to a lovely listed Gothic-style townhouse, converted for use as a small restaurant and B&B. Quite amazingly, it turned out to be called Lisburn House and run by a family from back home! Very impressed and the lady who ran front-of-house was great fun, so if you're looking for a special meal out, I'd highly recommend it.

In fact, "Capping" (that is, graduation) is a big thing here and there are lots of associated events and activities around it, not least the Capping Show, a run of skits, parodies and songs organised by students. It has plenty of offensive bits but also a lot of very funny parts and some remarkably talented performances. Quite a unique experience and amazing that it is largely student organised. In fact, it's been going for 115 years (or something like that) and the Selwyn Ballet has been part of it for 81 of them, so it's got a lot of precedent to live up to each time round!

[Front of the Capping procession. The pipers are clearly visible at the front, with the dignitaries directly following (including the Mayor in the middle) and the PhD candidates coming around the corner in maroon robes. There were about 500 graduands on this particular day, with more students being capped the two Saturdays afterwards) Normally there are a number of motorized floats produced by the different halls but, as a result of the fuss with the Toga Parade, that didn't happen this year]

[Inside Dunedin Town Hall with the graduands filing in. The seats on the stage were used by the academic staff and the Chancellor's chair is in the centre. The term 'Capping' arises as the Chancellor confers the degree by 'capping' each person in turn with a mortar board. (To clarify for Cambridge people, in Otago you shouldn't wear a mortar board until you've graduated, as far as I understand. I'm not sure what the rules are at QUB & UU)]

I should probably mention a bit about the maths - it's progressing, hard work but rewarding when it works out! At present I'm coding up a Navier-Stokes solver; for those of you who this means something to, you'll probably realise this could take me a little while, but it's largely an educational process.

In other news, Tutorials are getting very busy - this particular week the College has scheduled in or around 15 hours worth across all the courses we provide extra tuition for, as mid-year exams are beginning next week. All the best to those involved! Keeping me on my toes with markers, room allocation, student coordination and so on. Organisation isn't exactly something I'm naturally talented at (laugh away), so I'm still climbing the learning curve; we're getting there, just rather slowly.

On the next episode: Christchurch marathon (I finally leave Dunedin after 3 months) and some pretty pictures of the first view of the Southern Alps, once I actually get round to tagging the photos.

A final thank you to those who have been in touch and particularly to Mike (very belatedly) & Helen for their postcards!

PS This post has been written over the course of about a fortnight, in which context it may make a little more sense... maybe...

PPS A random picture of scenery, an autumnal day at Uni:

Where have I disappeared to?

One might wonder. Actually, the couple of weeks have been rather busy, so I'll try and sum up in a concise way.

Lots of Tutorial organising - it's been rather busy trying to find Tutors, rearrange Tutorials, sort out locations, find whiteboards, etc. etc. Beginning to work out a system for doing things, which is a great improvement on not having one.

PhD work has also been interesting - lots of reading at the moment but as someone who hasn't done a great deal of Applied Maths or Engineering, there's plenty to catch up on, not to mention the quantity of numerical methods I haven't used before. However, as with any subject, that's part of the motivation - learning. I've also successfully set up my computer with two monitors, so that's an achievement right there:

Also, thank you to Aunt Isabel, who has found and contacted me about a friend of hers that is an experienced researcher in the same field - amazing!

As to what I'm doing the rest of the time, the last three weekends have been great fun and I've taken well over 350 photos since the previous post. I'll include a smattering:
[This is a picture taken from near an ANZAC memorial on Otago Peninsula, which Greg kindly took me along for a trip to see. ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) Day is coming up on the 25th April and is a particularly important date in the calendar here. From what I've been told, it is much like Armistice Day in UK and there'll be a large number commemorative events and remembrance services run over that weekend.]

Incidentally, whin bushes (gorse) are everywhere here. It's very homely for me, but in NZ, gorse is seen as a pest which supplants endemic species. Looks nice though.


[This is a picture of the semi-industrial harbour area, just to contrast with the nice scenery - I think the cream building is the Cadbury's factory. While this all looks very flat, I'm actually standing on the continuation of the road on the right. Generally speaking, this is a very hilly area and while it may provide wonderful views, I'll have calves of steel by the time I get home.]


[This is a view towards the city centre looking roughly South, with the Pacific in the distance. The blue building just visible at the end of the middle road is one of the local Irish pubs - not bad to be honest but still slightly surreal.] [A nice view of Knox from the same hill as above, looking more Easterly. To the right are the Botanic Gardens which I walk through on the way to the Department. As you can see in the photo, Autumn has crept in and, given the hail and showers today, is now stamping with both feet. Summer seems well and truly over, though the weather is so variable, it could pick up all of a sudden. In the words of Eric Idle...]
[This is me at the top of the world's steepest residential street (Baldwin St), which I have just walked up and have expended so much effort leaning that, apparently, I can no longer stand up straight for a photo. It has an average gradient of 1:2.68 allegedly, which is pretty good going. There are several houses on the way down where people are selling 'I've climbed the world's steepest street' certificates from their garages. Some have expanded to pottery and the like, probably so people can take a break half-way up and buy something to make the journey feel more worthwhile.]

Anyway, I'd better run for dinner, so regards to all! Please keep in touch and apologies for my slowness in getting back to people - am working on it :)

Best
Phil

Trip to the Beach

Ok, admittedly this is a little while ago now, but I've been rather busy. The maths is beginning to get somewhere, slowly but surely and the Tutorials are creating a bit of work, trying to find Tutors for missing courses and so forth. All a bit hectic. Hence, just doing Blog now.

The photo above is from a little seaside trip last Sunday, helpfully was able to take one of the city buses across town and had a wonderfully sunny day to enjoy paddling in the Pacific for the first time. While I realise that it's not been to warm up North, if it's any consolation, there's an Autumn chill beginning to creep in here. Windy today, not much sign of the warm spell from the start of the week.

Still, another picture of the beach:

and one of the Pacific:
Incidentally, a picture of George St, one of the radial shopping streets from the town centre, called the Octagon. You can see the hard covers above the shop-fronts to keep off rain, running the whole way along the street from shop to shop. Very good idea.

Other eventful things this week? I met a Kea, the world's only alpine parrot, which came up and chatted to me as I walked past the Botanic Gardens' aviary. Surprisingly large.

Other than that, a fun evening on St Patrick's Day at the local Irish pub, 'The Bog' which had good live music and my first taste of Guinness since leaving the fair isle as well as a good night last night out for a friend's graduation drinks. Though a rather drunk guy I didn't know informed me that he didn't like my new haircut, which made me glad I'd only spent $12 on it (~4.50). I'll not post a photo for the moment.

Of course, the fairly significant news is that my second PhD tranche has arrived, the first one not to immediately disappear into bills. If you are planning to take a scholarship here, be aware that you'll have to confirm your start date on arrival and you can pay fees either from the 1st of the current month or of the following month. As scholarships are also tied to this, you get the choice of having two months scholarships close together, or having to wait until during the following month for your first one but as scholarships run for 36 months, it means one less at the end, bringing you up to the end of summer, when it may be rather useful!

Update: Actually, Greg (one of the lovely people in the SCR who is studying English Lit) suggested going for a quick drive this afternoon and we went out to the Peninsula & got some photos!

Here's one down the Harbour (in which you can see my cheap hair cut, oh well):
You can see by the colours in the water how shallow it is. In the time we were up there (less than half an hour) a sandbar had turned into an island with the tide going out.

So there you go, not much general information, but some pictures. I hope you've all had good weeks and if you get a chance to drop a wee line, it'd be great to hear from you on the far side of the world!

Phil

♫ '...9 to 5...' ♫

Beginning to get into a routine... up for breakfast between 7 and 7.30, studying starts about 9, lots of reading at the moment, then finishes dead on 5, to get my feet up for a while before 5.45 G+T in the Senior Common Room (SCR). Not G+T weather, mind you, but at least it's doing something more interesting than just being cloudy - apparently winds of up to 150kmph (93.2056788 mph or so) due. Which is odd given I'm still recovering from a minor sunburn last week. Though, all considered, it'll be a while before I next see summer, so live it up in the Northern Hemisphere there.

Anyway, enough about me, lets talk about what I'm doing :) . Senior Tutoring is going fine - students are turning up to Tutorials and they certainly appear to be going well. Thank you to the Tutors! Still getting to grips with what needs done and when, so everybody's patience and helpfulness has been appreciated.

As to maths, getting there gradually - lot of reading to do at the moment on (maths interlude here) BEM, marginal ice zone modeling, Very Large Floating Structure stuff, chemical composition of sea ice, which have varying degrees of proximity to what I'm actually expecting to be working on, but are, more importantly, helping get a background understanding of sea ice. I'm not sure I've actually ever seen any sea ice now that I think about it, so I need all the help I can get. I could go into more detail, but I imagine not that many others would be quite as interested :)

For anybody thinking of coming to do PhD, I would heartily recommend the University - there's a good set-up here and a practical support network. Otago's got a strong research reputation and is looking to build on it, so structures are good - there's even a postgrad college (Abbey Coll.) and regular postgrad events, seminars, etc. happen in various places across the uni. Moreover, I've come across roundabouts 5 separate places I can get free percolated coffee, between college, grad lounge and department. They know grads. All I need now is some Wii and big leather sofas... :)

Of course, being in a college, there's a community feel here that's good to come back to after a day of studying numerical analysis and I think it makes a considerable difference. Most undergrads live in for their first two years, though some colleges will have them for just one and, although they're free to come back for their third year as well, they tend to live out to save a bit of money and to experience the somewhat legendary Dunedin flatting experience. Not quite en suite student living in these flats (small houses) - normally no central heating or double glazing so it gets pretty Baltic in the depths of Winter, which I'm told is most of the year :) I'm quite happy with my prepared meals, comfy bed and "why yes, I would love another port, thank you for asking", if it came to the choice.

One strange thing I've noticed here is that everything seems to take place roughly an hour earlier than in the UK... breakfast is sometimes busier than lunch will be by 7.30am (wait, that's a lot more than an hour...), people are queuing for dinner well about half 5, most people head to bed about 11 unless it's a late night, then they're normally back by 2. And me not a morning person either. But, in all fairness, it makes sense - everybody gets to enjoy daylight hours and, especially given how big sport and exercise are around here (except wherever I am), it makes sense. I get the impression that almost everyone jogs. It's a bit of a reversal from the UK! It's strange saying things like, "I'm going to go for a walk up the hill" and being told it's compulsory to jog it. Suddenly busy, sorry.

Speaking of time, there's a pretty obvious gap in my spiel describing what happens from about 7 until bedtime. Well, if I'm Senior Tutoring, since it's the first week of Tutorials, I'll pop in to those and make sure everything's ticking along. Around that, I tend to be back to the Common Room to see what's happening there and then up to my room to do any housekeeping and relax until bed, unless there's a movie or something on. Wild, I am. Incidentally, I've just finished Dune (Frank Herbert, 1965) which Wikipedia tells me is the best selling Sci-Fi novel of all time. Very absorbing, some very cleverly written passages and a fascinating depth of thought. Can see shadows of some of the recurring themes it inspired in the genre. Sounds like I know what I'm talking about, doesn't it? Nope, but hey, I briefly felt like I was back at GCSE English all those years ago. Once was quite enough.

Now, time for some pictures (particularly for anybody scrolling down past the reams of text looking for the pictures - wise move, 1000 words, etc. etc. :] ). As alluded to above, I popped up Signal Hill last Sunday, which was a nice walk - cool cloudy day, which was nice for walking but the photos all look a bit washed out unfortunately. On the plus side, I've thus got an excuse for washed out photos. To contextualise, Signal Hill rises up behind the College, via a hill road which skirts the top of Opoho suburb before winding through the thick evergreen forest to the lookout. Great place to view the city, which is splashed across the hills, running down to meet the Harbour below and a good view across to the Pacific on the far side of the Otago Peninsula.
[The centre of Dunedin from Signal Hill. You can see how steep some of the central streets are in the middle of the picture. I'm told that the city was designed with 2D plan having no reference to the geography, which became more interesting as it was implemented]
[Obligatory b+w, or 'desaturated' I believe is the term, photo. Solves the faded colour problem though, doesn't it? Dunedin proper, as shown above zoomed in, lies just to the right of this shot. This is roughly South-facing, bit Eastward I think - the Pacific is at the top of the photo (don't worry, below the clouds) and the landward end of the Peninsula is the chunk of hills from centre to left.]
[About halfway down, I came across a strange saddle plateau, between Signal Hill and a smaller mound beside. Actually, I'd been having great fun running down a steep mountain bike track through the forest and this patch of grassy heath-land suddenly appeared, so I slowed down for a bit of a look around. This is looking further up towards the Peninsula (very faded past the bit of harbour there), while coming the Dunedin face of Signal Hill, so now looking more Easterly. Very Scottish looking, I thought]

[Coming to the opposite side of the saddle, a better view of the sea-ward half of the Peninsula, it's tip off towards the left.]

[Strangely enough, this is actually further down the Hill. Quite near here, I came across a whin bush, still with a tinge of its amazing honey-coconutty, almondy smell. Reminds me of the old country...]
[You can see here quite how high this still is. This is looking South again, over Dunedin. Signal Hill itself works out somewhere a little over 300m, which is a bit smaller than Black Mountain or, well nothing in East Anglia anyway]

[Finally, if you've got good eyesight, you'll see the volume of rain coming down, though maybe not as I've shrunk the photo. Thankfully I'd brought a sunhat which was keeping the drops off nicely]

So, there we go. I'm off to bed as I'm hoping to get up early tomorrow. I know I keep saying I'll shorten these posts, but I'll get there. Particularly now that things are beginning to settle into a pattern... in the words of Dolly Parton, "9 to 5"...

Fortnight tomorrow

So, I've been here a fortnight tomorrow - it's gone past so quickly! Apologies to all for slow replies and not posting - between internet calamities, work and settling in things have been rather crazy.

Firstly, pictures - the most important part :) This is just a small selection of the HUNDREDS I've taken. Gotta love Energiser Lithium. My plan is to put up a few more, including of London and Cambridge, on Flickr shortly (under user philtweir), though the ones there at the mo are all of NI & places on Christmas trip. Also, if I get a chance, I'll do a fast-paced photo slideshow of the journey and arrival, so the 28 hours of flying, flies past (so to speak).

Naturally, this is a very long post so don't worry, you're not supposed to have to trawl through the entire thing but if a photo catches your eye, there should be enough in the caption to give a bit of context!

So, firstly a rather cool photo from the plane (of which there are several) - much more amazing in real life but still...
Someone said the Himalayas, but we weren't too sure. Lots of ice and isolated ruler-straight roads going for hundreds of miles too over Russia was cool to see (we went over Moscow, in fact - it looks weird on an atlas, but makes sense on a globe)

After half an hour off sitting in Hong Kong, we headed on and I got my first glimpse of New Zealand going over the Bay of Islands:
(correct me if this is wrong!) Really beautiful, sadly the photos don't show it well - I think the other people on the plane were getting fed up with me going, "It's amazing, it's just really amazing, it's so beautiful, isn't it beautiful..." etc. etc. But it was, so, er, there.
[Random coastal valley town North of Auckland]
After arriving in Auckland there was lots of queuing - LONG story. Connecting flight went down to Wellington, right at the bottom of the North Island
[From the Southern-Eastern coast of the North Island]
[Wellington - you can see the narrowest part of the Cook Strait, separating the North and South Islands]

As Dunedin Airport is a fair way outside the city, there aren't any aerial shots of it and, to be honest, I still haven't been up high enough on a clear day to get a good view. Hopefully I'll get a chance this week.

An airport taxi took me to Knox College, where delays had meant I'd missed most people, so a helpful student (the College Beadle) got me my keys and I explored for a while before taking a quick nap until the other Fellows appeared. For 7 hours. Oops. However, for the first time ever, I'm living in a room with a King Size bed, so that's my excuse :D In fact, the college interiors are really cool - antique furniture and all kinds of interesting ornaments and pictures. Also, some bright spark had the foresight to put a rocking chair-cum-recliner-cum-armchair in my room, which I'm well chuffed about.
[Some nice furniture - looking a lot less bare now... :)]

Anyway, moving on - as part of my exploration I found some other parts of the college:
[Excuse me being posh but this photo looks a lot worse in colour, due to the light. It's the SCR - the Fellows Common Room, where we gather for G+T before dinner and generally recline when not busy being all academicky]
[This is the Chapel - the photo is somewhat deceptive, as it is rather wide for its length, which gives a good spacious feel. The services are rather similar to those in Corpus chapel, though with a Presbyterian-style order of service. Incidentally, the Choir is particularly good and some talented choral scholars have arrived this year, which has been great]
[I've been trying to keep the photos in order, but it took me surprisingly long to get a decent photo of the front of the College - this one was actually taken earlier today. My room is the window on the first floor at the right hand end {corrected from 'left'} of the scaffolding (builders are currently re-enforcing the chimneys)]

Haven't yet got photos of the Hall or much of the rest of college and tantalisingly, there is a beautiful old-school 'Stack Room' in the Library which is out-of-bounds until renovation work completes in April...

So, over the following couple of days I met the other resident fellows, who are a great bunch and we're having lots of fun getting settled into the new academic year. Since my only photos of us are in fancy dress, I won't embarrass them by putting them on publically accessible webspace, but will stick some of them up on Facebook soon. We've had a somewhat intense week as the Freshers' Week, Orientation Week here, is a big thing - lots of fancy dress, Freshers' initiations (which as a fellow, I got to watch from a safe distance ;) ), jacket & tie events and so on, so work has only began for most of us this week.

[The College Garden party on Saturday from my room - nibbles and Champers in the marquee :)]

So a couple more photos of the surroundings:
[From the road running up beside the college - this is definitely a hilly city, which is doing wonders for my calves, if nothing else!]
[A fairly representative selection of student flats, close to the University - one thing you notice is that, at least in the parts I've been in so far, no two houses look the same and it is rare that any two beside each other are the same colour. However, they don't have central heating so are freezing in winter. Having said these are representative, actually, verandas and mini-balconies are very common - a lot of the houses are really old compared to UK suburbs, so they look nice but there are plusses and minuses living in them!]
[Dunedin Railway Station, allegedly the most photographed building in New Zealand becoming slightly more photographed]

By this stage you've probably notice a lot of the photos look rather dismal and rainy - it bucketed down here for a week (and is due to start again). Every time I meet someone, they explain that this is very unusual and, to be honest, I can't help noticing that Belfast had record rainfall when I was there, Cambridge was flooding after the snow and now I arrive in Dunedin... I'm thinking I could find more useful places to sell my rain-making talents.

[These guys were well chuffed. Actually, Dunedin has lots of ducks, particularly around the Botanic Gardens, where at first I thought I'd seen a nice sizeable rockery, until it began to waddle in various directions. But then I'm a bit slow on the ole uptake anyway]

Actually, the Botanic Gardens are another point - most of the 25 min walk to the Department from College is through the hillside Botanic Gardens - rather different than in Belfast or Cambridge, these are mainly quite dense foliage, aside from a few more formal gardens:
[The route to the office runs about half-way up the far bank - as mentioned, some bits are less dense, but this is pretty representative of most of the walk. The higher parts are split into American and Southern African areas, as well as other plant regions]

Some of the really nice things walking through the gardens are the smells and sounds - there are crickets of some kind going all day long and lots of unfamiliar bird calls (not that I'm particularly familiar with bird calls anyway).

[Unfortunately, this'll only have significance for Cambridge peeps. Apparently it's a bit of an institution here - it's a contraction of The Gardens Bar (I think?) and heaves with students on a good evening. Notice how heavy the rain is!]

[As you may have noticed, there are a lot of trees about the place relative to back home, though these photos are probably not entirely representative being around the Botanic Gardens. The river is the Water of Leith which winds its way down through the University to the Harbour - not particularly sizeable and shallow, but scenic none the less!]

[These are actually the College gardens, which are on a rather steep slope, as you can see from the steps. These are remarkably dense and ferny, so half-way down the slope you feel you could be in miles away in a jungle somewhere!]

[This is rather a waste of photo space, but it shows just how dense the fog gets when it gets dense! On a normal day, you'd be able to see for miles from here (Signal Hill) - the whole city, Harbour and across to the Pacific. Not Sunday week ago! Strangely though, you could got a real sense of space in front of you, even if you couldn't see it]

[Despite the general dampness of the above pictures, the last few days have been stunning and I'm already lightly sizzled, with the fair Emerald Isle skin becoming rather more ruby red. This was taken this afternoon - the North-east valley from the front of college. As you can see, there are plenty of roses around the front of Knox - they've got a brilliant bloom at the moment, with lots of colours of roses about the place. Still getting used to summer in March!]

The weather here, as the photos show, tends to go from one extreme to the other - cloudless to raining - I have to admit, I much prefer rain or sun to grey, so not missing cloudy dismal skies! Still, it's supposed to be a nice Autumn and I find it's easier to get nice photos in the sun :)


[Views of and from the terraces in the Botanic Gardens - a lovely stretch where the panorama across the North of the city suddenly appears]

So a bit about the University - it's a similar age to QUB (bit younger I think) and has some great architecture about it. A common combination is very dark stone with light edgings, which I really like:
[The Registry Building - the equivalent of QUB's Lanyon Building or Kings' Chapel in Cambridge, tends to crop up in photos and University stuff rather a lot]

The Maths & Stats department is in a building just across the Leith from the Clocktower (the Leith is actually running below the shot in the above photograph).

[This is the office, shared with a slightly ambiguous number of people - there are normally up to 3 or 4. The half of the desk on the near side with the water on it is mine. Since there's a fairly small postgrad contingent in Maths, it's all quite cosy and some genius realised that we could pay for the coffee by using the proceeds from the snack machines near the lecture theatres, so we're kept sufficiently caffeinated to be productive :)]

The other piece of surprising news is that, the college was in need of a Senior Tutor fairly quickly, so I've taken it up and finally have obtained an Unseen University (Terry P) title :) Unlike Corpus, this is not a pastoral role, but entirely academically focused, organising the college's teaching schedule (it has a number of weekly supplementary tutorials) and providing a point of contact for academic concerns. Some may suggest I was more of an academic concern myself, but sure, experience begets wisdom or something like that. Maybe not so much...

Anyway, it's almost 1am and my alarm is set for seven, so I'd better finish up and go to bed. Just finally to add apologies to those who I owe emails and messages to - I hope to sending them tomorrow! All your encouragement and best wishes have been so much appreciated and particularly Mike's card from his Nuclear Relaxation conference in India which completely confused me when I looked at the postmark!

With best wishes and distant wavings

Phil