I am doing postdoctoral research at Edinburgh University looking at ash from Icelandic eruptions. I have a work blog at http://all-geo.org/volcan01010. This is my personal blog: expect holiday snaps and climbing stories.
I did the RAB Mountain Marathon with Al Monteith last weekend. It involved 6 hours of orienteering on Saturday, an overnight camp, then 5 more on Sunday morning. It destroyed me; my muscles and joints ached for a week, but worse still, my immune system gave up with exhaustion so I had a minging cold all week, too. We did pretty well, though, coming 30/68, and scoring more points than some of the people in the Elite category.
Here are some photos that show the pain. And the mullet. -- Click the images for larger versions. --
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I am extremely grateful to Dave MacFarlane of PlanetFear.com for sending me these photos. You can see more, excellent, photos of the event and read his write-up here.
I'm very excited. I woke up this morning at 06:30hrs, before my alarm went off. Waking at this hour is par-for-the-course for many people, but when you work in slackademia and live only 15 minutes cycle from the office it is practically unheard of.
This afternoon I'm heading up to Fife for Alto EliTe in the Park!
The boys are playing on the BBC Introducing Stage at 17:00hrs on Sunday. This guarantees that 3 tracks get recorded and put online, as well as a decent chance that you might get to see them on TV.
The Dundee Courier's Rock Talk section interviewed them this week and produced this article (click to see full size). It contains some factually dubious statements - I don't know what they have been doing to the cattle, but they haven't been getting milk because ours are bred for beef - but has some good banter, too.
This is another step up for the boys. In the last year they have toured loads, supported big names like the Kaiser Chiefs and Scouting for Girls, and in May they released a single on the King Tut's Recordings label. It is called Walkaway and is a cover version of the Recliner song...
The video was recorded on the farm, so keep an eye out for Catherine's old Golf, and the stag that our great grandad shot. The video is on Youtube and you can get the single on iTunes.
The live experience is better still. For a taster, there are also videos from when they played The Mill last year. They're good, but since then, after a year of touring and playing they are even better now. They will be amazing in a full tent at T in the Park. This is why I'm so excited.
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