Last year we headed to the Henley show. It was our favourite show of the year. For me this was because they have a giant vegetable competition! Again I was keen to checkout the large marrow, pumpkin and carrots. I wasn’t disappointed!
The chickens were also interesting, especially the one that was about twice the size of Kate’s head! (he was after all “Buff”)
Plenty more photos here
We recently made a trip down the Portsmouth to visit the historic dockyards. The absolute highlight for me was the ruins of the Tudor warship the Mary Rose – Henry VIII’s favourite ship – or so they say. The Mary Rose was sunk just out of the harbour of Portsmouth in 1545. In the 1970′s it was found, and in 1982 it was raised. They have been impregnating it with a synthetic polymer to stabilise the timber against decay, so you can view it in it’s “shower” of preserving fluids. It is amazing to think that you are looking at a ship that is almost 500 years old. Another bonus was that when it sunk, it was covered in silt and preserved. So many objects were recovered along with the ship. Even some of the cannons, dated from their manufacture at around 1535.
These cannons were all individually cast, which meant no two were the same. That provided the problem of different size cannon balls.
Other ships that were at the historic dockyard included the HMS Victory (Lord Nelson’s ship and the oldest commissioned ship). There were also a fair contingent of the British Navy as Portsmouth is the main base for the Navy. We were lucky to see all three of their air craft carriers.
We ended our sightseeing day with fish and chips on the beach.
The rest of the photos are here
While we were in the Peaks District, we did a cycle from Asbourne up to Hume End then back again. It was a 58.1 km ride which was supposed to take about 3-4 hours. Given that we didn’t leave until just before midday, we thought we’d be back in time for dinner. We were, of course, wrong. About as far from home as possible, Roger’s chain broke. Luckily, he, I and a rock from a dry stone wall managed to fix it. The downside was we were then coming home in the darker part of the evening. The upside was our attempt at bike maintenance on the go seemed to work, Roger’s chain survived the trip home.
The scenery on the trip was amazing. We were following a rail trail, that is a bike path made on top of a former rail line, which gave us a traffic free route.
Some highlights: the tunnels, a cave and some scenery
Some photos here
After our day of cycling, we took the next couple of days for some sightseeing around Buxton (the home of Buxton Water) and Bakewell (the home of Bakewell tart).
I ask, what do you have to do to become 9th author (out of 13) on a Nature paper?
Stand in the lab and scratch yourself?