view from a hotel window

I’m in Aberystwyth for a PhD viva.  I am reliably informed by the locals that Aber is most definitely not “the back of beyond”, nor even “the middle of nowhere”, but is rather “the edge of nowhere”.  It was a 7 hour train journey (with an expected stopover at Brimingham, and an unexpected stopover at Shrewsbury) to get here yesterday, and will be a 6 hour (hopefully) train journey back this afternoon.  It’s not that far, actually, it’s just that the local trains are so very slow.

But one advantage of being on the edge of nowhere is that I have a view over that edge: a lovely sea view from my hotel window (visible only after breakfast, once the sun had deigned to rise):

the view westward, out to sea

looking more to the south, along the bustling sea front (it is 8:40am, 25 minutes since sunrise)

dressed tree

We got our Christmas tree today.  I think this is ridiculously early to get the tree, but if we wait until a civilised time (like Christmas Eve), they will all have gone.

We also bought another set of lights, and a few more baubles.  We have enough lametter to survive the collapse of civilisation.

freshly hunted tree, captive indoors

properly be-decked

the Master’s Tardis?

Seen at King’s Cross on my way home from Swindon.

So who uses a black phone box?

view from a hotel window

I’m in Swindon again.

It’s raining again.

sequestering carbon, several books at a time CI

The latest batch

The Mystery of the Garden Spoon

So this morning this happened:

Underneath the maple tree, a large serving spoon has appeared.  It is not ours. This is not a place people walk, irrespective of whether they drop spoons while doing so.  The spot is sheltered from our neighbours by a large stand of bamboo, so it probably wasn’t thrown there (not that our neighbours are in the habit of casually tossing stainless steel serving spoons around).

The bowl is covered with some pale substance, and lightly scratched.

The back appears burned, and more heavily scratched, including a bright pattern that partially dissapears under a patch of what looks like melted metal. .

Did an animal drag it here?  Did it fall from the sky?  Will other burned kitchen utensils start appearing around us?  Enquiring minds desperately want to know.

---

So a commenter says it’s something dodgy. Should I be pleased I didn’t know that? Should I be worried that they do? :-)

Someone must have hurled it a long way then, as we spotted nothing on our security camera...

Mercury transit overcast Monday

So, would we see the transit of Mercury?

A little after the time of first contact, the sky was quite cloudy, with the sun hiding.

12:58 GMT, looking south

But the clouds were moving quickly, and there were blue patches.  Then around 2pm, the sky started to clear a bit more.

14:05 GMT, looking south west: blue sky!

lining up the telescope (note the existence of shadows)

We attached a solar filter to the front of our telescope, so it was safe to look through it at the sun.  But we had a very careful protocol: lining up using the tracking eyepiece (not looking through it), then carefully covering that unfiltered eyepiece before looking through the main eyepiece.

And we saw the transit!  A very small, very black spot, clear against the sun’s disk.  Amazing.  (No photographs of it this time, though: much poorer weather than previously, and no time to waste.)

Then it clouded over again; we got about 5 minutes viewing in total.

14:20 GMT, cloudy again: goodby Mercury! it was grest seeing you!