Sauntering Vaguely Downward

Milestones

Sat, 16 Aug 2025 17:03:12 GMT

[LiveJournal Achievement banner: 24 years of blogging]

A number of milestones have passed in recent weeks, including the above. With the exception of a few weeks here and there, I have been blogging continuously in the same journal for 24 years. Most of the rest of the world has moved on to various socials, none of which I have been able to find fulfilling. I deleted all the associated apps off my phone in January and I don't miss them. This community of stalwarts, on the other hand, I cherish, especially as we all navigate middle and old age together.

The other other important anniversaries:

Five years of being an academic and three years since being promoted and taken off probation. I have one more rung up the ladder to climb.
Thirteen years since moving into this house. This is the longest I've ever lived in one place. I was never going to do so unless I had kids. My childhood was so disrupted by repeated moves, I was determined for my children to have as much stability as possible.
Twenty-one years since moving to the UK. I thought I was only going to be here for a year and a half, maybe two. Lol. I've now spent far more of my adult life in this country than the one I was born in.

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Milestone: To sandal or not to sandal

Sun, 11 Aug 2024 20:07:47 GMT

Humuhumu now wears the same size shoes as I do.

Shoe theft has occurred. My Birkenstocks. Argh.

The bloke thinks she will be taller than I am, because she's only 11, and this will therefore only be a phase so eventually I'll get them back.

I face a burning question: do I go six months without Birkenstocks, and thus unable to wear the complete standard-issue academic scientist uniform, or do I purchase a new pair?

View Poll: To sandal or not to sandal

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I stayed up to watch Rees-Mogg lose his seat

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 06:29:17 GMT

On hearing the news of the Labour landslide when he woke up, Keiki ran downstairs to tell his sister.

"It's the first day of our lives when there isn't a Conservative government, Humuhumu!" he cried joyfully.

The Conservatives are trying to spin this as a rejection of their party rather than a win for Labour. It can be both, you knobheads. I also hope Boris is really grumpy that Sir Keir's majority is more than double what he managed. We can all see whose is bigger now. #petty

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1SE for December 2023

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 16:33:17 GMT

And that's a wrap! A project I managed to keep up for 365 days? I'll take it. This month features a lot of cats, but also rare appearances by my face and my toes (not at the same time).

Reviewing my year on DW - and to a patchier extent, LJ, because I forget to cross-post manually - I see I managed regular posting for the first six months, semi-regular in the subsequent four months, and shockingly little in November and December. I expect this to be a recurring theme next year, but am resolved at least to start as I mean to continue, and resume regular posting in 2024.

I'm off to a NYE party as the designated driver, a role I find myself happy to fill with increasing frequency. I hope whatever you have planned allows you to welcome the new year in your preferred manner.

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JUICE is on its way

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 21:54:45 GMT

Celebrating the successful launch and solar panel deployment of JUICE as it starts its 8 year journey to the Jovian system. I helped build that!

With Kraken rum and Death in Paradise. :) The celebration, not the build.

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Happy New Year: The Friday Five (a bit late)

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 10:18:44 GMT

What was the best thing that happened to you ~~this year~~ in 2022?
At work: getting promoted. At home: getting my varifocal prescription. I feel we should celebrate the things that make it easier to get older, and the improvement in glasses design for people with complicated prescriptions due to aging is one of them.

What are you looking forward to ~~next year~~ in 2023?
I am determined not to spend excessive time on non-promotable tasks [NPTs].

Will you be doing anything special to ring in the New Year?
I drank Sauternes with the bloke, and watched the London display on the telly, which was very nice.

What would you like to see more of ~~next year~~ in 2023?
Peace, joy, humans being kind to one another, governments that are not hell-bent on vilifying marginalised groups and refugees, a more equal distribution of wealth.

What was your best New Year’s Eve ever?
I don’t think I have a “best”, but I do have a “most exciting”, and that was the year the bloke and I went to London to stand on the banks of the Thames and watch the fireworks display in person. I’m glad I did it once but I don’t feel a tremendous need to do it again.

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Toto-ROOOOO!

Thu, 27 Oct 2022 20:50:35 GMT

We saw the live action production of "My Neighbour Totoro" at the Barbican Theatre last night for Humuhumu's tenth birthday.

Quotes from the children: "I will remember this forever." And "I love this so much."

We sat in the circle seats so we had a row to ourselves, effectively. This turned out to be an excellent decision, as Keiki spent more time out of his seat than in it, whether he was standing up applauding and laughing, rolling on the floor in ecstasy, or sitting on someone's lap. (He does not check before he sits so if we had been in a row with a stranger they would have ended up as a Keiki chair.)

It was an absolute joy from start to finish, and received a standing ovation. The sets and choreography are just magical, there is a warm undercurrent of wholesome humour throughout, the music is incredible, and the catbus does not disappoint. I must admit that the girl and I did have a very wobbly moment during the scenes where the mother takes a turn for the worse, and Saski and Mei have an emotional crisis. There may have been quiet weeping in each other's arms. Thankfully, Totoro comes at the perfect time to sort it all out, as he always does.

It was true to the film with a few sensible tweaks and a touch of modernisation, all very gently and deftly woven together.

If you are in London, are a Studio Ghibli fan, and can afford it - tickets are decidedly Not Cheap - please go and see it, you will not be disappointed.

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Meniscus

Sun, 28 Aug 2022 10:35:41 GMT

It's now been over a month since I last posted on Dreamwidth, longer on LiveJournal since cross posting stopped being automatic.

I debated over our recent holiday whether to simply continue not posting or to make some kind of formal statement about how I plan to use this journal in future. Personally I prefer it when people don't just disappear. I know that 99% of the time they've just got bored or busy or distracted by a different platform and don't find the journal rewarding enough to continue, and nothing terrible has happened to them. But it's nice to have the reassurance that this is the case, rather than that they've been hit by a bus or something.

So I guess this is me obliquely sidling up to the realisation that despite 21 years of journalling (as of this July), I have neither the time nor the inclination to keep up my commitment to writing and interacting here as intensively as I once did. I can see the signs of this in my recent posting patterns: more short entries, far fewer public posts, failure to post photos because it's just too much effort to muster after a 15 hour day, failure to reply to comments or to other people's posts.

There are external factors too. I got promoted at work. I have a huge workload now that I have a senior administrative role in my department, plus teaching and grant management. I'm co-supervising my first PhD student. The children will be going to different schools in a week's time, effectively doubling our life admin complications. Because of this we've had to acquire a second car after 10 years of getting away with having only one.

I'm sure no one apart from me is surprised, but I hope I'm not the only one who's sad about this. I loved being (what felt to me like) a stalwart part of this community. It's painful to have to let it go. I will post now and again but I won't be reading regularly so if this is important to you and you need to say goodbye because of it, please do. On the other hand, if you're okay with sporadic updates and patchy, enthusiastic interaction then please stay. I'm always happy to pick up with friends and acquaintances after long silences.

I'll keep my Wed-Sat shifts on the daily "Just One Thing" achievement posts for Awesomeers.dreamwidth.org. Do join there if you want a low key way of recording stuff you've done and getting a little cheer for it. That's how I use it.

If you'd like to connect elsewhere, I'm on the following, but don't post much: Instagram (magnetometrist) and Twitter (nanila). I'm most active on and 150+ days into a Duolingo streak so happy to be added there as well: nanila2, the one with a Neko Atsume cat as my userpic.

TL;DR version: Nanila angsts about not journalling regularly, isn't leaving completely, loves you all, stay or go as you like, please add on Duolingo. ❤️

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The menagerie grows: Indian stick insects

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 21:20:23 GMT

Last week, we added 4 new members to our menagerie. They live in an enclosure made by a specialist phasmid provider in Keiki's room. Their names are as follows:

Mr Sticky
Sir Sticks-A-Lot
Madame Sticksana
...and Leafy Legs.

A photo of one of them* clambering over Keiki's face while he giggles is below the cut.

( Indian stick insect and boy )

* I can't tell them apart, sssshhhh

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Introducing Cheeky and Nibbles

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 22:05:18 GMT

An exciting thing happened today. We have two new family members. Introducing: Cheeky and Nibbles!

( +3 )
Nibbles is the sleepy-looking one with the reddish eyes. We are assured that they are both boys. We shall see.

Major gerbil achievement tonight: They worked out how to climb the orange tube to get to Level 2 of their house, which has their food and water bowls, and their wheel.

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Last post of 2021

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 17:00:53 GMT

Yesterday was Sister-Out-Law's 50th birthday and we celebrated it at midnight with champagne.

We're together - SOL, BOL, their two children and all of us - for New Year as well. I'm so happy to be in good company to ring in 2022.

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Aspirations

Sun, 10 Oct 2021 19:36:40 GMT

Just jotting this down for posterity's sake.

Current aspirations of Humuhumu, soon-to-be aged 9: "During the week, my job will be archaeology. On Saturdays, I'll do my art, and on Sundays, I'll write books."

Current aspirations of Keiki, aged 6: "I'm going to be a military doctor and a microbiologist. I will invent a nanobug weapon that causes all our enemies' weapons to rust instantaneously."

Previously they wanted to be scuba divers and marine biologists (because of the long-standing influence of the Octonauts).

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My LJ’s 20th anniversary: The Magnificent Seven: Highgate Cemetery

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 11:35:23 GMT

I had imagined doing a big roundup post for the 20th anniversary of my LiveJournal, but due to rampant sleepiness on the 11th of July after my solo trip to London, I managed to miss it completely. (It was a mistake not to set a reminder in my calendar.) I still will, but in lieu of the roundup for now, here is a photo post from my final act of the London trip, which was to the eastern half of Highgate Cemetery.

Thanks to my DW/LJ, I know that I finished my photography project to visit all of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in 2012. Someone asked me on my return home this weekend, “Who is buried in Highgate, apart from Karl Marx?” While I can answer that question with a list of names, the honest answer is that I don’t care. I don’t visit these places to hunt for the graves of specific famous people, not even Douglas Adams (sorry, mate. I do know where my towel is though). In fact, because I keep a journal, I have a precisely formulated explanation for my visits.

Maybe it’s obvious from my choice of photographs, but I don’t care much about finding the graves of the notable persons buried in these cemeteries. For me, the attraction of these places comes from the collective obliteration of individual identity. The sense that pain and sorrow have been absorbed and transformed into something that is rather beautiful - the admission, and acceptance, of death. -- Me, April 2012.

I love my journal so much. ♥ ♥ ♥

( Many photos )

This trip has inspired me to repeat the Magnificent Seven project, in reverse order, over the next few months. Next up, then: West Norwood cemetery.

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What I did today: Practical flight test

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 19:59:29 GMT

To celebrate the end of exams and what, for some of the students, is very nearly the end of their undergraduate careers, we got to have a practical flight test experience today in a Piper PA-28 Warrior II, a delightful little aircraft that resembles an old Buick in more ways than one.
Flight path data from today.

Me with the plane.

My view from the plane.

My project student flying the plane!

She's a natural. :)

After pulling 2g. Everything is fine. Just keep your eyes on that horizon.

Trying to keep a proper flight log of the tests whilst balancing the urge to gawp out the window and excitedly take photos of everything proved pretty much impossible, so I was grateful we weren't being assessed. I had a blast. What a treat to have this as a first flight after 16 months of being grounded.

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Major milestone achieved my friends

Mon, 17 May 2021 20:33:41 GMT

This morning, I did an undergraduate viva, in physics, with another lecturer (Professor level), and a fourth-year masters student.

Both assessors are women. Student is a woman. I think this may well be the very first professional assessment experience I have had in my entire working career where everyone involved was a woman AND it *wasn't* some sort of "Women in STEM" event.

And then this afternoon,cha_mel_eon made her first official Artist-in-Residence visit to my department, and I got to show her cool pieces of kit and bits of metal, and we talked about space and art and it was absolutely lovely.

It were a good day. :)

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Rainy bank holiday achievements

Mon, 03 May 2021 18:47:16 GMT

I got up early this morning intending to achieve many pressing work things - bank holidays are as irrelevant as weekends during term time - and instead got roped into helping to achieve the following.

Keiki's room

Humuhumu's room

The two of them have been in the same bedroom (Humuhumu's) since Keiki stopped breastfeeding in the night at around nine months old. It's become increasingly clear from the bickering that they now need their own spaces. We had originally intended to renovate the upstairs of the house before separating them. As this has proved impossible to achieve over the past nine months, we settled for patching up the plaster and paint, and shifting Keiki into the bedroom that had served as the spare room prior to the downstairs extension.

We need some additional furniture: bookcases and an adequate bedside table for Humuhumu for a start. We will also see how the sleeping tonight goes, but they both seem delighted.

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First jab

Sat, 13 Mar 2021 15:01:47 GMT

Pfizer:

and also, need some of this, very hard to get in pandemic:

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RIP Arecibo

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 20:24:48 GMT

The dish at Arecibo Observatory has been destroyed by the instrument platform collapsing into it. It had already been declared unsalvageable after critical load-bearing cable failures.

Three photos from my trip there in 2006.

I will be raising a glass in Arecibo's honour tonight.

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An awesome end to a nerve-wracking week

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 16:48:18 GMT

Yesterday was the 14th anniversary of me working on the European Space Agency's Cluster mission.

Today, I received news that one of my Year 1 Aero students, whom I helped with her application, has been accepted onto ESA's prestigious Fly A Rocket! programme.

That is just about the best anniversary gift I could have received.

Have a photo of an extremely tired me in my headphones, preparing to record a lecture, wearing my Cluster hoodie that was gifted to me by my magnetometer lab colleagues. All that blurry stuff is the cracking around my phone's front camera. I need to replace my phone. There is no time to shop for a new phone. *thud*

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Strange day

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 07:40:40 GMT

I'm travelling in to my place of work today for the first time since 19 March, for a building induction.

It's five minutes until the train arrives, and the platform has all of eight people on it. In the Before Times, it would have been packed since this is the last train to arrive at the University before 9 AM.

I have my mask and water and hand sanitiser. I'm still very nervous.

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Achievement Unlocked: Self-service breakfast

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 17:28:27 GMT

One of the reasons we had shelving installed in the dining area of our newly extended house was so that we could have the breakfast cereal and bowls within easy reach of our children.

Humuhumu took immediate advantage of this in order to have more time to play before having to get dressed and start home school. She even remembered to put out the vitamins. Very proud!

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Day 57/183: Achievement Unlocked

Sat, 04 Apr 2020 21:17:35 GMT

Until today, I had never dyed my own hair. My hair has been green, blue and purple. I've had synthetic locks, real locks [see icon], and real locks with synth locks tied in. There have been periods where I went to the hairdresser religiously for months, and I've also gone years without bothering to do anything at all with my hair apart from wash it regularly. When I've wanted it, I've always had the luxury of being able to pay professionals to colour and style my hair. It's a treat to go to a salon, especially now that I have children, as it's two to three hours I get to myself at a weekend every couple of months.

Obviously this isn't possible under the current circumstances. I colour my hair regularly now that I have a significant amount of grey, and because my last appointment was in January, my roots were getting quite obvious. So the bloke picked up some hair dye for me when he went to the shop today. He didn't have much choice, but since we're not going into the office at the moment, he got me an exciting electric red. Or at least it was on the box. As you can see above, my hair - at least the part that's not grey - is extremely dark. So the colour took variably, shall we charitably say.

I'm pretty sure I'll be straight back in the salon once it re-opens. It's not just the unintentional two-tone effect, it's the fact that it took me ages to apply the stuff.

( +1, outdoors )

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Day 45/183: First day back, last day in the office + northern shovelers

Thu, 19 Mar 2020 22:18:03 GMT

Every day for the past few weeks has felt a bit like this, but for me this was definitively the last day of normal for at least three months.

After careful consideration, I went to the office today to tidy up and bring home necessary items, to prep my laptop for remote working and to speak to my boss. There were all of four of us in the office, out of the usual ten, and everyone who is immuno-compromised or otherwise at-risk is already working from home, so I felt reasonably comfortable going in. I used hand sanitiser every 20 minutes and touched as little as possible in the office that wasn’t at or on my desk.

I parked in the car park at the front of the station. Normally it’s full and we park near the back of the rear car park. When I got on the train to come in, the first thing I noticed was how good it smelled. The seat upholstery had all been deep-cleaned. The carriage was nearly empty when it left my home station, and there were still spare seats when I disembarked at work. This is a train which is normally completely full including aisles and vestibules at least three stops before it arrives at my work.

Someone boarded the train whilst looking ropey and started dry-coughing continuously. I still don’t understand how they managed not to be crushed by the weight of daggers being directed at them.

The campus was a ghost town. I had to go to the tiny bank branch at lunchtime. The person at the counter said I was their fourth customer of the day. And - this is the real kicker - I popped a Pokemon in the gym in the centre of campus. Normally when you do this you get it back within an hour.

It’s still there.

We beavered away at work, trying to keep our spirits up with our remote-working colleagues over Skype chats, and then around 16:30, our administrator started packing up and the rest of us slowly followed. We said very awkward, very British goodbyes from safe distances, as we are planning to trial the entire team remote-working tomorrow and a skeleton crew the following week, since the University was scheduled to close on the 27th March.

Just as we left, we received the notification that it was closing on the 20th March, tomorrow. If we have any remaining issues with remote-working, we’ve got one day to fix them. And that was it: the last time I’ll see my colleagues in the flesh for at least three months, probably six.

I hopped on the train home. I don’t normally get a seat on this one. Today I had an entire table to myself - four seats, only me occupying one.

Finally, something to lift the spirits.

Above is a pair of northern shovelers doing a courtship ritual where they spin round and round whilst dabbling for treats. Flirting and eating at the same time: efficient!

Also find below a short YouTube video (35 seconds) of the couple, taken on the same day at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge in Washington state, USA.

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Day 44/183: In which I digest the news that UK schools will close indefinitely on Friday

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 20:44:55 GMT

As we all expected, UK schools are now officially set to close on Friday for an indefinite period, though rumour has it the closure will last until September.

This is a rather monumental shakeup for everyone, and presents a logistical nightmare for working parents who rely on steady provision of school and wraparound services in order to keep to a 9 to 5 schedule. The bloke and I are both full-time employees and although we are doctors, we are of the PhD rather than the MD flavour, and thus don't qualify as "key workers".

We will be spending our weekend planning how we will teach our children, get enough exercise without any of the usual classes or playground usage, and still work the requisite number of hours per day. I suspect this is an experiment whose parameters will take some time to optimise.

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Keiki's first day at school (Day 7 of 30)

Mon, 09 Sep 2019 20:12:53 GMT

[Humuhumu and Keiki standing in front of the house, holding hands, with their school uniforms on. White hearts are covering up their school name and emblem.]

Today was Keiki's first day at school, in Reception (Kindergarten for USians). He was very proud and pleased to walk in those doors with his sister.

He also proudly told us at the end of the day, "I went to the head teacher's office! I saw the rainbow award board with all the really good school work."

With more than a slight amount of trepidation, I asked carefully, "And were you by yourself, or with other children?"

"With other children," he replied.

"And did the whole class go?"

"Yes," he said, "but we couldn't go all at once so we had to go in small groups."

Much relieved, we showered him with praise.

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