Banks and Braes etc

Where to start?

I'm just back from nearly three weeks in Scotland with Sue, walking the West Highland Way followed by the Great Glen Way. In other words, we walked from Glasgow to Inverness, taking in a couple of Munros along the way.

My legs are tired.

I fell in love with Scotland all over again. What amazing scenery! Glencoe in particular is stunning. Mind you, the country isn't perfect. For example, they have way too relaxed an attitude to pooing in the open up there. Along the banks of Loch Lomond or anywhere along the WHW, every potential lunch stop has its quota of used loo paper lying on the ground, flies buzzing around. For goodness sake folks - clean your act up!

Anyway, back home now, and enjoying the sound of sirens and the shouts of angry commuters. I'm seriously game deprived, and raring for some action baby, you know what I mean? I'd play just about anything right now, maybe even Viktory II. I'm hoping for a Barbarossa to Berlin session with son Phil in the near future, I'll try and persuade Sue to try Ra the Dice Game again, there's the London ASL club in July, there's all sorts of online gaming possibilities (strangely, I'm itching to try In the Shadow of the Emperor again), there's the chance I'll visit Nick in September for Unhappy King Charles, Richard 3 etc, and hopefully a Dune rematch can be fitted in before the autumn.

Phew.

On second thoughts, I'll skip Viktory II.

Good times

It's been a fun weekend. Sue and I went up to visit her parents in Lancaster. At 12:30 on Wednesday we boarded the train in grimy Euston. By 4:15 we were up on the fells in glorious late afternoon sunshine. Another two great days tramping the Howgills followed.

And as a bonus the Cardiff branch of Sue's family arrived on Saturday, including my step-nephew Tom who is 11 years old and mad keen to boardgame. So we played Eco-Fluxx and Pillars of the Earth until late on Saturday evening, then got up early to continue with Settlers before I disappeared back to London after lunch. I lost everything, but who cares? And Sue even prompted me to download the 2-player rules for Settlers as she'd like to play again soon!

Another bonus - I'm heading off tonight to play Chicago Express with some Mennonite friends.

This and that

I'm still looking for PhD studentships or research jobs. In the meantime I'm putting together a design for an experiment I'm hoping to do in Gez Finnerty's lab on a part-time volunteer basis. It's an immunohistochemistry project looking at molecular mechanisms of plasticity in the barrel cortex.

But before that gets going, Sue and I are setting out on the Offa's Dyke long-distance path, starting from Prestatyn on Monday morning, and finishing at Chepstow two and a half weeks later.

But first there's a reunion dinner at my old school (Manchester Grammar) on Saturday. Quite looking forward to it - I just hope there's not too much boasting about careers/cars/houses at the table (as I have none of these things at the moment!)

I've just finished a cracking PBEM game of Amun Re against Tim and Don - I think it's my first win ever at this game!

Meanwhile my idiot son Gavin is having his wrist rebuilt this morning after a cycling accident yesterday. At least he didn't land on his head I suppose, and his bike is a write-off too, so I'm hoping he might use the bus in future.