St Ives part 1

Its a long way to St Ives, so we set off first thing in the morning and poottled down the M5 and then A30, taking a little break to Yandles, finally arriving around 5. We had a cup of tea in the Nook, where we were staying before having an explore - what a beautiful place. We chose Rhurbabs for tea - exceedingly yummy - mussles, baked chicken with sweet potato wedges & salad and then a rhubarb crumble cake for dessert!

Winning!!

What a week! On Tuesday I had (the day from Hell) an interview and a big presentation to give. The interview was really hard and to be honest I thought that I had completely blown it so I headed off to the presentation thinking I'll give this my best shot and see if I can find a job else where. So I was really surprised to find a message when I got home to say they'd like to give me the job! Of course I said yes and next week I will meet with the head of the department to finalise a contract and duties - fingers crossed it'll all work out! The newest member of the School of Dentistry lecturing/academic staff.

When applying I said if I got it I would buy a kiln - might be a bit surprising but then I have been hankering after one for ages and over the last 6months down at the MAC I have been making all manner of strange and interesting objects. Today I got some time to go to the Earth and Fire Ceramic Fair at Rufford Park and I did indeed buy a kiln. The lovely people at Potclays are building it for me and I can pick it up in about 2 weeks. Its dinky - so I can get it in the car and can run it off the normal electricity supply. Starting small!!

While I was at the fair I bought a ticket for the tombola and I never win but I did this time! I am delighted to now own this pretty pot made by Katherine Winfrey! Back at home I harvested our burgeoning crop of raspberries into it. Fabulous all round really!

Gardener's World

We had a super time yesterday at Gardener's World Live at the NEC. Mum was volunteering for the RHS and we had time to potter about all the beautiful plants - I managed to come home with just 2 - a cephalotus (Australian picther plant) and a tiny hosta called snowy mouse ears. Wonderful fun! Then for Father's day we popped down to Highbury Hall where they had a bird display going on - and nearly got eaten by the biggest vulture I had ever seen - she could have gone off with my car!!

Anglesey

And back at Easter we took a trip to Anglesey with Jean and Dick - visiting Amwlch, Tregarth, Plas Newydd, Parys Mountain and South Stack

Grasmere

At the beginning of May Nick, Charlie and I went for lots of walks around Grasmere - Silver Howe, Helvelyn and Helm Crag - some more pictures on Charlie's blog too. There was also the start of the use of the Tom Tom

Bio-ceramics

I have been toying with ideas around the use of plasticware in the lab for a little while. I am struck by how durable yet disposable they are. To highlight this I have been making porcelain casts, which are delicate and not so disposable, of the humble Petri dish and trying different glazes on them to represent biological samples - either eukaryotic or prokaryotic cells - growing on them. I particularly like the one above where I have used a very tiny sliver of red glass, which seems to have pooled in small colony like patches. I have also been wondering if there is enough iron in biological preparations - for example bacteria brown on iron rich agar - to make a glaze. Below I have used Porphromonas gingivalis, which is fairly iron rich - I think a hint of brown can be seen! Next I would like to track the route plastics take through the lab - from pristine box fresh to autoclaved distortion.

Barcelona - beautiful food

Dinner at El Xalet on Montjuic - a special place for a special 70th birthday dinner for Jean

Some of the delicious tapas we had - this was at Taller de Tapas in Born, totally demolished!

Yo! Sushi

Yesterday we had a big old wander through Brum and ended up at Yo! Sushi for lunch. We'd both never been in before so it was a great little adventure - yummy yummy fishy lunch!

A trip to Hay

Last Saturday we took a drive in the sunshine down to Upton upon Severn to visit Andy at Upton Wines, principly to check out what wines he might have for the wedding. Then as we were halfway there we carried on down to Hay on Wye for a little potter and a nice lunch at Richard Booth's Cafe at the back of the book shop. N had a yummy pizzetta with eggs on top. Along the way we found a tree keeping warm!

Action Weaver and Curious about Craft

...came down to the University today to give us a taste of weaving with Travis Meinolf's super easy to use back loom. Helen and I had a super lunch time creating a little section for what will become a blanket made by the people of Birmingham. The one in the picture (with Travis) was made by the people of San Francisco.


(here's a bit I made!!)

San Diego

After my jaunt to New Orleans I headed across to San Diego for the IADR conference. A busy busy time but we had a chance to discover Chocolat and Pinkberry. Fabulous crepes and frozen yoghurt!

New Orleans weekend 2

Today D and I went out of town to the plantations and checked out Houmas house and Oak Alley meandering our way back along the edge of the river. No armadillos spotted but it was a super drive and we got really close to the train going over the Huey Long bridge next t us!

New Orleans weekend

I headed off to New Orleans on Saturday and by Sunday morning we were all pottering around the French Quarter! First stop brunch at the Court of the two Sisters - beautifully draped in wisteria and delicate jazz being played in the courtyard as we ate a tasty brunch of eggs benedict, New Orleans King cake and crawfish. Of course we then had to stretch our legs and had a good browse around the Quarter before heading back to D&S's house for a spruce up before a special tea at NOLA - delicious fish and fabulous desserts, even a little becandled ice cream for me. A super day!

Laboratory Life Exhibition

All things come to an end but the exhibition of Laboratory Life is still on til Monday and there will be a public forum tomorrow if you're in the area. Its picked up quite a bit of interest already! Check or wired and culture 24.

Giant agar dish and inoculation of the dress

Today we've had a really busy day. Sarah & Brian made 10L of agar and poured it into our homemade petri dish. The Chinese shop even ran out of clolourless agar so we had some yellow, green and red too, which is kind of exciting looking! Then we made our embroidered dress damp and pressed it into the agar. Finally we harvested all our bacteria (that we'd grown on other agar dishes) and innoculated the dress. Pretty pooped now!

Lots and lots of embroidery and some bacteria!

We visited the micro lab at the hospital to find out what our nasal swabs had grown - the white plates showed none of us were carriers of MRSA but several of the group had Staphlococcus aureus (of a non-resistant strain). Then we went back to Lighthouse to embroider (lots)! And then to the hostel also to embroider!

Regency dresses with Martin at Brighton Museum

Today we were incredibly lucky to visit Brighton Museum stores with Curator Martin Pell who showed us one hundred years of dresses covering the Regency period and surrounding times. The Regency period was 1780-1830. In the slideshow there are images of the detailed embroidery and patterns in the fabrics - we're going to be using these as inspiration for the embroidery we'll do to our regency bacteria dress. The threads we use have been dyed and impregnated with natural antimicrobials.

Visiting Simon's lab

Here we are in the lab painting with coloured bacteria. I think we also look like bacteria moving around - we vanish to visit the warm rooms. I think I also captured a spider walking across the lens.

Lab life day 2

Today we went out on a big ramble aound Brighton visiting the fish mongers for some fish to grow some bioluminescent bacteria, to various monuments associated with the Regency period and Mrs Fitzherbert, the Brighton Pavilion and of course the seaside! WHile we were in the lab I also set up a time lapse (a photo was taken every minute) - you can see we were pretty busy with visitors!