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kaberettToday I cleared out my desk at Imperial, which among other things involved pulling my graduation presents (from last graduation, from my Director of Studies) out of the bottom drawer, where they'd been for pretty much bang-on seven academic years.
(A thing: I've been tending to go "oh, well, I only got two papers published before I submitted my thesis because of, like, the Luxury of being Disabled, right, I just had so much more time--" and that is, in fact, bullshit. Because. I was "full time" for about 18 months, and thereafter I took several long breaks to be crazy, and when I resumed I was working a nominal 0.3 FTE, and... PhDs in this country are expected to take 3-4 years. So. Assuming that on average I was working at 0.5 FTE, I... got an enormous amount of work done, holy shit.)
And then we went to the zoo. Because we enjoyed Shepreth Wildlife Park a lot, the week of the viva, and Regent's Park (and thus London Zoo) is actually right on the driving route between "home" and "work" for me, and: AMINALS. We got incredibly lucky with the weather -- it was pouring on the drive down (to the extent that A discovered that the windscreen wipers will automatically put themselves up to "high" given sufficient provocation, rather than needing to be manually wrangled into that setting), and it started raining a bit again shortly after we got in the car, but the entire time we were wandering around the zoo it... was dry! Sunny, in patches!
... we absolutely did not manage to see everything we wanted to and will therefore be going back, probably via converting today's ticket price into part of an annual membership, which we can do at any point for the next two weeks.
When deciding if this was something we were comfortable with doing, I poked at the website a bunch and was reassured that the plague precautions included "three separate one-way routes around various and divers sections of the grounds", plus masking for everyone over 11 (and in some cases over 3; who were not medically exempt) in all indoor/enclosed areas, plus lots of encouragement to maintain distancing.
... people were not masking, despite the signs at the entrances to all the buildings, and to my further annoyance were not being prompted by the staff & stewards various. This... meant I was much less comfortable in enclosed areas than I'd been -- well, not expecting, but hoping, at least, which was a disappointment. Nevertheless: that's absolutely the most time I've spent in any building at all since March 2020, including being indoors for medical appointments and at my parents' (where my parents are being even more cautious than I am/we are), and per the above I'm planning to go back.
Highlights: African Hunting Dogs, which were excellently spotted and long of leg and elegant of trot; the pile of warthogs that were mostly asleep but occasionally snuffled their noses around in their pile of straw; the stripes on the okapi and also on the zebra, which I got to admire much more close-up than I recall having ever managed before; the PYGMY HIPPOS (not that we managed more than a glimpse, because they were very much Wallowing in their Warm Indoor Pool); red-footed tortoises; the bokiboky, a Madagascan mongoose that looks much more like a pointy squirrel than I'd realised mongeese did; the two! toed! sloth!; in the Nightlife section, the elephant shrew and a warren of naked mole rats in a variety of sizes and competencies (so small); the red river hogs with their RIDICULOUS ear tufts; colobus monkeys, with pampas-grass-tuft tails and SMOL BABS that get CARRIED AROUND; the scarlet ibis and also the northern bald ibis (there were also sacred ibis and flamingoes but I have my priorities, and they are the ones that are COLOURS); pretty much everything in the Tiny Giants exhibit, which we sped through at the end and definitely want to spend more time in; the various BRIGHT BLUE things; and the RARE TADPOLES in the SEX TANK with the VARIABLE EXTENTS OF FEET.
... as you can tell from the length of this shortlist of highlights, I had a great time. And then! Then we headed back home, via Ruby Violet (Tuffnell Park), where I tried new-to-me Malted Milk and had an actual serving of old-familiar-friends strawberry sorbet and hazelnut & hazelnut brittle ice cream, and when we made it home we flomped on the sofa and listened to the bats (though did not actually manage to see them) and admired the very dramatic and very beautiful crescent moon.
It has been lovely.
(A thing: I've been tending to go "oh, well, I only got two papers published before I submitted my thesis because of, like, the Luxury of being Disabled, right, I just had so much more time--" and that is, in fact, bullshit. Because. I was "full time" for about 18 months, and thereafter I took several long breaks to be crazy, and when I resumed I was working a nominal 0.3 FTE, and... PhDs in this country are expected to take 3-4 years. So. Assuming that on average I was working at 0.5 FTE, I... got an enormous amount of work done, holy shit.)
And then we went to the zoo. Because we enjoyed Shepreth Wildlife Park a lot, the week of the viva, and Regent's Park (and thus London Zoo) is actually right on the driving route between "home" and "work" for me, and: AMINALS. We got incredibly lucky with the weather -- it was pouring on the drive down (to the extent that A discovered that the windscreen wipers will automatically put themselves up to "high" given sufficient provocation, rather than needing to be manually wrangled into that setting), and it started raining a bit again shortly after we got in the car, but the entire time we were wandering around the zoo it... was dry! Sunny, in patches!
... we absolutely did not manage to see everything we wanted to and will therefore be going back, probably via converting today's ticket price into part of an annual membership, which we can do at any point for the next two weeks.
When deciding if this was something we were comfortable with doing, I poked at the website a bunch and was reassured that the plague precautions included "three separate one-way routes around various and divers sections of the grounds", plus masking for everyone over 11 (and in some cases over 3; who were not medically exempt) in all indoor/enclosed areas, plus lots of encouragement to maintain distancing.
... people were not masking, despite the signs at the entrances to all the buildings, and to my further annoyance were not being prompted by the staff & stewards various. This... meant I was much less comfortable in enclosed areas than I'd been -- well, not expecting, but hoping, at least, which was a disappointment. Nevertheless: that's absolutely the most time I've spent in any building at all since March 2020, including being indoors for medical appointments and at my parents' (where my parents are being even more cautious than I am/we are), and per the above I'm planning to go back.
Highlights: African Hunting Dogs, which were excellently spotted and long of leg and elegant of trot; the pile of warthogs that were mostly asleep but occasionally snuffled their noses around in their pile of straw; the stripes on the okapi and also on the zebra, which I got to admire much more close-up than I recall having ever managed before; the PYGMY HIPPOS (not that we managed more than a glimpse, because they were very much Wallowing in their Warm Indoor Pool); red-footed tortoises; the bokiboky, a Madagascan mongoose that looks much more like a pointy squirrel than I'd realised mongeese did; the two! toed! sloth!; in the Nightlife section, the elephant shrew and a warren of naked mole rats in a variety of sizes and competencies (so small); the red river hogs with their RIDICULOUS ear tufts; colobus monkeys, with pampas-grass-tuft tails and SMOL BABS that get CARRIED AROUND; the scarlet ibis and also the northern bald ibis (there were also sacred ibis and flamingoes but I have my priorities, and they are the ones that are COLOURS); pretty much everything in the Tiny Giants exhibit, which we sped through at the end and definitely want to spend more time in; the various BRIGHT BLUE things; and the RARE TADPOLES in the SEX TANK with the VARIABLE EXTENTS OF FEET.
... as you can tell from the length of this shortlist of highlights, I had a great time. And then! Then we headed back home, via Ruby Violet (Tuffnell Park), where I tried new-to-me Malted Milk and had an actual serving of old-familiar-friends strawberry sorbet and hazelnut & hazelnut brittle ice cream, and when we made it home we flomped on the sofa and listened to the bats (though did not actually manage to see them) and admired the very dramatic and very beautiful crescent moon.
It has been lovely.