Sport Relief

I'm finally doing it. I'm running the Sport Relief mile on 25th March in Milton Keynes. As I'm not a natural runner, I've started doing some training. And to keep me in the mood I bought some new running trainers and trousers, and my Sport Relief t-shirt. Really excited now.

Grey heron

Looking through the pictures on my phone it turns out I have a backlog of stuff to share with you. Most I'd forgotten about!

Here is the first one; a grey heron. Dave and I spotted it in the stream that runs through New Bradwell. There are always plenty of ducks out there but this was the first time we spotted this fellow.

Dave also discovered the mystery of why there are always so many ducks hanging around on the village green. There is a sandwich shop nearby, and earlier this week Dave spotted the owner throwing bread out to them. Simple as that.

Piano practice: The beginning

I have decided to learn to play the piano. By myself. No tuition. Just me. I will be tracking my progress here.

I've been playing for 3 weeks now and it started out very promising. I could quickly play very simple, 16-bar practice pieces with two hands (as long as the corresponding fingers on each hand were used at the same time). That was week one.

For the last 2 weeks I have been playing two pieces. The first, Three Blind Mice. This is one of the first tunes that everyone who ever had instrument lessons at school would learn first. On piano, it is hard. Really hard! The second piece is Lullaby by Brahms, which turned out to be easier than Three Blind Mice. In fact, I can rarely play either without there being a mistake.

So this is week 4. My aims for week 4 are to continue with Lullaby, and attempt Ode to Joy by Beethoven. I can play the top line very easily. The bottom line is even easier but....putting them together...challenging. The only thing to do is play it over and over again. As I have a digital piano I can plug my headphones in and listen through those. My boyfriend is relieved.

New blog. Only blog?

I've decided that maybe it would be best to keep just one blog, rather than have different blogs for different subjects. This means that my blog will seem a rather eclectic mix of things, but it least it will be representing the whole of me, rather than just "science Fee" or "obsessed with Tudor history Fee." So this is me; a little record of things I get up to in my life. I'd like to include everything. Now that I have a phone with a half-decent camera, I intend to take more pictures and to share them with you. I'd like to include most things I get up to, even if it's just  something I get stuck on at work (usually Excel) or a new piece of music I learn on the piano (who would have thought that Three Blind Mice would pose such a challenge?)

I think sometimes I try to be too organised. For example, when I first started my PhD I had a notebook for EVERYTHING: a lab book, a rough lab book, a general notes notebook, a seminar notebook. But what would happen is I would forget/lose a note book and write notes in the incorrect notebook. A few months later I decided to have just 2: one for the lab, and one for everything else. It means that the book is a mixture of seminar notes, random thoughts, doodles, calculations, but I know where everything is. And it's saving me a lot of space!

So I hope to keep up-to-date with this blog. I've decided this year that I would like to visit as many places as possible associated with the Tudors. I have a bit of an obsession with Tudor history, especially Elizabeth I's reign. This would definitely be my specialist subject on Mastermind. So as a struggle to remember the composition of feldspar minerals I can quite easily tell you what year and month Elizabeth nearly died of smallpox, or the year that Henry VIII chopped off Anne Boleyn's head. Ah, the brain. Such a weird and wonderful thing.

Now that I live so close to London a lot of the places I want to visit are rather local. The first will be Hampton Court Palace, hopefully next weekend, so I will keep you posted. I went to the Tower of London in January and didn't spend nearly enough time there, so I intend to go back. Here are a few pictures I took while I was there.

The White Tower, with three square turrets and one circular one, which was the original Royal Observatory (now at Greenwich).

Me, with the White Tower visible in the background.

This building contains the Crown Jewels. Pretty.