Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

I free soloed the Little Sugar Loaf. Technically, there is no climbing involved and you just walk up. Also, some would say a hill that is 342 metres high isn’t much of an achievement. Especially when the car park is like half way up. But I wouldn’ be great with heights and this one just turns into a scramble at the top.

I didn’t actually fancy the scramble. There are a few false summits that way and by the second one I decided there was too much scrambling. So I went around the other way and took the more gentle path. You get a lovely view from the top.

You might be surprised to learn that it is fairly near the Great Sugar Loaf.

The viva is an oral examination also known as a thesis defence. In Latin it means “living voice” with the idea that you give voice to your research while being examined by a panel made up of an internal examiner from the university, an external examiner from another university, and a chair who is there to ensure smooth running of the examination.

I completed mine last week for my research on mental health in ultra-endurance athletes. I am delighted to say that I passed with minor corrections!

Lovely zoo. The habits looked large and well-designed but we still got to see plenty. We got lucky with the elephants and the tiger was huge. The hippo was hiding, unfortunately. They also have rhinos, giraffes, zebras, chimps, sea lions and loads more. But the highlight might have been the wolves. There was a pack of them running around. The gorillas were also brilliant.

Wild Encounters is located just outside Newcastle West. They have a range of birds, reptiles, meerkats and farm animals. Also, a tanuki, which was both cool and very timely given how popular Animal Crossing currently is in our house. There was plenty to keep us entetained in terms of talks, a hands-on petting of the rabbits and guinea pigs, and ferret racing in which Venla and her team mate Polly took first place!

Ulster Museum is composed of three levels: history, nature and art. There is loads of interesting stuff including a piece on The Troubles, the formation of continents since the creation of the Earth, and two discovery rooms with lots of hands-on items for children. It’s also located in the Botanical Gardens so you can have a walk around those as well. And it’s all free.

DUNeS recently hosted a visit from Dogs for the Disabled who are a charity that provide assistance dogs. They are similar to Guide Dogs but help with physical mobility issues like walking, retrieving dropped items, raising the alarm if something is wrong and a range of other tasks.

They also provide therapy dogs which in this case is a well trained dog that acts as a companion (the dog has no additional training in psychodynamic theory).

They are a registered charity and currently fundraising to build a new HQ so if that is a cause you would like to support, check out the Dogs for the Disabled website.

DUHAC held its AGM last week. Congratulations to everyone who made the committee and thank you to those outgoing for all of their hard work. We also got a team photo for Chariots of Tired with Juno helping Jack make a virtual appearance.

One of the prizes for the DUHAC 24-hour was a gift card for Base Pizza. To balance all the time I’ve spent running recently, we had Venla-focused day yesterday with junior parkrun, the Minecraft movie, and then pizza.

Big news, team. I’ve already taken my bike outside this year.

The graveyard was not a metaphor for getting older. Instead, it was a lovely walk around Glendalough. It was beautiful and, importantly, there wer much fewer biting insects than in June.