1. Back from Lanzarote.
2. Grateful to the RAC (flat battery), groliffe and C (non-flat cat), bugshaw (foooooood in fridge!), ladymoonray (not drowning me).
3. ( ottava rima )
4. Camera-less. (Lost on last day.) My fault entirely, but waaaa, my lovely pictures of lichen!. Luckily ladymoonray took plenty of photos. Though not of lichen.
5. Enjoying pink fizz, smoked haddock and ozymandias_cat.
6. Browner than a week ago.
7. Asleeeeep (if not right now then soon).

swisstone bringing history to life, translating and explaining a Roman milestone: Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, last weekend.

1. This afternoon I went to Bracklesham Bay, which is not only a glorious (and largely sand-free) beach for swimming, but has more fossils than you can shake a stick at. I picked up quite a few 'twixt salt water and shingle, mostly Turritella inbricateria (little spiral things), with a few Venericor Planicosta (cockles, more or less). Eocene, so ~50 million years old.

2. Found my new Biber CD, Vespro Della Beata Virgine (1674) which I (vaguely) recalled unwrapping but could not locate anywhere. Naturally, it was where I left it in the logical place for new CDs, the car. It's gorgeous, especially the opening Dixit Dominus which is rather ... forceful, with a violin part that reminds me of Vivaldi's Winter and glorious bass/soprano harmonies.

3. Post-beach, was in need of carbs and caffeine, so I bought myself a picnic and headed for Boxgrove, setting for a non-fiction book that I found gripping -- Fairweather Eden, an account of the excavation and archaeology of one of the oldest prehistoric sites in Britain. (Includes a tutorial on flint-knapping.) People were working flints and butchering food here half a million years ago, during one of the warmer interglacials. Not long in terms of Turritella inbricateria but not to be sneezed at.

Sadly, I have no idea where the dig actually was, and as it was rescue archaeology the land has probably reverted to aggregate extraction. Instead, I went to have a look at some modern stuff: Boxgrove Priory, where one can wander around the ruins of the 13th-century guesthouse whilst the soberly-clad choir hurry past to some event in the main church.

Saturday would have been my father's 81st birthday. Since it was a glorious day I decided to celebrate it and him by heading back to the Essex marshes.( Essex, Illustrated )

Some of my photos from the California leg of my trip are now up over at Flickr. See Pirates! Seabirds! Me, looking inane!