Contrast that to the experience of being a postman in Germany, which means management far removed from the actual workers and whose “staff training” consists of telling it’s delivery operative that they are nothing more than glorified advertising dispensers, a largely abusive public and having to meet strict averaged delivery times (1 second per letter, 3 seconds per package plus a blanket travelling time added). These are so tight that, in the depot that I worked at for a while, some of the older postmen physically didn’t manage. The rest of their family helped out, unpaid, unofficially, just so that their spouse/parent met the targets set. In Germany the family name of whoever occupies a house is displayed on the outside in addition to the house numbers. The expectation is that postmen must have memorized the first name of who lives where in their district, but also that they know/remember if some member of a family that used to live in a particular house has moved elsewhere. If you don’t remember, but post a letter, there will be complaints. Here in England houses only have numbers and there’s no indication who lives where; that alone makes the job so much more enjoyable. It is a good transitional job. Which is where I am. Stability. I am not quite sure where I’ll go next, yet.

Today is the last week I am on anti-depressants after a two-year period. Over the last three weeks I have stepped down dossage in agreement with my GP. I have graduated from my BsC in Outdoor and Environmental Education degree with a first (but will miss the graduation cermony as I am in Sweden at that time) and am half-way through my MA in Writing. The first feels like the biggest achievement among the three. I’d like something big to happen next, somehow.

What is the purpose of an online journal? I am not really sure. This one turned out to be a form of public diary. I don’t keep any note of the things I don’t want to share though, so these are all the (sporadic) notes on my life I do keep. Keeping a diary is, I guess, a lot about the implied promise of being able to turn back pages somewhere at a non-descript future moment in time looking back and rediscovering what one had forgotten. Excuse me while I sum up some recent and not so recent events. Right now Iceland is shutting down modern transportation for the second time this year, as volcanic ash-clouds endanger fragile air-plane turbines. The biggest recession since the 1930′s has arrived in the UK, but no-one really seems to give a damn; some traditional shops that were part of “British culture died”, but live goes on. There’s been one of the wettest and one of the coldest periods in England since weather records began. Cue this amazing satellite image that made it’s rounds. I am listening to PJ Harvey’s The Whores Hustle and the Hustler’s Whore, not through my headphones for a change, but through the computer speakers that my mother gave me on an extended loan and that are, mainly, usually, in the lounge for our frequent film nights.

We can’t decide on films most of the time. We use a roundabout method instead. There’s a pile of about 30 DVD’s in the lounge, with a tupper-ware style small plastic container on top containing an adequate amount of paper cut into roughly equal squares with numbers written on them then folded over. Our own random-number generator. With smaller decisions (like – do we have Pizza today or not? Who’s first to put up washing?) a simple coin flip is enough. We is P., my flat mate, and me. P.’s an Outdoor Ed. Student, in his last year. And, incidentally, a postman, too. I feel like having some vanilla icecream.

The apartment. I’ve meant to introduce it months ago. We are in the middle of the town. There’s a photo of the view from my desk below. We are living among seagulls¹. Quite frequently one of them lands on the windowsill infront of my window. They don’t seem to be overly aware of their surroundings when landing. Only after their landing do they look up, see me, hesitate for a moment startled((These are massive birds. Their wings span extends beyond the width of my window.)) and flying off again. Just as frequently one or the other is (not very happily?) pecking at one of the cut out cardboard fishes we stuck to the lounge window (aka our aquarium). Other notable happenings include another completed headsound project. The first was an exploration of Liverpool through sound, the second a stop-motion animation (this is a rough and incomplete cut) and the third a VJing/DJing performance where we plugged in and used as many devices as we could [two laptops, a portable play station, a wii-mote, a set of digital-turntables, a light-board and a smoke machine]. We weren’t actually allowed to use the smoke-machine within FACT and set off the fire alarm during practise. There’s a fourth project in the plans for this summer.

And the rest, as they say, are photos.

View from my desk

Spraypainting Fishes for a Liverpool Studen Amnesty protest agains Shell

Justin and Julie

Well hello there! (A mannequin in some clothing shop in Liverpool.)

. It's a tie.

1. Cue P.J. Harvey’s Seagulls track on her Uh Huh Her album.

The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own.

- Susan Sontag

My tele lens died. Well – at least I have the feeling it is beyond fixing now. I managed to repair the shutter when it collapsed a while back, but this is more serious. The problem is I can’t check – I haven’t found a way to access the part of the lens that I’d need to look at. Without knowing how it is constructed I’d describe it as it having broken apart – the focus ring at the back no longer moves the front part. Rather – the two have become seperate. But this is no good description and I can’t offer a better one. But I think I got one last good use out of it. All, but one, of the lenses I have have do not have modern features like auto-focus and the like. It became a bit of an extra challenge getting things in focus as the tele was already begining to fail, badly. That is I had to press the lens backwards to get it to focus (ouch, nose), and even that only worked occasionally. I am rather happy with the results, however.

On Saturday a set of free concerts in the Docks started, focusing on African Music. Liverpool-based Zimbabwan ‘Hohodza Band‘, ‘Groupe Lolou’ from Senegal and ‘Oumou Sangaré‘ (Mali). Here some photos in no particular order; more can be found in the gallery:

Also: I have a deadline to move out of the apartment I am in, now. The next tenant needs to be out of his old apartment by the 17th. I agreed to try to find a new place by then, but – given that the landlady has another house in the same street – I could temporarily stay there until the end of August (when my contract for this apartment officially runs out) if necessary. I am fine with that. Not least given I might need my current landlady to provide a “reference” for anything I’d rent through an agency.

I’ve seconded (more) and lead (less) a few climbs during these three days – and it worked well, at first: No trace of anxieties that hindered me on previous outings and generally just having a good time. I know the basics well enough, by now, can place (protective) gear, construct anchors/belays … even if it’s a little slow and clumsy at times. I still feel that I want to do more of this, that being out there, having those experiences is … well what I search for in life. That by and large Outdoor activities are my thing. I was having fun. But then.

Third day was a visit to Holyhead mountain. This is a sea-cliff like mountain close to the ocean, that requires one to walk up a steep scree slope to the base of the rock face where the climbing routes begin. It looks a little like a minutre version of Ayer’s Rock in as much as it rises out of flat ground surrounding it, quite suddenly. And then … hello darkness my old friend²: Anxiety. Started up on the scree slope where my imagination ran away with me. It wasn’t any more dangerous or difficult or complicated than ground I’ve covered in the past. Even the routes ahead weren’t more difficult than what I’d done the days before, just more exposed. Being afraid of the scree under my feet suddenly slipping away, or me slipping not finding the ground. Possible, yes, probable not very. And even if: Heather with it’s strong roots covering the ground, loads of bolders, things to grab in case. Anxiety persisted. I didn’t climb that day. Needed to tie myself in just to belay at the ground of the climb. And (remember this is part of the assessment days) the suggestion by Duncan (the lecturer with the small group of four that day) that I descend back to a ledge and call it a day.

And – as so often that coldness that comes with that, a chill down to the bones, where no amount of sunlight is warm enough. But then. It was a glorious day and it is an amazing place. I rested on that ledge, high enough to see the ocean curve on the horizon, no cloud, blue sky (a first hint of tanned skin, now days later). I built a minature stone circle on that ledge that was eventually crushed by a rope from the sky. I’d wished I’d packed my camera, which I had considered while packing, but didn’t in the end.

It was in that moment’s flight between the picture and the canvas that the demons set on her who often brought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception to work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child. Such she often felt herself – struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage; to say: “But this is what I see; this is what I see,” [...] “It suddenly get’s cold. The sun seems to give less heat,” she said, looking about her, for it was bright enough, the grass still a soft dreep green, the house starred in its greenery with purple passion flowers, and rooks dropping cool cries from the high blue.”

-Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Foghorns in the distance, as mist was over the ocean and this is a shipping lane, including those high-speed ferries crossing from Ireland to Wales and England. There were dolphins playing out in the ocean. And later in the day six sea-kayaks, quite likely other OEE students as they were supposed to be out there that day. There are sea cliffs in that area, which rank among the most scenic but also most difficult climbs in the UK – as the tide comes in you can’t escape other than climbing all the way. These cliffs are closed for climbers during the summer as they are the nesting place of some 10.000 birds or so. And then, there’s what I imagine Virginia Woolf’s Lighthouse to look like. I doesn’t require a boat – there’s a bridge, but still:

If she finished it tonight, if they did go to the Lighthouse after all, it was to be given to the Lighthouse keeper for his little boy, who was threatened with a tuberculous hip; together with a pile of old magazines, and some tobacco, indeed, whatever she could find lying about, not really wanted, but only littering the room, to give those poor fellows, who must be bored to death sitting all day with nothing to do but polish the lamp and trim the wick and rake about on their scrap of garden, something to amuse them. For how would you like to be shut up for a whole month at a time, and possibly more in stormy weather, upon a rock the size of a tennis lawn? she would ask [...]

-Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Mind you – it is a beautiful place, but that’s the first description of the lighthouse I came across browsing the pages. I will have to use other’s photos instead of mine for illustration, below³. I’ve scrapped just below the passing mark for the assessment (35%) based on my climbing the first two days. It’s only part of the module mark and I can compensate that. But the point is … as I said in the review discussion later, what I need is people to go climbing with, but it’s so hard to find people that I don’t hold back, on those days I can’t, but that choose to climb to a level that’s challenging as well. I hope it’ll fix itself some day.

South Stack Lighthouse

South Stack Lighthouse & Sea Cliffs

Holyhead Mountain

And that was the last big field trip with the course I’ll be part of. No-one, unlike those other days, felt like returning home. We usually just focused on going back quickly, everyone yearning for their home after a week or so out. No … it was a holiday like feeling these days, for everyone, I think. I’ll miss them days.

1. in translation – Species of Spaces and Other Pieces
2. I was nicknamed “the sound of silence” back in high school.
3. Click on them to go to the source pages

I handed in my dissertation

And yeah, there was something I wanted to say.

...

Never mind.

I already forgot many of those that I wanted to note down somewhere – no blog nearby, no time, whatever. Some stuck to mind though … and given I spend a good bit of time on busses, that’s the main focus right now.

#1: Not uncommon is the on the job chat. Not with a passenger, but a friend that happens to pass. The bus coming to a sharp stop, and a 10 minute discussion between driver and passer-by through the open door, while the passengers stoicly wait. No-one’s complained yet.

#2: Or that busdriver that reads a book while working … a few lines every red light (and a sip of tea). He’s bearded, wears glasses. Enjoys thrillers.

#3: The magic all day ticket that passes from passenger to passenger. Day-passes are valid an unlimited amount until midnight of the day of purchase, and, if you do more than three bus trips, cheaper than individual tickets. So frequently people just pass them on once they are done, and a single ticket transports many, many different people as it (I’d guess) is passed on from person to person, wherever the last person using it alights. I just got one of these (it was bought at 10:04 in the morning, it reached me by 21:03) today. From a complete stranger I’ll never meet again, as usual.

#4: I’ve mentioned pedestrian area musicians before. Nothing says Liverpool as the drummer and guitarist playing decently “hard” metal at a central spot of the shopping area. During christmas shopping time, with candy-cotton music oozing out of anything even remotely commercial. In the middle of a stressed out over-crowded shopping frenzy. Plus – they drew an audience!

#5:

Midnight, mid-January

——————————————————————————————————

I am late with my dissertation. So late, in fact that I won’t make the deadline. I am in the middle of crunching out interviews and transcribing, still. I am getting somewhere, though … and there are nice results up to this point. I’ll meet my tutor Monday. Let’s see what happens.

But because of that all leisure activities are off. I missed a Merchant of Venice performance by Propeller (an all male Shakespeare company) that I’d bought a ticket for (I’ve been told it was great, too ) – and skipped today’s Headsound session at FACT, too.

Joshua had to be put to rest early last week after discovering that he’d developed cancer (that had spread from liver to lungs). This is the first time I mention him here, mainly because I posted so little over the last year; he’d become a quite important part of my life for the short time I’d known him. I’d spent New Year over at Alex place, as my landlady finally got someone to rewire the house and fix electricity; there was no power here for a few days. Add to this that my dissertation refused to be written and gave me a hard time – I needed to get away from sitting at home alone. He’d been part of the audio recordings I did as part of the Headsound project at FACT – providing “dog noises” mixed in, here and there.

Josh had been sick for a while, unable to keep food down, losing weight. We ended up staying in on New Year’s eve to not risk exposing him to the freezing conditions and brought him to the vet the day after. They thought it was just a virus, initially. So this is for a dog that kept his playful nature even when terminally ill. That – as most animals – just been there and kept others well. Those last few nights he swapped between Alex’ and the guest room I was using, sleeping on the footend of our beds – a few hours here, then there.

I am glad I had the privilege of having him in my life and be allowed to share some time.

I do need to take up blogging again though – or just keeping a journal in general. As all the time before journaling helps with keeping track of what I do, reminding myself that I am actually moving forward and helps sorting my thoughts. Sadly … that’s quite important just for my day to day functioning, once more. (And for what it’s worth this made me give a trial run to Windows Live Writer which seems to be a quite nice tool so far.)

That is – while I am doing better than a year ago things are still sluggish, I struggle to keep up my motivation and (seasonal related?) I am certainly less able to do some of the things I have to or should do. For example, I tried joining Batala, a local drumming band (see photo / video). Panic attack during the first band practice killed that off – I haven’t been back since. Which is of course the worst way to deal with this, but is mostly due to having a lot of other things going on in my life at the time. Now that those are out of the way I probably should be looking at trying again. Or, well, focus on making it to one of the meetings of the local Mountaineering club (that I joined last June, but never participated in). Or just working on that slightly underlying panic that is just there in the background most of the days, hiding in my room at times, despite living with much more likeable people then last year. I can’t place this anxiety. It’s just there at times and usually in the mornings. I guess this might be a backlash from last years shared housing or similar.

Here’s a quick rundown of this years crew (as names will likely appear in posts later on):

Anne, German, just moved to Liverpool. One of those that fell through the German education system and has been "selected out". She doesn’t have the qualifications to go to uni in Germany. Will study Environmental Sciences. Lived in Mozambique and Portugal (and speaks some Portuguese). Connor – Irish … seems to be a typical student, really – studies economy & politics, but hardly ever seems to be around, or just in background if he is. Well except when you can hear him sing Irish folk songs. Karina – Russian born doctorate (medicine) student, whose family moved to Israel when quite young and eventually to England. She talks loads. And I mean loads loads. Alex (more later) happens to be her friend as well and – despite being good friends with her – "can’t deal with more than half an hour Karina". Finally there’s Gopi from  India who only moved in a couple weeks ago.

Despite all this … . Headspace is continuing to move forward, I’ve done a number presentations to a variety of people about it, been on the radio, whatever. Chances are that some members of the National Institute for Adult Continuing Learning (NIACE) will knock on the NUS door and suggest groups like Headspace to be established at student unions nation wide. I am trying to link Headspace in with other university services like the Graduate Development Programme. There’s also a chance that a research sub-group will form, looking at student mental health, with the aim to film a documentary, eventually. I just finished working on an Audio Installation with some of the FACT artists in residence that will get an exhibition sometime in December (and will likely work on a video installation next) so I am using connections I’ve built on that end.

Here are two recordings that did not make it into my soundpiece, but that I was quite happy with:

#1 – Walking past a Dylan cover singer in the city centre and keeping recording while passing an African musician … it’s the transition effect I aimed for. *Click*

#2 – One of these odd things just happening. Guitar player in city centre standing next to a small drum kit, his colleague somewhere else. A man (white hair/semi-bald, a cigar in his mouth) walks up, talks to the one on guitar for a while, sits down and starts playing, eventually says thank you and walks off again. It takes a while to get going. *Click*

Summer is here. For a couple days and out of nowhere. Warm enough (for me) to use t-shirt and sandals. My Amarylis flowers – the second time since moving to Liverpool. Despite having only one leaf and stretching for that bit of sunshine. (Photos behind the “more” tag.) Now it’s raining again.

I’ll likely get to work (fingers crossed) for a ferry company during the Isle of Man TT Race (see Wikipedia-Entry) translating and dealing with customers. Two weeks, full time. May, in fact, may become so busy I am not entirely sure when to find time to go househunting (more on that later, hopefully).

The first Frostwriting issue is online. [I didn't do much this time round.]

Headspace is on its way to become an official Liverpool Student Union society.

I’ve been contacted by Kelsan Gwang of the Tara Buddhist Meditation College and Retreat Centre through Idealist.org asking if I’d want to volunteer for them (free board/logging and classes on meditation and Buddhism in exchange). I am not really sure what in my Idealist.org profile caught their interest …

-C.

Four images over four days. Same below.

Things like toilets that provide facilities to only half-flush, recycling systems, composting, reducing carbon footprint by bicycling/using train, etc.. I won’t say these are givens in Germany or Sweden but it is more of a normality to simply do them, without having to think about it, then it is the case here. Particularly the notion that “cars are still the best way to get around” and that the suggested alternatives are “ridiculous” coming from some of the other course members annoy me. I’d really hoped that a course on “Outdoor and Environmental Education” would draw a more environmentally aware crowd.

They also have a bookshop and given their orientation I just couldn’t walk past it. I picked up David Edwards’ Free to be Human: Intellectual Self-Defence in an Age of Illusions, E.F. Schumacher’s small is beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered and James Lovelock’s Gaia: The practical science of planetary medicine (which was on sale). That means I am dipping into my savings this month, again … or rather I exchanged some of the Euros I still have for pounds to allow me to go through the rest of the month.

On the way back I started reading some in Free to be Human and sadly one of the criticisms offered in one of the reviews on amazon seems to be quite descriptive:

“Too often the book proceeds by personal declaration rather than from the basis of concrete examples, facts or research. This is compounded by a rather polarised viewpoint in which the affairs of the world are seen as either good or evil, black or white.”

The introduction of the third edition I have starts out with comparing our societies and political realities with The Truman Show: A make-believe world and construct that is artificially created, where the only real person is the one born into the movie set, not knowing any other reality. From there on the first Chapter begins by summing up Chomsky and Herman’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media – which I read years ago while living in Sweden.

Chomsky and Herman’s book uses a relatively neutral language and highlights what, why and how this unbalanced picture of news comes into existence without commenting much outside their factual observations. In contrast Edwards employs a moralising and aggressive manner of speech that weakens his argument and doesn’t do a lot of justice to the careful language of the original argument.

What got me though are his attacks against Psychotherapy:

“Most psychotherapists (apart from isolated radicals like Erich Fromm, R.D. Laing and James Hillman) have approached this modern problem by attempting to alleviate symptoms of dis-ease on the basis of the Freudian hypothesis, suggesting that neurosis is primarily (if not always) a result of sexual repression. More recently, therapists have emphasised the need to re-live repressed childhood trauma, so relieving the symptoms of the repression that is their cause. Rarely have psychotherapists sought the cause of neurosis in the economic and political system within which we live.” (page 45)

“[C]learly any system concerned with alteration of the personality that assumes as its premise that the requirements of society define the norm of sanity into which the personality should be fitted, is little more than a system of brainwashing.” (pages 45-46)

“The irrationality of trying to make a human being sane by emphasising his or her childhood and sexual experiences while largely excluding the impact of the requirements of the economic and political system has, apparently, only recently begun to strike a minority of psychotherapists.” (page 46)

What irks me is that he criticises something without really seeming to have an experience or knowledge about current practise. That is – I feel he’s attacking some form of urban myth about what happens in psychotherapy. Freud stopped being a model quite a while ago from all I know. But also – the way he puts things to me feels like downplaying how crippling mental health distress is. If I am not able to function in a way that makes me able to engage with society – critically or not – at all, then yes, the only positive consequence is to assist in helping to move toward less anxious and more “normal” behaviour. That is not saying that the current promoted lifestyle has problems and that yes, there might be a link to mental health – but counselling/therapy can not change the political landscape to accommodate people with a mental health problem. It can work with people and assist them to be more able to have a functioning life though.

I guess the point is – I am disappointed because the aim of the book “Intellectual Self-Defence in an Age of Illusion” suggests to me an attempt to move toward something positive – how his aggressive and attacking tone will help is beyond me. The sad part is – a good number of the topics he raises are important and important to discuss, look and point at. Only that he’s standing in his own way. On the other hand, I haven’t even finished the first chapter and will at least try to give him a chance.

In one of those funny coincidences I also happened to read an article by Paul Stolz (The Power to Change Through the Change to Power: Narrative Therapy, Power and the Wilderness enhanced Model, published in the Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, Volume Four, 2000) on the way to the centre. Stolz uses The Truman Show (!) as an example for “power and knowledge that serves to construct the reality in which one lives”. That is, he is pointing to exactly the problem that Edwards attacks (see above). However, Stolz, as a therapist, approaches a constructive not destructive perspective as a base of Narrative Therapy:

“As a therapist my discourses will be often completely different to those of the adolescent. My values and beliefs about family, gender, race, education, drug use etc. are coloured by the discourses that I have engaged in and have acted on me over a long period of time. [...] In understanding this within myself it opens up the possibility of acknowledging multiple realities, multiple perceptions and multiple constructions which opens the space for new and different possibilities.”

I’ve had my last counselling session this Friday. As said earlier and elsewhere things are good. My “CORE” score dropped massively since last October and while I am not at the level of what is considered “normal” I am not far off, either. Met next year’s house-mate B. whom I’ll be hunting for houses with as soon as possible (Ehlo!). We’d still need a third one to catch somewhat cheaper house prices (and have more choice as to where to live) but let’s see. Also taken some pictures at CAT … some behind the cutoff below. Finished the registration forms for Headspace. Next thing to manage: 5 exams and a seminar in a row (and then another exam a bit further down the road). Oh and … if “Cellar Door” is the most beautiful word in English then “Mushroom” must be in the top ten.

-C.

I just love the Welsh word for Microwave! I still hope to pick up another language sometime … Esperanto, at least on the basic level, still seems a fair bet.

My attempt at doing a Kinga Freespirit (one of my idols) like self-portrait from memory. It’s nowhere close, but hey, features the green water bottle I always carry (it’s the third one, actually, the rest having been lost somewhere)!

A public phone booth at CAT.

One of the exhibitions at the centre. This one explaining issues around public transport (on signs along the path).

Random motive saying winter is over (#234123450123).

I can’t really say what makes caving enjoyable for me. Part of it is probably discovering a part of the world and the environment that isn’t easily visible. Part of it are those fascinating views one only gets in an underground environment. Walking through a cave and suddenly coming to a spot that has an opening, the walls covered with moss and grasses – life claiming it’s space, a waterfall feeding the channels that cut the caves, and then re-entering darkness. Part of it is the whole sense of awe of the time spans, the geological history of the places one touches. Caves are ancient spaces. Spaces that are beyond human history, that have a sense of eternity in them. It is an environment that changes only very slowly. On the last day caving we spent time in a quite muddy environment – dry mud that partially started to turn into rock – and likely has been deposited in that cave during the last ice age (there are no signs of flooding, whatsoever) 10.000 years ago. And maybe that aspect of having to bend, flex and use all of one’s body makes part of it – wriggling through a tight space for a couple meters, squeezing around corners, using counter-pressure to stay on that rim, with a large drop below – to traverse from one part of the cave to another … I really can’t say. Other then that I enjoyed my time.

I’ve also learnt an interesting tidbit about the way assignments are constructed here at the uni. There are, apparently, regulations that govern how much words an assignment has to have. That is, for example, an assignment carrying 33% equals a maximum of 1000 words. Knowing that helps appreciate the difficulties in constructing tasks for the courses – and, at the same time, makes it easier to accept what sometimes seems like “impossibly” few words for complex topics. I think I always need to understand the reasoning behind things, understand why something is asked of me the way it is. I like transparency.

I also have to state at this point that the lecturers on this course are accepting and understanding of my needs to a point that is exemplary. I will – very likely – need – in one form or another – some extensions on my work. The general consent among the staff is one of – we’ll help you, think you are intelligent enough to do this, and want to provide support. I am more scared and feeling guilty for asking for help than I should be.

Coming home … I stopped counting after the 50th discarded beer can in the living room. The house was clean and tidy when I left (and after Ed had returned) – with all the others around the same problems as usual return. We’d run out of toilet paper. Instead of buying new ones (buying more alcohol always works) they started using newspaper. Will, as ever so often, passed out sometime Saturday afternoon and didn’t return to the living world until midnight (I was watching Oh Brother where art thou on Film4 in an – for once – otherwise empty living room) when I went to bed. I am worried some about him – drinking and diabetes don’t go well together. That he’s being “abandoned” pretty much by his drinking buddies in that state – doesn’t really point toward healthy friendships, I think.

I am looking forward to moving out, hope to find more mature people and – finally – a room with a window that I can actually look out of. (There are some photos after the “more” tag. Warning! Big!)

-C.

This is the lower of the two Limestone Beds we examined. What happened here is that glacial movement removed the cover of the bedrock and then water cut grykes in it (and leaving clints behind).

A view from inside a gryke.

A top down view.

One of those photos that are so cliche Outdoor Ed

River Twiss valley – before the waterfalls section and an obviously artificially straightened river bed. Shows the typical glacial valley form (with subsequent “softening” through weathering/erosion).

Same waterfall as above (there are several) – the lower part of the rocks are Ordovician slates (which have been uplifted and are at a 76 to 78 degree angle now), with Carboniferous limestones (in there original vertical sedimentary position). The Devonian rocks must have been eroded away before the deposition of the limestone – leaving a “gap” in the geolocial timescale (i.e. an Unconformity).

A close up of a third layer of rock between the two, this time a conglomerate, likely remains of glacial deposits. There’ll be some cave photos later – once the files from the waterproof “indestructible” university cameras have been uploaded.