Well as of yesterday thats all my exams finally out of the way!

Just my presentation to go now and hand in my essay (which I've pretty much finished anyway) and then I can go HOME.

 Woo!

Kev, Ally and I went with Sam and Liam to Llanddona yesterday. The wind was blowing between 10-16mph up the estuary (one of my favourite directions because it makes heading upwind fun). I took the trick buggy with the intermediate tyres on along with my gps and went off into the beach.I was doing really well and managed a few upwind turns - they still feel really awkward but hopefully with time I will improve on them. The wind seemed to pick up a bit so I went for a couple of speed runs across the beach.

Did I beat my speed record of 21.5mph? See for yourself.

Friday 25th May 2007 rolled along and Ric and I caught the train to Chester where Wee Andy, Ally and of course Kev picked us up (Ric bought a Frenzy earlier in the week and went to Wallop to pick it up - 9.5m 04 in Red, £145 - Bargain). After a long car journey - Ally and Andy spent over 10 hours in the car that day, but it was only 5 or so for Ric and I - we finally arrived at Middle Wallop Airfield and started putting up tents and finding people to say hi to. Jon and Jango didn't arrive 'til gone 11 so Ric was a bit tired - they were lending him a tent - but we eventually went to sleep about 2ish.

Saturday morning started off ovrecast, a quick pilots briefing for the traction field users at 9 and a queue for people to get their insurance. We went out fairly quickly and spent roughly 11 hours out - a nice wind (could have done with a bit more but I was happy enough) and sunshine. Took the GPS out but not beating 15mph which was a bit of a let down having been faster than that downhilling! That evening was the Film Fest - we sat in the car and watched it on the inflatable screen like a drive in cinema because it had begun to rain by that point, some very good entries and some not so good ones but everyone put in the effort and it was a good laugh for all. I only saw half of them, me and Wee Andy went for a wander because I had a headache.

Sunday was wet. This is somewhat of an understatement, as it rained heavily and consistently for most of the day. We spent most of the morning in the beer tent chilling and playing with circus toys (some people making this more dangerous than necessary, looking at no-one in particular) and Ric went home, he wasn't enjoying it which is fair enough. 17 of us decided we'd go to see Pirates of the Carribean in Salisbury, but when we got there (wet and muddy, as kiters are) it was fully booked until 7pm - we got there at 3.30pm ish. So we decided to go bowling instead! When we got to the bowling alley, that too was fully booked so we looked into the laser games held there in a childrens play area (think Wacky Warehouse, Jimmy G's, Charlie Chalk's Fun Factory etc.) and ten of us decided it would be great fun. There were 5 people on each team (Buggiers vs. Boarders), and then we went in. 3 people from the buggiers ended up injured, and 2 of us ended up in hospital - no prizes for guessing who was one of them! Luckily though this meant we got to sit in the warm and dry and miss the karaoke for a couple of hours, although I strongly suspect that in the ball-pit environment we make much better buggiers than laser gamers.

Sunday night was windy. The registration tent went first, followed by the St John's ambulance tent, followed the tent belonging to the St John's volunteers, with them still inside. Lots of other tents had been demolished by the 45mph gusts coming through by the time we returned from the hospital, and we decided to sleep in the car - me and Kev had the front seats of his Punto, and Wee Andy slept in the back.

Monday morning came after a warm and cosy nights sleep to see the part of the tent Kev and I were sleeping in was flat. I'm not sure if that spar snapped but another one did. The tent Ric had been sleeping in was 2 inches deep in water inside, James' tent stayed up well and Ally's tent didn't even move.

Wee Andy and myself did our written papers for the Enduro licencing and then we headed north! Ally and Kev came back to Bangor with me - when we got back we went straight to the beach where the wind was onshore at 15mph and the weather was sunny!

All in all I had a fantastic weekend, even with the rain - more Happy Wallop Memories.

Dennis' health appeared to improve until Friday when I went to Wallop, so I put him back in the big tank and left for the weekend.

 Upon our return to the room on Monday evening, we realised that only Owyn and the minnows were swimming around - Dennis was nowhere to be seen. A quick hunt around revealed Dennis as being lying dead at the botom of a tank, near some pebbles. It was getting late so we left him in to fish him out in the morning.

When I went to get him out of the tank yesterday he tried to swim (evidently he wasn't actually dead) so we put him in the pot again to see if he picked up - though at this point it was fairly obvious there was something badly wrong with him and so we began trying to think of humane ways of putting him out of his misery.

He died last night and, after a watermelon eating competition, we thought of the best way to send him on his way to the fishy valhalla.

The suggestion of throwing him off the suspension bridge in a casket was made, and then setting this casket on fire to do it, then throwing him off in half a watermelon skin. In the end we made a funeral barge (Viking style) to put him in.

Today we held his funeral on the northern side of the suspension bridge in Menai Bridge; a daisy in his coffin alongside his lifeless body and a penny for the ferryman (its cheaper for fish).

We'll miss you Dennis. The trout of Death has slapped you and it is with a heavy heart we send you on your way to the afterlife (or Caernarfon, depending on how you look at it).

It's a tense moment in the fish tank.

Two days ago Dennis kept stopping swimming and sitting on the bottom of the tank. He started to move again and seemed ok, then yesterday he sort of sunk into the plastic plant and rested for a good couple of hours.

This morning I have woken up and he is in one corner of the tank not moving  a great deal.

Is this the end of the half of the terrible two that is Dennis?

Haven't had much chance to post recently, so just a quick one to post some pics of my buggy with the new disk wheels!

Had them out at the weekend and they held up to some decent abuse on some hard ripples and a lot of powersliding, just got to test them on wallops tarmac now...

The Herring Gull that has not budged from the nest for the last fortnight keeps getting up off the nest. I hope the eggs are ok. She gets up before she looks at them, wanders about a bit and sits back down again, so I'm guessing she's getting fidgety.

 Ideally I will still be here when they do finally hatch but they are not due for another fortnight at least (I can learn all sorts about herring gulls when revising oceanography don't 'cha know).

Patience is a virtue I guess!

Was just digging through my folders on my laptop and found the photo of the Mathematical Rocket Penguin.

The paragraph says "Innaccuracies in given data in which calculations are based are called [illegible word, sorry Mr Emsley] errors." And the script next to the rocket penguin says "Mathematical Rocket Penguin - Saving the world from Mathematical Errors Once again!"

I think at this point its quite obvious why I couldn't answer the question in the Key Skills paper.

Dad sent me this the other day and I spent ages on it this morning - its full of random rubbish from all over the internet. Loads of really clever stuff in it!

http://www.crainium.net/jdjArchives/image_collection/

Have fun!

I heard somewhere that fish like cucumber so I decided to give it a go.

The other day in Morrisons I bought a cucumber portion and while I've enjoyed the part of it I have eaten I put a slice in for Dennis and Owyn. They didn't seem to like it at first but now they love it!

There isn't much left. I will have to remember that for later on. Now I know they like bread and hard boiled egg yolk, and can now add cucumber to the list!