6 weeks, 9 border crossings and countless catch ups

Opposite the Dublin Conference Centre

The sights, sounds and tropical heat of Borneo now seem like a distant memory as I sit here in Northern Finland, having just completed a day hike through Arctic tundra, near the Russian border. I believe two posts back I left you as I was part way through my Quaternary Science conference in Dublin. Since then, I have spent a couple of weeks back in Buckinghamshire, about 10 days in Stockholm, yet another week in the UK, this time including a trip to York, a very fleeting, 3 days in Stockholm and finally, I am now part way through 2 weeks touring around northern Norway, Sweden and Finland (Northern Fennoscandia), teaching students about the polar landscapes up here.

Along the Howth Coast, nr. Dublin

Dublin was a fun but full on 6 days, with numerous talks to attend, plenty of glacial sedimentologists

to catch up with, a poster to present and a huge range of cafes and restaurants to sample; by the end of the week I was quite ready to curl up and sleep for a few days. On my return from Dublin, I spent 10 days back in Coleshill, catching up with family and friends. A few days after I arrived home, my parents and Grandma returned from their week on Mull, so I was able to enjoy the sunshine with them between short bursts of PhD work.

Regents Park picnic

Midway through the week it was the first of my Grandmas’ birthdays (Mum’s mum) so we entered full celebration mode. Mum, Grandma and I started the day with a birthday breakfast, accompanied by a good selection of wartime tunes. We then packed up a picnic and headed into London where we met Dad and Tom in Regents Park for dinner al fresco followed by a fantastic

Inspired by the Tour d'Yorkshire

performance of Evita at the open-air theatre. On leaving the theatre, we failed in our attempts to hail an Uber but no fear – Grandma hopped on to one of the Santander bikes and, with the help of Mum and Tom, wheeled over to Marylebone station for our journey home.

A few days later it was my other Grandma’s turn. This time it was a milestone birthday so a great excuse to get most of the family together (minus 2 cousins as Torrin and Charlie were away). It really was great to catch up with so many relatives and find out what everyone is up to these days while munching on some scrumptious food at the Ethorpe in Gerrards Cross. Amazingly I was actually able to see most of both sides of the family within 24 hours as we also had a fleeting visit from the Aubrey’s (Jane, Chris, Josh, Sam and Toffee the dog) on their way over to see the pentathlon in Bath.

Eva - fire master

Charlotta on the bilberry hunt

It was finally time to get back to doing some proper work, so I returned to Stockholm for a couple of

weeks to get some data processing done and start writing up my first academic paper. While over there it was the Stockholm culture festival, so I joined a group form university for a few free concerts in the city centre, including a great performance by Ane Brun and Sweden’s Radio Symphony Orchestra. My return also happened to coincide with a talk on the world’s health at Karolisnka Institute, in memory of Hans Rosling (If you haven’t heard of him I’d encourage you to look up his work); this produced some interesting discussions on current health issues and successes and the outlook for the future. Clinging on to the last few weeks of summer, I joined
friends on frequent swims in the sea and nearby lakes and went on a mushroom hunt with Charlotta, Eva, her husband Nelson and his cousin and partner. We soon discovered we were a little too keen for mushrooms; we only found 3 chanterelles on our afternoon walk, but we ended up with buckets full of bilberries to enjoy alongside our campfire feast of sausages, Portuguese fish parcels and toasted marshmallows.

Just 10 days later I was back on a plane, returning to Coleshill for a hot and sunny bank holiday weekend filled with picnics, copious amounts of ice cream and yet more fleeting catch ups. This trip home was an extension to another conference: a Quaternary postgraduate symposium in York. This conference was just for PhD students so much smaller scale than INQUA in Dublin (just 20 of us rather than 5000!) making it a friendlier environment for my first oral presentation outside of the geography department back in Stockholm. The talk went well (despite a persistent cold on my part) and it was great to meet a group of PhD’s going through similar journeys to me and hear about the huge range of research going on within the world of Quaternary Science; one that particularly stuck in my mind was a study on giant dormice that used to exist on Mediterranean islands.

Suzanne at one of many cafes visited

To make the most of my time in York (and my conference funding), I managed to slot in a final meet

up with my other house mate from my master’s year; Suzanne. She came and joined me in York on the Friday after I’d spent the day over in Leeds, picking my co-supervisors’ brains on data processing approaches. We spent the evening having a good natter over a delicious cheese and charcuterie board and bottle of wine and throughout Saturday dodged the intermittent rain showers while exploring York’s entangled streets, cute shops and of course, trying out numerous cafes (of which York has some real gems).

Lunch stop on an esker

With my UK adventures complete it was a quick trip back to Stockholm to get things in order before setting out on the 2-week tour of northern Fennoscandia with Benny (my PhD supervisor), Peter (a permafrost professor) and 15 Master’s students. The aim of this trip is to show the students a range of polar and alpine environments and explain the contemporary and palaeo processes occurring here. My role mostly seems to be to make up numbers and take on some of the driving as we have over 2000 km to cover during our time up here. On meeting the students in Luleå, we set straight out on the 5-hour drive north, over into Finland and up beyond the Arctic Circle, greeted by countless Santa signs along the way. The abundant reindeer and occasional moose served as constant reminders of our Lapland latitude and by the time we reached our first accommodation in Savukoski we no longer felt the need to stop for every glimpse of an antler or white fluffy tail.

The view as you step out of the sauna.. Finns know how to live!

After a comfy night sleep, we were back on the road to visit an archaeological site, where they’re studying signs of hunter-gatherer settlements from around 10,000 year ago, and to take some cores in an adjacent peatland. Another hour drive into the middle of nowhere, followed by a 40-minute hike towards the Russian border and we had reached our next destination: Värrio research station. This is a proper log cabin nestled in the trees, just above a small lake; slightly less luxurious than our last stop: bunk rooms and a dirt toilet, but very cosy and complete with home cooked meals. In true Finnish style, there is a sauna perched on the edge of the lake; perfect to sooth the muscles after a 20 km hike and warm up after a frigid dip in the deep, black lake.

I’ll leave you here for now as we ready ourselves for another northwards journey to the north Norwegian coast but will be sure to update you in the rest of our Arctic adventures in due course.