Expanding my carbon footprint

Nearly six months ago, I finished off my blog post with a nod to upcoming trips to Skellefteå and England. Since then, I’ve been on not just those two, but eleven trips around the Nordics, the UK and beyond, celebrating various birthdays, visiting family and friends, driving students around the Swedish countryside, and digging in plenty of dirt. A post about all of that could easily turn into a novel, so I’ll stick to the highlights and in many cases, let the photos speak for themselves.

2022 has been a year of big birthdays in the Watts and Burman families. In the space of one week at the end of June, we had two 60^ths and a 70^th to celebrate. First, it was the Watts’ turn with Uncle Simon and Mum’s 60^ths, so Emil and I popped across to England for five days to join in with the festivities. While over, we slotted in a foodie day in London before the full Watts gathering on Saturday at Simon and Lisa’s place. It was fantastic to see so much of the family in one place after too many years kept apart. We were able to view the impressive development that’s taken place on Simon and Lisa’s new house, over dinner Auntie Anne filled us in on the big events of the past few years, and afterwards, we battled it out in a number of team games – Simon showing impressive skills on the space hoppers.

Mum’s birthday celebrations followed with a trip to the midlands and into the woods to put our crafting skills to the test as the five of us were guided through the steps to make a bench. We started with freshly chopped chunks of wood, and after much work with axes, drawknives, and planers we ended the day with a solid, characterful bench for Mum and Dad’s garden and great memories from Mum’s 60^th birthday.

Straight after the celebrations, we were back in Sweden ready to head north to Skellefteå to start the next round of birthdays, celebrating Siv’s (Emil’s Mum) birthday one day and Steffan’s (Emil’s Dad) 70^th the next. We were joined by Linn, Kristoffer, and Hugo for a lovely few days soaking up the 30C heat, taking trips to the coast, canoeing on a lake with Emil’s friends, exploring the Skellefteå town fair, and enjoying a delicious Asian fusion meal at Skellefteå’s shiny new restaurant, situated at the top of a wooden skyscraper.

After a couple of intense weeks, we finally had a gap in our busy schedule to enjoy summer in Stockholm, but it seemed covid had other plans. On the plane back down to Stockholm, Emil was sat next to a coughing girl and three days later his fever was at 39C and his test was showing two red lines. Give it three more days and I followed suit. Our plans of frequent swims, BBQs and ice cream trip were replaced with ten days lying on the sofa feeling sorry for ourselves. Luckily my test turned negative just in time for my next trip, this time to central Sweden to help out on an archaeological investigation in Dalarna. The local archaeology group suspected there were some iron age ruins under one of the fields in their little village and had brought over two people from Wessex Archaeology in the UK to do a geophysical investigation. They needed to borrow our radar equipment from Stockholm University, so I was there to show them how to use it and help out with the surveys. I’m not sure the surveys revealed much but there was a lot of buzz in the local media, and I somehow ended up having to give an interview in Swedish for the local radio – a true test of my Swedish geophysics vocabulary!

Next up, it was this year’s main trip: two weeks in Scotland, including a 5 day stay with Mum’s side of the family over on the Isle of Mull. It was Emil’s first time in Scotland, so I wanted to make sure he got the full experience, and the weather certainly didn’t fail us there. We began the trip with a two-day stint in Glasgow, enjoying the city’s fantastic food scene and multiple parks while dodging into cafés, pubs and museums to avoid the intermittent downpours. Next up was the Cairngorms for some wild camping and a day hike up one of the many hills. We drove through spectacular scenery with the sun beating down until about 30 minutes before we arrived when the heavens opened and the rain became progressively more torrential. By the time we parked the car near the ski centre, it was bucketing down so we waterproofed up and decided the loch just 2 km away looked like a very suitable spot for nights stay. Once the tent was up that was it, we hunkered down for the evening, switching our anticipated veggie pasta meal for a courgette salad and some cereal bars. By the next morning the sky had cleared and we were able to complete the Meall a' Bhuachaille circuit, gaining stunning views across the surrounding valleys and loch below from the 810 m top (sadly not quite a Munro). The following day we were canyoning near Fort William, so we dried out in a very welcoming Airbnb there and tucked into a proper fish and chips supper before packing up the next morning ready for our next adventure.

In canyoning you wetsuit up then make your way down a river system, sliding down rapids and jumping off waterfalls as you go. It’s an exhilarating, if slightly chilly, experience with the highlight being a 9 m jump into a deep plunge pool – definitely wanted to keep your hands tucked in for that one! From here, it was onwards to the Isle of Mull for another night of ‘wild’ camping before meeting up with the family. This night turned out to be a tad less ‘wild’ than our previous experiences as Mull has restrictions on where you can camp. So, we ended up spending the night at the edge of Calgary Bay along with about 30 other people and a group of chatty teenagers who were playing spin the bottle until one in the morning. On the upside, the view from our tent was pretty spectacular and there wasn’t a rain cloud in sight. We were off early the next morning anyway for a boat trip to see Fingal’s cave with its magnificent basalt columns and one lone puffin on the nearby rocks (the rest had left for the season).

The next five nights were spent in luxurious comfort as we joined all of Mum’s side of the family at Craig Ben lodge for a fun filled few days of kayaking, hiking, swimming, game playing and whiskey tasting. While there we celebrated Grandma’s birthday with a Swedish meatball feast, made following Emil’s Grandma’s recipe and we were blessed with one sunny day for a full family trip to the beach for ball games, BBQing and water sports.

Come Thursday morning, Emil and I waved the rest of the family off and returned to Glasgow to drop of the car before heading across to Edinburgh for a few final sunny days in Scotland. We stayed with my friend Katrina from my master’s course, met up with my high school friend Bliss and her partner Ronan at Edinburgh Zoo, where Emil had his highlight of the trip – seeing panadas, and soaked up the buzz of the Fringe (we’ll have to return another time to see some performances). Finally, on Sunday it was time to return to Stockholm with the ‘Bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond’ buzzing in our heads, just in time for me to pack another bag and pick up another car for a work trip down south.

The following few weeks were a bit of a blur as I had fieldwork at a site down in Småland, digging sections for the sedimentology component of my PhD. On return from this trip I was greeted by Siv and Steffan, ready for a journey westwards this time for Hugo’s naming ceremony – a lovely day meeting many of Linn and Kristoffer’s friends and celebrating Hugo. Ten hours after returnign from Gothenburg it was a new van and a new bunch of people for another trip up to Dalarna, this time with a group of about 15 students, looking to learn about Sweden’s landscapes. So, Stefan, Josefine and I spent 5 days driving a group of students, aged 20 to 60, around the Swedish countryside, showing them various landforms, stopping off for ice creams and dips in the lakes, and taking them to a few tourist sights (e.g., the Dalarna horse factory) along the way.

You may have noticed by now that much of my teaching involves driving around the countryside, and this wasn’t over yet. For the first two weeks of September I was teaching on a field excursion up in northern Finland and Norway. I taught on this trip back in 2019 my memories of the magnificent views (especially) in Norway hadn’t been embellished in my head. We drove 16 students over 3000 km from Luleå, over to the buffer zone of the Russian border, up to the northern coast of Norway, along the Finnish-Norwegian border and back. It was an intense two weeks with a covid case along the way, meaning I had to be the quarantine van for a few days, but fully worth it for the incredible scenery, the ice cold dip in the Baltic, many scrumptious reindeer meals and the energy of curious and enthusiastic students.

After this trip, my teaching was done for the year. Things calmed down a bit. We had a weekend visit from Mum and Dad which included mcuh walking around stockholm, a couple of tasty meals out, Mum and Dad’s first crayfish party, and a visit to the Royal Palace just outside Stockholm’s centre. Two weeks later we had our next visitors as Eva and Nelson came across for Eva’s graduation ceremony. Sadly Emil was away but we managed to slot an evening out at a Portuguese wine bar into their busy schedule.

Finally, over the past month I’ve had two weekends away, purely for pleasure. The first was to Prague where I met up with Libby for a few days exploring this beautiful city and catching up on everything that’s been going on in each others lives over the past few years. The last trip was to Zurich to pay a return visit to Eva and Nelson. There we were spoiled with delicious wine and rachlette, we spent a day wandering the streets of Zurich then the next, took the steepest train in the world (up to 48 %) up Pilatus, a peak of 2100 m in the Alps. It was a cloudy day as we boarded the train at the foot of the mountain, but by half way up we emerged through the clouds and were greated with bright sunshine and proper alpine scenery, a true highlight of our trip.

It's now time for a few weeks rest, meeting up with friends and catching up with some work – including for Emil, a new job, before we head off once more. This time we’ll be flying across the pond for 10 days in the US. We’ll start off with a week in Chicago for a conference I’m attending then finish the trip with a very festive (and most likely busy) few days in New York before returning to our respective families to celebrate Christmas and then back to Stockholm for the New Year.

There are far too many photos to fit into the blog so below is a selection from the past six months:

Bench Making