Sunday 9th February

Woke before sunrise today, no that’s not early. As we approach the equator the days move closer to12 hours daylight 12 hours darkness. This morning sunrise was 8:23am and sunset will be 7:15pm. We had a leisurely breakfast followed by, more or less, groundhog day. I went to John Pitts, Will the oil run out? Followed by the second of Gloria Barnett’s life below the waves. Carol then went to watch a Pastry Demonstration followed by a Hair style show, so I finished up in the Golden Lion for a couple of pints of Speckled Hen (Keg). Carol finally caught up with me there so we stayed for fish and chips. Weather still getting slowly warmer (25°C) if not sunnier, yet.

Saturday 8th February

This morning saw slightly warmer temperatures, which are slowly climbing back towards 20°C and the sun is beginning to show itself again. After breakfast I went to see Author Con Coughlin give a talk on Churchill’s first war in Afghanistan in 1890 fighting the great great grandfathers of the current Taliban, in which he drew parallels between then and now, followed by John Pett on the Pacific ring of fire (volcanoes, seeing as you’re asking) with some great videos of pyroplastic flows. Carol went to watch the vegetable carving. Not much else to report, days seem to merge into each other, our dinner table continues to change as the two Australian ladies depart, they have been reunited with the other six guests they came on board with and have been replaced with two American ladies.