Last Day in England

Thursday was a bit overcast in the early part of the day. I had a lot of email to sort out in the morning so it was about 11.30am before I was ready to set off for Maldon via Little Baddow.

I went past Wayside Cottage. They have pretty much finished all the alterations by the looks of it and there is just some external painting needed where they have blocked in the porch area near the front door. There were no cars in the driveway, so I think the owners were out. Next time I'm in England I think that I would like to visit the finished product.

I then drove down and looked at and photographed Little Baddow Church where Lloyd and I were married. It was open as there were some women arranging flowers (possible for a wedding on Saturday), so I took some pictures inside too. From there, I went down to Paper Mill Lock which is where we used to launch our canoes and then went to Maldon. I did my usual walk up the High Street and then along the front. When I was leaving Maldon, I decided that I might try to find Mill Beach where my childhood next-door neighbours had a beach hut. I did finally find it and the sun was now fully shining, so I had a lovely walk along the front before returning back to Joy and Roger's.

I will put up pictures of the day rather than trying to describe it further. The pictures in order are: Little Baddow Church from a distance, Little Baddow Church outside and inside, two views of Paper Mill Lock, Maldon High Street, Maldon front, Mill Beach, the Harrod's Beach hut, Joy with me and Joy and Roger.

Heswall to Chelmsford

I checked out of the hotel at 10.00am and went to Uncle Jack's. We went to a coffee place we have been to before in Birkenhead and after he had driven us both back to his place, I set off for Chester.

Before going to Chelmsford, I needed to make a brief stop in Chester to buy some tobacco for Lloyd as the shop had been shut on Sunday. I easily found the car park again. However, I was a little disappointed to find that the minimum stay I could pay for was 2 hours and the cost £4.00, but I wasn't about to try anything clever, and just stuck the ticket to the window. I was successful with buying the tobacco and then started my trip to Essex.

I had been a little concerned about how I was going to get from Chester to the M56 as I had passed the exit to it by going into Chester itself. I know that one can get into quite a pickle with Motorways in England by not joining them correctly and I didn’t want to find myself heading to Aberdeen. As I was leaving Chester, I saw a sign which had much too much writing to absorb in the time, but at the bottom it said 'for the M6 Birmingham, follow the A41 to Whitchurch'. I thought that this was probably my best bet and off I set. In fact it would have been useful if we had been warned that there would be an hour and a half's driving on single track windy roads through country villages behind trucks with 'Birmingham' appearing and disappearing off the signs before joining the M6.

Once near Whitchurch there was the inevitable Ring Road and no sign of Birmingham to be seen. I had to guess from the towns on offer and eventually stopped at a garage to ask. I was still on the right road and now apparently needed to follow signs to Wolverhampton. I did eventually get onto the M6 as I said, but it would probably have been quicker to return from Chester to Birkenhead and start again!

Soon after the M6 Toll (the entry to which I had also overshot and had to follow the rather disconcerting signs to M6 North to join), I stopped for lunch. I had been on the road for a long time and was pretty stressed by now. However, the rest of the trip was uneventful and the M25 was pretty clear, so I actually arrived here only 15 minutes after my estimated time of arrival. Probably, it was one of those cases that the Motorway route is much further, but faster.

In the evening, Joy and Roger had a rehearsal of their orchestra which David now conducts. Joy had managed to borrow a clarinet for me and I joined them for the night. It was a very good clarinet and I enjoyed the experience. The only problem was that they are near to a concert and therefore are well practiced at the music. I was, of course, sight-reading and was only really able to play about 70% but no one seemed to mind. Needless to say that there was the inevitable comment about people travelling all the way from Australia to attend the rehearsal, but it was exciting to eventually see Caprice after hearing about it over many years. It is a voluntary organisation that performs and donates many thousands of pounds to various charities.

Some of the players went back to Joy and Roger’s house afterwards for drinks, one of whom lives in Chestnut Walk, Little Baddow (about 100 yards from where I was born and lived for all my life before I was married).

Monday in Heswall and Liverpool

Today has been a pretty quiet day by comparison with recent days. I decided to spend the morning in the hotel doing some work on a paper that is currently in press and to which the reviewers have requested some alterations. I had decided to into Liverpool in the afternoon, but needed to detour to a Post Office to get some parcels weighed for sending back to Australia. I decided to take the train into Liverpool from Hoylake and therefore took the parcels to Hoylake Post Office before catching the train.

I spent about 2 hours in Liverpool. I visited the docks, the Liver Building and the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board Building before heading up into the city centre to go to the shops. The weather had returned to sunny and 24 degrees after last night's deluge, so I sat outside to eat some fresh fruit for my lunch (bought at Marks and Spencer). England is certainly turning on some excellent conditions for my visit.

I returned back to the hotel at 4.00pm and Uncle Jack arrived at 6.00pm to take me to his favourite restaurant for dinner. We had a magnificent meal which for me included a toffee meringue with praline ice cream for dessert. I will have to go on a week's fast after I return to Australia, I fear, to lose some of the weight I have gained on this trip. Naturally, I don't need to have desserts all the time, but they are so delicious!

Sunday to Chester

I started today with a walk in the local area. The walk was interesting as it was along a promenade which used to be beside the River Dee. However, the river has retreated so far away that it is virtually invisible from the pavement, and is covered in lush vegetation. The weather was once again fine but a bit overcast.

After breakfast, I went to Chester. I easily found the car-park on the Ring Road where I had parked with Bryn and Rose and had to decided whether to pay for 2 hours or 4. In the end I decided on the latter which was 5 pounds!!! As it was Sunday, entry to Chester Cathedral was free, so I went in and photographed the carved elephant I had wanted to look at in January (pictured here). The significance of this carving on the end of one of the choir pews is that it was done by someone who had never seen an elephant, so he created it from descriptions he had heard. You will see that it appears to have the body of a bull and an earthworm for a trunk. As I was photographing it, one of the guides came up to tell me about it (not realising that I already knew the story). He said that he was telling a family about it recently and the little girl asked why the man didn’t just go down to Chester Zoo to have a look at one.

On my way back from Chester, I stopped at the Cheshire Oaks outlet mall. I had noticed that they had a Toshiba shop and, as I am a bit wary of my laptop after its performance in London, I thought that I would have a look to see what sort of laptops Toshiba produce now. I was interested to see a little one (12 inch screen) which had a built-in DVD RW (unlike my current machine) only weighed 1.3 kg and had 5 hours of battery life. It wasn't desperately expensive either. I didn't get it of course and I have also seen a similar little VAIO. I just need to keep these things in mind, in case.

Tonight, I booked for Uncle Jack and me to go to King's Gap for dinner. Even though the weather had been excellent all day, once I was back in the hotel, I became aware that the heavens had opened outside. It was good timing however as I didn't have much else to do for the day and it would have been very inconvenient in Chester. When I went out to the car park, I found that I couldn't enter on the driver's side because of a huge puddle. There must have been several millimetres of rain in no time at all. I picked Uncle Jack up at his house and drove him to Hoylake. He then spent a good deal of the evening reminiscing about how enjoyable the two nights he had spent with Bryn and Rose in January had been, one at Kings Gap and one at the Caernarvon castle pub. I'm so glad that they managed to fit in a visit up north to see him.

Saturday in Bath and Heswall

I am including this picture of Judy and me taken this morning before I left.

One thing that I keep forgetting to mention is that it is still light here at 9.30pm and is light again by 4.30am. Consequently, I have been sleeping in the eye-shades provided by Emirates. They are certainly achieving the desired effect as the first night without them I awoke ridiculously early before realising that I needed help with darkness.

Another fact that I must include here is a report on the weather. It has been bright sunny and very warm (24 degrees) since I arrived in London. One could really be persuaded that England has an excellent climate if my recent experiences are anything to go by. I do still have a week to go though and anything could happen.

Because of the late night last night, I didn't set an alarm this morning. As I was also wearing eye-shades and it was unbelievably quiet, I didn't wake until after 8.00am. Luckily, I felt fine and all the various flu-like symptoms from yesterday had seemingly vanished. I went out for a walk, getting a bit lost but finally finding my way back to the main road through the village which I recognised. It was about an hour's walk which is usual for a Saturday. As I would be in the car for most of today, I was pleased that I actually deviated from the planned half-hour round trip walk that Ian had suggested. When I got home, Judy had already ironed my 3 pairs of trousers and all the other washing was dry from the dryer, so I now had a case full of completely clean clothes again. It was a very good feeling.

I left Judy and Ian's at 12.15pm and started north. Once again, I made an error in the early stages of the journey. I managed to get onto the M4 with no problem and was looking out for the M5. They alternated between referring to it as M5 north (as opposed to M5 south) and M5 Midlands (as opposed to M5 South Wales). However, I was clear about what I wanted and thought that I was in the correct lane. It was one of those situations where I needed a centre lane and somehow, I was too far to the right and set off on some other motorway which looked like it was going over the Severn Bridge (with a toll). Luckily about 5 miles down the road (and before the bridge) were some services which were off the road, and there is always a roundabout on these occasions so that both carriageways can use them. I used the roundabout to turn myself around and was soon on the correct M5. The rest of the journey was completely uneventful. Judy and Ian had predicted bad traffic because of the end of half term, but the roads were completely clear. I stopped at a motorway services area once I had negotiated the M5/M6 interchange at Birmingham, and then was in Heswall by 5.00pm.

The Premier Inn (Heswall) is very good. The place is in the same grounds as a pub which serves food (that is where Uncle Jack and I ate this evening) and the pub has a lovely garden area with tables and chairs. Also, as a result of the lovely summer weather, the garden was full of people. My room overlooks this garden, so it was very pleasant. The wireless Internet system works fine as well.

I must say though that for the first time, I feel that Uncle Jack is ageing. I guess he has to eventually as he is 85 now. Nevertheless, he is still fun to be with and I intend to see him on both tomorrow and Monday evenings before I venture south to Joy's.

Friday in London and Bath

It had been my intention to have a very quiet start to today. First of all I wasn't feeling great, so I decided to let myself off the morning walk. The symptoms consisted principally of a headache, a sore chest when breathing and a croaky voice. I was hopeful that I just had a mild virus infection and nothing more serious. Also, I was going to have to pick up the hire-car later and negotiate my way out of London. I had a few concerns about this. The first is that I am not too confident about manoeuvring my way to the M4 from Central London and the second is that I didn't want to get caught with the Congestion Tax. The limits for the latter are not immediately obvious. I know that the traditional route to the M4 from here is down Park Lane, but I am sure that that will be included in the Congestion tax area. However, I found out that the place I was picking up the car was actually in the Congestion Zone, so I couldn't avoid the 8 pound fee. The upside of this though was that they would add the fee to my rental so I didn't have to fiddle around with paying it.

Yesterday had been quite exhausting with many miles travelled on foot, so I figured that today I deserved to be let off a morning walk. I planned to check out of the room, put my case into storage and walk to see the Princess Diana Fountain once it opened at 10.00am.

However, the best laid plans of mice and men…I was part way through writing to Lloyd this morning before leaving for Bath, when suddenly 'the blue screen of death' appeared. Attempts to restart my computer failed and the same message kept coming back. I tried various things including an option (when pressing F8 at start-up) to restore the last working version of Windows. Eventually, I managed to start it in 'safe mode'. Usually if one closes properly from 'safe mode', the problem gets sorted out, but this time it didn't.

I rang reception to see if there was an IT person who could help, but they said that all their chaps were out. However, they did say that there was a computer shop near Queen's Park tube station. So I checked out of the hotel, stored my case and set off. On the way, I was running through various options including buying a new laptop. Luckily all my work is on my USB keys, but I do not have the disks for the programs such as Office and SPSS, not to mention my printer. I arrived at the computer shop and found the repair part (the front sold suitcases and a side section sold hookahs!). I described the problem and an enormous man (West Indian, I think) said he would see what he could do to help. I turned on the computer and, of course it started completely normally!!! The man joked that it knew to be frightened of him. Anyway, he went into it to see of he could see what the problem had been, and Windows was at least courteous enough to announce that it had 'recently recovered from a serious error'. He removed some odd looking files including a 'memory dump' which I had seen being formed during the blue screen. He then suggested that we run a complete check of the disk which would take a while, so I decided to go to the Princess Diana Fountain as originally planned.

It was open and is very lovely. I took a picture of an American couple together on their camera in exchange for them taking one of me, that is included here along with a couple of other photos of the fountain and the Peter Pan Statue. I then had a cup of coffee on the edge of the Serpentine (eating bananas removed at breakfast as well) in the sunshine before returning to the computer place.

My computer was just completing its 'check-up' and seemed now to be fine. We checked it by opening some documents etc. I paid 30 pounds (which I was more than happy to pay) and returned to the hotel to finish email. I then found that BT OpenZone was playing up as it has been intermittently for my whole visit. The concierge rang them while I continued to write the email I had started a couple of hours earlier in Word, and finally the connection came up. At about the same time the concierge came over to give me a phone number to ring to get a refund from BT. I have since received an email from BT announcing that they would refund me all the vouchers for my stay, but the amount hasn't yet hit the bank account.

Leaving London was, in the end, uneventful and I arrived at exactly 6.30pm, much to the amusement of Judy. I was reminded about how Rohan and Bryn used to laugh about the fact that no matter where I was coming from, how long the journey or how unpredictable the journey time, I always arrived on the dot of my estimated arrival time. At the car-hire place they provided me with a map and directions for getting out of the city. I was actually directed through Hyde Park and managed to get out pretty much without delay. The radio kept providing traffic updates/delay information, so I was aware of potential problems. In fact, there were brief periods of heavy traffic and then it cleared - no major hold-ups.

I must confess though that on my travels into Bath, I made the same mistake as when I was with Bryn and Rose in January, heading off up a hill which finally landed me at the University of Bath again. As before, I turned round and went back down the hill, eventually finding the correct road. There must be something odd about the road signs at that point for me to have done it again.

This week is the 40^th anniversary of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the radio stations are all going down memory lane. While on route to bath I heard interviews with Rod Stewart and Paul McCartney as well as with Disc Jockeys from the pirate radio stations – Radio London and Radio Caroline.

Judy put all my clothes into the wash after I had showered and changed and then we went out to eat. We had a lovely meal at the same place we went with Bryn and Rose in January - I had a salmon steak with a prawn and lobster sauce served with new potatoes and vegetables. For dessert I had ice cream with toffee sauce served with crushed Maltesers.

Judy and Ian have a wireless network, but it is password protected, so it took quite a time when we got home from dinner trying to remember the password as Ian never uses it himself (his desk-top and laptop are cabled into the router). The process wasn’t really helped by their large fluffy ginger cat called Oscar who kept marching across the keyboard each time I attempted a 15-letter string. We finally cracked it, but we then just sat around talking until well after midnight.

The pictures in order are: the Peter Pan Statue, a squirrel in Kensington Gardens, and the Princess Diana Fountain.

Thursday in London

This morning I woke up at 6.30am this morning, which wasn't bad as I had gone to bed reasonably early. Despite weather forecasts of rain, the sky was completely clear and blue. I went out for a walk in Kensington Gardens and went to see what was happening with the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. There were workmen in the enclosure this morning cleaning it and there was a notice with opening hours from 10.00am - 6.00pm. The notice talks about being free to dip one's feet it the water (there was none there this morning - but it was not yet 10.00am), and various other 'dos and don'ts'. I walked on to the Albert memorial and back via Kensington Palace. It was cool but very pleasant for walking. I will investigate it tomorrow after 10.00am. After breakfast I set off on the organised tobacco hunt of today.

I don't think I had mentioned earlier in the Blog about a problem with my glasses that happened on the flight from Melbourne. For a while now, the glasses case hasn't shut properly and on the plane, somehow one of the arms got caught and bent back in my handbag. Although I had managed to straighten it a bit, the glasses had sat crooked on my nose since I arrived in Greece. This issue was becoming an increasing problem. Because they were so bent, every time I put them into the case, they were even more lop-sided when I put them back on. So this morning, I decided to set off to the tobacconists via Oxford Street and Regent Street rather than my usual Buckingham Palace, Westminster route, to see if I could find an optician.

I found a Vision Express at Oxford Circus and went in. I showed the man the problem and he said that they would try to bend them back, but there was a chance that they might break in the process. I noticed that the shop said that they could make up glasses in one hour, so I asked about the possibility of this if the frames did break. It seemed that I could have an eye-test and if my prescription was available on the site, I could indeed have new glasses in one hour. I started looking at frames and found a pair I really liked. It is ages since I've seen good frames in Australia as so any people have those tiny slit-like frames these days. These were perfect in every way - the right size, a good pale colour and 'my' shape. At this point, I decided to let them have a go at fixing mine. Within 5 minutes, they had completely put them right and gave me a splendid new case to put them in too. I asked how much it would cost and I was told that they had a charity box if I would like to make a donation. I put 2 pounds in ($5.00) as I was immensely relieved with the outcome, and left the shop.

I had only walked a few yards when I realised that I really would like the frames I had seen and I can always use an extra pair of reading glasses (to have one always downstairs for instance), so I went back. They took particulars and I was taken upstairs for the eye-test which would also provide me with a printout of my prescription to carry for future. It was much like in Australia except that the glaucoma test seemed to consist of puffing a little burst of air at my eye - not coming at me with an object which would touch my eye-ball. So, the long of the short of it is that I have just been down to pick up the new glasses which I am currently wearing. They are great and I'm pleased that I did it even though the whole exercise was probably more expensive than back home. It is hard to tell as frames vary so much in price.

While the glasses were being made up I proceeded down Regent Street and Shaftesbury Avenue to Smiths (a tobacconist) via Bar Italia, where I had an excellent cup of coffee. After visiting a second tobacconist, I then did my usual London walk in reverse, going via Westminster to Hyde Park, ending up at the entrance to Kensington Gardens opposite Lancaster Gate tube station. I briefly went back to the hotel to drop things off before setting off again to pick up the glasses (back at Oxford Circus!!).

The weather today has been brilliant - England at its absolute best. The sun has shone all day, although it hasn't been too hot and there was no wind, so walking was very pleasurable. I am now exhausted however, having walked over 30,000 steps today.

Tonight Eliot visited me at the hotel and, for convenience we stayed here for dinner. We had a really nice meal and he eventually returned back to where he stays in London during the week just after 9.00pm. It was good to have the chance to catch up with each other, particularly since he wasn't even aware that I was coming to the UK.

Tomorrow, I am on the move again. I pick up a car in the early afternoon and drive to Bath where I am staying with Judy and Ian for the night before heading off to Birkenhead to see Uncle Jack.

Travelling to England

This morning, I decided to go for a walk a little later so that I could walk in the area around the Temple of Zeus (picture 1) which opens at 8.00am. It was a lovely sunny day again and I enjoyed wandering among the ruins and then returning to my hotel through Hadrian's Arch (picture 2).

I checked out of the hotel at noon and my taxi arrived a little early (I booked it for 12.30pm), because there was yet another protest in Athens and some of the roads were closed. We arrived at the airport via a roundabout route, but it took no longer and cost no more, so I'm not sure why they insist on ploughing through the centre of Athens usually.

Yesterday, I had gone onto the Internet to check-in online with British Airways and had printed my boarding pass. They do seem to have improved their online booking a bit. I went on at the first time it opened (24 hours before the flight) and was able to get 12F (a window seat over the wing), as opposed to the middle seat in the back row which is what I got travelling to Stockholm last year. I rang British Airways at the time if you remember to complain that it was obvious that they had pre-booked their frequent flyers and the like, and the rest of us were left with the remaining 20 seats.

Well, I was indeed in seat 12F which has much more legroom than the seats further back. When I got on board my seat was occupied by a very attractive little girl of just under two who was declaring in both Greek and English that there were many aeroplanes outside. Her mother had sensibly bought a seat (the middle one) for the little girl (rather than having her on her knee other than for takeoff and landing), but the window was a definite attraction. I became quite attached to Amelia and she to me. She was completely bilingual (what language she had) and immediately worked out that she needed to use English for me. For some of the journey she sat on my knee alternating between looking out of the window and putting the shutter down to a level that only she could see out. Her parents were obviously pretty wealthy - living in St John's Wood, having a nanny and driver etc., but only her mother was with her. Her mother was Greek, married to a British born Greek man, who is in stock-trading of some sort and travels the world a lot. They had all been to visit the grandparents in Greece, although the father had only stayed a few days and had then gone to China and Singapore before returning to the UK while the mother had stayed near Athens with her family. For the last part of the journey, Amelia's mother was desperately trying to get her to sleep, but Amelia was having none of it. In the end, she ended up landing sitting on my knee with the extension seat-belt and I carried her off the plane and into the baggage hall as her mother had much cabin luggage with Amelia's stuff and her own and the buggy was checked through. The upside of all this was that I got transported to the door of my hotel by Mercedes driven by the 'driver', so I didn't have either the expense or the hassle of the Paddington Express. I consider it a very good deal - the mother was immensely grateful to me for helping with a squirming toddler, and, in exchange, I had a luxury ride when it mattered to me.

I should also say that I did indeed split my luggage, but put the packed conference backpack inside the case. I decided that if they complained that the case was over the 23 kilos limit, I would simply remove the backpack and check it through. In the end, they just put a tag onto the case and made no comment at all about the weight!

After I checked into the Corus Hotel, Hyde Park, I needed to get some cash, so I walked up to Oxford Street. I noticed that Selfridges Food Hall was still open (7.00pm) (probably the main shop was as well, I didn't check), and I also noticed some amazing looking cold rare roast beef with yellow fat. I decided to buy some and sat at one of the tables to eat it. They had little packets of salt available which I also used on it. I must take back my comments about English roast beef, although this probably isn't typical I acknowledge - I had forgotten how good good beef tastes. It was delicious!

I also ventured into M & S to buy my staple - humbugs. I hope to have several packets to send or bring home with me. On my way back to the hotel, I walked through Marble Arch to complete the day (having started it with Hadrian's Arch!

As the time in Greece was two hours later than that in London, I was pretty tired by 10.00pm and decided to get an early night. I had also found out though that sunrise was at 4.50am and chose to wear my Emirates eye-shades to help me sleep through.

Last Day in Athens

Today I needed to get going on the day early today so that I could mail the Conference Proceedings home as soon as the Post Offices opened. There is a smallish Post Office near the hotel and I decided to take it there. This was probably a mistake as it was like going to Little Baddow Post Office instead of Chelmsford. Nevertheless, in I went with my book. There were 5 counters, 4 said 'no parcels' and the 5th said a number of things including parcels. I approached the 5th desk and asked the rather gruff looking lady if she spoke English. She replied with an emphatic 'no', and turned to the next customer. I stood my ground and after she had served the man in question, she said 'envelope' to me. I said 'yes' and she produced an enormous padded envelope. I put the book into it, wrote my name and address on the outside and then stood there 'like a chapel hat peg' while she served the rest of the line. Eventually, I just put the envelope onto the scales. From then on the process became a bit of a mystery. She showed me a table with various Greek headings and pointed to 32.50 Euros and then pointed to her calculator which said 24.50 Euros. She kept repeating a stream of Greek and I kept shrugging my shoulders. I tried to make sure that she was quoting for surface mail and not airmail and I wondered if that was distinguishing the two amounts. Eventually, she enlisted the help of someone nearby and it was explained to me that it could go for 24.50 as printed materials. Since she had seen me put the book into the envelope, I don't know why I was being shown the other amount. In any event, I paid 24.50 Euros and it went. Heaven knows if it will arrive, but there are plenty of spares if it gets lost. Apparently I should have gone to the main Post Office in Syntagma Square.

You might wonder why I didn't wait until I arrived in England to mail the proceedings and the answer is that my case weighed 26 kilos leaving Melbourne and the British Airways rules allow you 3 bags but none must be over 23 kilos. This means that I need to put some things into the conference backpack to check through. The book weighed another 3 kilos and would have taken up most of the backpack.

I went into the university once I had finished the Post Office business. Stella called in sick (I think it is just the result of the conference being over - it was a tremendously big thing to organise and she had such top people from around the world to look after), so Konstantinos, Xenia and I met to discuss our work. This was actually fine as I had been able to discuss things with Stella on our walks. I suggested to them that I treat them both to a very late lunch after we have met - to thank Konstantinos for transporting me from Delphi (he would accept no money for petrol) and to finally acknowledge Xenia's birthday. We discussed our work until 3.00pm and then went to a local seafood restaurant where we had small deep-fried squid and marinated octopus to share and an individual grilled fish each. We naturally also had Greek salad, tzatziki, bread and a sweet semolina-based desert. It was very good food and I was a bit peckish by the time we ate.

After a brief visit back to the lab for coffee, Xenia and Konstantinos had a meeting to attend and I went back to the hotel for an early night as I was, by now very tired.

Back to Athens

I am now safely back in Athens and in the same hotel as last week. As you can see, the Internet is working perfectly, and doesn't seem to be exhibiting its 'reboot after half an hour' behaviour I experienced last time. They did say on that occasion that they were experiencing (unusual) problems, but I tend not to believe such statements as I have heard them too often.

I have first-hand evidence now for Greece being a very unsafe place to travel by car. (I should add though that Konstantinos is actually a very safe driver and I was not worried at all about travelling with him.) I had noticed all along the road there were little shrines built to look like churches and crosses etc. I asked Konstantinos about these and he said that they were where a person had been killed on the road. I then in the next 20 seconds was able to identify about 15 of them, so obviously many people die on the roads.

Yesterday morning I got up at 7.30am after the late night (resulting from the Conference Dinner) and went for a good long walk. Although Stella had proudly announced the previous night that she would join me, I gave it very little chance as the conference had now finished and I predicted that she would probably sleep like a log. In fact she did fail to show at 8.00am and I set off on my own at 8.10am. I was not particularly disappointed either when she didn't show up as I really wanted a long, brisk walk and she likes neither. However, by the time I returned, had got dressed etc. and gone to breakfast, she appeared, so we sat together. Rochel (and later, Nancy) also joined us for breakfast and that is how I came to take the picture of them. Unfortunately, the background was a bit too light, so the picture looks a bit washed out.

After breakfast, I packed, paid for my room and then just sat in the lobby on my computer getting caught up on everything. I downloaded the pictures from my camera and was viewing the videos of the dancing from the last night when Rochel reappeared - this time alone. She was so fascinated by the videos that we transferred copies via my USB key to her laptop. The files are much to big to go in email, so it was good timing on her part.

She and Randy had hired a car to go travelling and one-by-one all the people departed. Jerry and Janet went on the bus, but they are in Athens this week and I will see them tomorrow as Jerry is giving a talk to the Philosophy Department here.

That has reminded me of something I forgot in a previous post, so I will include it here. The final session of the conference was Jerry and the talk was entitled 'Against Darwinism'. Janet sat next to me and visibly squirmed during the question time when - in her view - Jerry ran roughshod over the people making various objections to his position. He had started by saying that there would be no PowerPoint as he was a philosopher and he proceeded to present an argument about why there cannot be a theory of natural selection. It was rather clever, although I don't really have a chance of reproducing it here. (It is reproduced in full in the proceedings though and I will be mailing that back, so you will be able to see it). Needless to say, it was highly controversial and he had apparently been hounded by the press for an interview all day. It was agreed that they could talk to him after the talk and he went off with them for photos and interview while Janet and I waited for him to go to the dinner.

He finally emerged after about half an hour saying that he was too tired to continue, but the reporter said that he needed more time. When we got to the place for the dinner, the reporter once again came up and this time I told him that it was inappropriate for him to be disturbing Jerry at a social event and that he should go away. We negotiated a 10-minute time-limited interview after dessert and Jerry seemed very gratified to have someone prepared to protect him. He is actually a very shy and somewhat socially inept character who really detests social events of the sort we were at, even at the best of times. When the reporter somewhat sheepishly reappeared after dessert, I assured Jerry that I would come in 10 minutes to rescue him. However, the reporter was efficient and let him go in under the time anyway.

After the last of the delegates had departed yesterday, the student team, Stella, a couple of invited speakers who Stella was transporting back to Athens and I, moved to a restaurant for a free lunch to thank the helpers. I did feel that I wasn't really entitled to it, but Svetlana had gone home with her husband, so I was persuaded that I was just taking her place. At about 4.00pm, Konstantinos and I set off (the other students are staying an extra night in Delphi).

You may remember that I had originally planned to celebrate Xenia's birthday last Monday by taking her out to dinner. It didn't eventuate though as a result of a dinner organised by Stella. Xenia and I contented ourselves with the decision that I would take her out tonight. However, we both received contact from Stella today inviting us to join her and some of the remaining invited speakers at a roof-top restaurant at the Titania Hotel. (Have a look at its website: http://www.titania.gr/RestaurantsBars.asp) Naturally it would be rude to refuse, so we are going. It seems that we are destined to not have our dinner together. Jokingly, yesterday Xenia said 'I wonder what will happen this time?'. Perhaps she should have kept quiet!

Today has been a public holiday for banks and Post Offices, but not for the shops. This morning I went for a long early morning walk and then spent the remainder of the morning working on the corrections to my paper which needs to be resubmitted on June 30th. It actually had the audacity to rain during my walk, but I was still plenty warm enough just in a t-shirt and bike shorts. Later in the afternoon, I decided to take a break and walked into an old area called Plaka. The sun was, by now, shining. I hadn't had any lunch, but didn't want to eat too much because of going out this evening. I came upon a stall selling bananas, strawberries and black cherries. It was just what I felt like, so I chose 3 bananas since they looked so good (two for the next two days) and asked for a 'unit' of each of the others. The man took a sort of shovel and put a kilogram of each into two brown bags. Amazingly the bill for all this was just over 3 Euros (approximately $5.00). I sat down in the sun and munched on my treat, but I have made almost no impression on the soft fruit. I will take it with me to the lab tomorrow and it might discourage me from eating the biscuits. I have a real weakness for a particular type of biscuit which is very prevalent here. They look like normal biscuits on the outside, but contain a runny dark chocolate centre and are very more-ish as you can imagine.

Conference Photos

This is a selection of photos featuring people from the conference. My hope to put up videos though cannot be realised as the files are too big, so I will need to wait until I return to Australia to share them.

The top photo is of Stella. The next is Rochel Gelman (left) & Nancy Nersessian (right). Then Rochel with me. (Unfortunatley the light behind made these two photos look a bit washed out, but I wanted to include them anyway.)

Next is Rochel Gelman with her husband, Randy Gallistel. Below Rochel and Randy is Janet Fodor and then two pictures of Jerry Fodor. Next is Gerd Gigerenza. The first student photo is of Svetlana (a PhD student) who more or less took overall responsibility for the whole conference organisation. The other photo shows the rest of the student 'helpers'. From the left are: Xenia, Konstantinos, Dimitri, and Irini is second from right.

Last day of the conference

Today is the last day of the conference. It has a bit annoying that the wireless network that I worked so hard to get working in the conference centre has seemingly been sabotaged by one of the conference participants and started only operating as a peer-to-peer network which wouldn't go out onto the Internet.

Apparently, someone from Italy was asking the IT guys a lot of questions about the network and they tried to avoid answering them, but he must have somehow got to the server and mucked it up. As it is was Friday afternoon before the problem was discovered they couldn't get anyone out from the company (they work business hours only) , so we have been without it. Of course, I was able to go to the Guest House (as I did in the lunch break) but that meant that I couldn't work on composing emails etc during the more boring papers, as I had been earlier in the week. There were papers in every session that I wanted to attend, the day was very full.

I am also rather tired as Xenia and the rest of the student group persuaded me to go out with them the last night. It was actually great fun, although it resulted in my going to bed very late and I decided not to set an alarm this morning. I also didn't walk, but used my lunch break to go out for a walk. The weather today is very hot and sunny and I am actually relieved that it hasn't been this hot all week - I would not have been able to climb the archaeological site in this temperature I don't think.

This morning was interesting. Rochel was the keynote speaker and she was talking at first about simple number concepts and arithmetic. Later in the talk she started to talk about rational number and in particular, fractions. Before long she was mentioning the difference between ordering, equivalence and addition of fractions and whole numbers, making more or less the exact same comments I had made at the start of my talk. She then got to the next slide which said that there had already been evidence of this in the conference and cited: Humberstone and Reeve!! I was taken aback to see my name in 'lights'. After the session, she and I actually missed part of the subsequent address to talk about how much our work overlaps. It seems that she would like me to actually present a paper at Rutgers and would very much like me to go over as many Tuesdays as I am at Princeton to attend a cognitive science lunch followed by a meeting. I am quite honoured that she is interacting as positively with me as she is and I can see that we could actually get quite a lot done together.

In the evening we had the Conference Farewell Dinner. The food was excellent and for the first time since arriving in Greece, I indulged in the desserts. There were baklava and hemispherical chocolate-covered chocolate mousse. I walked back with Janet and Jerry Fodor and Gerd Gigerenza at about midnight, but it was well after 1.00pm before I went to sleep. I will need to catch up on sleep in Athens where I will be from Sunday night. I am travelling with Konstantinos in his car.

At the dinner, we were entertained by traditional dancers who were 3rd generation refugees from 'Asia minor'. I will attempt to upload some movies of the dances and also pictures of the other characters mentioned in the Blog tomorrow when I have a cable connection in the hotel.

Friday at the conference

We have had a curious couple of days weather-wise. As I said yesterday it teemed down with rain several times during the day causing the trip to the site to be cancelled.

Today started cool and with drizzle, but Gerd (and also Robert Young) and I walked to the archeological site anyway. It was a mix of low cloud and sunshine while we were there. It is all on the side of the mountain and I walked over 15,000 steps to climb right up to the running track which was the highest point. The Temple of Apollo was very impressive though and I felt definitely enlightened by the oracle while there! Maybe that is what all the presented of keynotes have been doing before talking. We also visited the museum and then came back in time for Stella's symposium at 12 noon.

This afternoon has been sunny and warm and the temperatures are now predicted to rise into the high 20s.

Rather than talking more about the archeological site, I will include some photos to show it. You can see though that we were in some low cloud for a good deal of the visit.

The day of my presentation

My presentation was on Thursday at 10.00 am, immediately following the keynote address (Gerd Gigorenza) at 9.00 am and in the same (main) auditorium. At breakfast, Konstantinos was saying that he was reading the paper in the proceedings, and I suggested that I talk to him about it and that would help me practice. That is what we did, and from his questions I realised which slides needed more time and explanation. I had put my talk onto the computer before Gerd had given his 'invited' talk. The main auditorium is generally reserved for the invited symposia and special talks. It has the advantage of being the 'default' venue though and thus a guaranteed good audience. This is the second conference where I have been scheduled in the this venue.

I felt that I delivered the talk well and clearly, although I would have liked a little more time. Rochel gave very complimentary feedback about the 'neatness' of the study and made particular mention of the joint competencies of 'ordering' and 'equivalence' of fractions in fraction addition. I had always felt that this was a rather controversial aspect of the rationale for the study and it was one of the things I had dwelt on to try to get the idea across, so I was relieved that she particularly mentioned this. She also talked to me afterwards over coffee, and I felt that she certainly felt that the work added to a field of study of which she is an integral part.

We had most odd and unpredicted pouring rain on Thursday. This basically caused mayhem for the organising committee. There is a caterer who comes in to serve lunch for those who have bought tickets. Although it is a bit overpriced for what it is, I decided early in the week to have the lunch here rather than walk down into Delphi to one of the restaurants (the preferred option for many of the delegates). When the heavens opened as the session prior to lunch finished, all those who thought that they would go out for lunch decided that they wanted to stay and of course they had not bought tickets. Eventually it was solved by the caterers sending out to one of their other outlets and more food arrived, so many people now had to be allocated tickets and money collected.

Then, the planned visit to the archaeological site had to be postponed from Thursday afternoon to Friday afternoon because of the rain. Whereas, I was happy to miss the sessions on Thursday afternoon as they were not particularly interesting, I was not prepared to miss Friday's, so I was one of the many who now requested a refund! However, I was sitting at lunch with Gerd Gigerenza (who I am sure I cited in something I wrote as an undergraduate). He had paid to go to the archaeological site today and also couldn't go tomorrow as he was chairing the session I wanted to attend. We therefore decided to go together under our own steam on Friday morning at 9.00am. He is at the Max Plank Institute and gave a very entertaining talk on Thursday on decision-making based on simple heuristics and gut-feelings.

The conference gets underway

The conference opened on Wednesday and I mainly spent the day listening to the areas of cognitive science that I find most to my taste and largely ignoring the computer simulations that I don't really relate to. I prefer experiments with real people!

I made quite a number of changes to my talk on Wednesday night because, when I started practicing it, I found that I didn't feel comfortable with the flow. Luckily I have my new little printer with me and I was able to print out the new pages for my folder. I once again chose to stay in my room and not go out late-night partying with the others. It seems that Greeks like to rest in the afternoon and then go out for dinner at 9.30pm. This is all very well, but it means that their night is basically divided in two and there are two 'getting-ups'. I prefer my usual routines with a relatively early rise and a walk, so in general I have tended not to join them.

The day before the conference starts

Well, it seems that frequent updating of a travel blog is rather easier said than done. Each day gets busier and busier, but there is a little gap in proceedings and I will attempt to report on the events of the past three days in order.

Yesterday, as you saw from my blog, I was put to good use on the IT side of things. It always annoys me that most IT people are males and when I couldn't get onto the wireless Internet in the Conference Centre, they assured my that they had had no trouble the previous day. In the end I was able to persuade them that the problem was the gateway and my computer was asking for a DNS to be assigned. Of course their computers worked because they would have been configured with the appropriate gateway. In the end he had to admit I was right and while I went back to the guest house (where the connection is on an open gateway), they fixed it and rebooted their systems.

I had a lucky break re my own presentation. In the 'Instructions for Presenters' it had said that we were to present from our own laptops attached to the conference data projectors. However, on Tuesday, Stella had me involved in attaching her laptops to the data projectors so that participants just had to download their talks from USB keys to the desktop to present. Before leaving home I had emailed my talk to myself (in case something happened to my USB key or laptop in the airport scanners) and at Melbourne airport I had checked on one of their desktop machines in the 'Business Centre' that it would run. I discovered that the fraction problem that I had created in Equation Editor was completely invisible! This meant that the first slide said 'Consider the Problem', but there was nothing to consider. I decided that this wouldn't be a problem as I would be presenting from my own laptop, but I realised now that the same thing would happen if the computers didn't have Equation Editor configured. As it is not in the default settings for Office and has to be added separately, it would be unlikely to be on any computer. As a result, I recreated that slide, manually creating the fraction problem using 'draw' for the lines etc. I am so relieved that I was part of the setting-up process as I would have looked very stupid displaying my first slide on the first paper presentation of the conference, when I would have been at my most nervous.

The discussant for my paper is Rochel Gelman. Have a look at her profile on the web, she is incredibly well-known and is thought to pretty much be the guru for 'counting' knowledge and early arithmetic skills. She is also known to be fearsome! When I found out that she would be the discussant, my heart dropped as she has also published in fractions. Anyway, she arrived Tuesday afternoon with her husband Randy Gallistel, who is equally well-known in the area of the development of arithmetic skills, and they were brought down to the conference centre where I was talking with Stella. I was introduced, and then we all set off (with Nancy as well) to walk into Delphi for lunch. Rochel had had a knee reconstruction and was walking with a stick and quite slowly, so I walked with her and the others went on ahead a bit.

First of all, she wanted to know if I was any relation of Lloyd Humberstone!!! I don't know what administrative boards she is on in the New York area (she is at Rutgers) but she said that D's name frequently had come up as someone to lure over to the States and that 4 or 5 universities were discussing inviting him. She was therefore not surprised when I told her that he had been offered some time at Princeton. While I am at Princeton she wants me to make the 15 minute train ride to see her at Rudgers - which is a great compliment to me.

As the day progressed I had a lot to do with Rochel and found that we got on very comfortably with an appropriate amount of leg-pulling. Naturally she is a close acquaintance of both Bob and Brian, but definitely seemed to be interacting with me completely in my own right. We were discussing some of her ideas about the early teaching of fractions. As you know this is a bit of a pet topic for me too. We both agree on the problem with the current teaching methods, but neither of us is really sure about the solution. She has some interesting ideas about using measurement (rather than dividing up pizzas etc.) as it introduces children to the idea of there being a measurement between 3cm and 4cm for example.

During the afternoon there were a few crises related to the arrivals of the delegates. The first was that one of the invited speakers from Japan who was due to be on the first bus leaving the airport at 2.00pm had not shown up. After many phone calls it was ascertained that she had been on the flight but seemed to have dematerialised at Athens airport. Then the suitcase of one of the other passengers had not arrived and they were waiting for that. In fact, the Japanese lady had made her own way to Delphi and while we were desperately trying to track her down, she was in fact sleeping in her room in the Guest House!! It would have been good if she had let someone know. The case had taken its own route from London via Frankfurt and was delivered in fact before the bus left the airport 3 hours late.

Another crisis involved one of the delegates who had got on the bus leaving Athens university. A 'stranger' had been engaging everyone waiting for the bus in conversation and seemed very friendly and helpful. When the bus arrived this character 'helped' with loading the cases into the bus and in the process helped himself to one of the bags. He was merged into a big crowd before anyone realised what had happened. Luckily the suitcase only held clothes and no laptop or other significant objects. Eventually the buses all arrived, but there was much tension for the organisers. Many of the people who had flown many hours and then had to wait while the fruitless search for the missing Japanese lady was completed were understandably rather annoyed and frustrated.

On Tuesday evening I elected not to go out to dinner with the group as I wanted to get an early night in preparation for my talk at 10.00am on Wednesday.

View from my room in Delphi

As promised, I am including a picture of the view from the balcony outside my room in Delphi. This is an exquisite setting to have a conference.

Today the first of the conference participants will arrive in a few hours time. We are currently very busy setting up everything in preparation. My job in all this was to get the registration laptop set up onto the Internet and connected to a printer.

Neither of these tasks proved to be straight forward. The printer drivers needed to be downloaded from the Internet, the computer needed to be configured to access the wireless and the wireless network itself was set in such a way that it didn't allow open access. I needed to work backwards: first, configure the computer to be able to see wireless connections. The instructions for doing this included accessing the Microsoft website. In the end, I went back up to the Guest House part of the conference venue, where access was open, to use my own laptop to get the instructions for configuring the other computer. Once configured, I was able to get it onto the Internet in the Guest House and then downloaded the drivers. By this time, the technicians had sorted out open access in the conference centre and I returned to set up the printer. As I speak (write) all is now operational - the computer is on the network and the printer has successfully printed a test page.

I hope to walk into Delphi itself this afternoon as the conference will start tomorrow and it will not be easy to take the time out to make the trip I expect.

To Delphi via Athens

The journey from Dubai to Athens was not quite so luxurious for two reasons: (1) I was Business Class and (2) the planes for the shorter routes have armchairs in Business Class instead of the seats with privacy ‘hoods’. Nevertheless, I managed to fall asleep for the last hour or so of the journey and was woken by the Captain announcing our descent into Athens.

Getting through passport control took no time, my bag was one of the first onto the carousel and there was not an official in sight in the ‘nothing to declare’ section of customs. I just walked through and was out in the Arrivals Hall about 20 minutes after the plane touched down. I had organised the Emirates limo service to take me to the hotel, and several times during the flight, we were told where to go to pick up our drivers. I was met at the appointed place by a representative of Emirates and I was then escorted to an awaiting car. The hotel is in a very old area of Athens with streets exactly 3 cars wide with cars parked on both sides. Most streets are one-way, so we sort of circled in on the hotel, threading our way past the cars, getting progressively closer. The hotel itself is very modern and extremely comfortable. I naturally enquired about the Internet since I had chosen it on the basis of the advertised connection. I was greeted with the news, that they were having problems with the satellite that day! (I was naturally reminded of my previous experience in Athens.) I expressed my annoyance and was assured that the technician would be there that evening. It being Sunday, I was sceptical, but it was the case that later in the evening the LAN connection in my room was working. It seems though that it limits access to about half an hour (although sites loaded during that time continue to be refreshable), but when I rebooted my computer, I could get straight back on again. The service is free, so there must be some kind of built-in restriction on downloads I guess.

I was very tired by 8.00pm and decided to go to bed then. The hotel is very quiet indeed and this morning I woke at about 5.00am, which is not much different from my normal waking time. I was a bit fuzzy, but as the day progressed, I don’t think that I am too jet-lagged at all. As soon as it got light, I went for my walk in the National Gardens where I used to walk in January. The hotel is in a different direction, but the distance is similar. The sun was shining brightly and it was quite warm already at 6.30am.

After my return, I went into breakfast which was also an improvement on the other hotel. I had organised to be at Stella’s house by 10.30am and decided that I would walk there since the weather was fine. I had called Xenia yesterday and she considered this a crazy idea, but, even though I would be wheeling my suitcase, I had plenty of time. I left the hotel at 9.45am and was actually at Stella’s apartment by 10.20am. It was a fairly long walk and my arms had started to ache as a result of pulling the case, often uphill. Stella put me and our cases into the car (which was double parked) and she went inside to get the several laptops and data projector she needed to take. We then set off to the airport to pick up one of the conference invited speakers called Nancy Nersessian who was arriving from Atlanta. Stella drives a two-door BMW and we already had much luggage. When we got to the airport, I was sent inside to meet Nancy who I had never met, but I was given a description. First of all, her plane had landed over 20 minutes earlier (the time it had taken me to be completely processed) and I was not at all sure that I would recognise her from the description. When I got to the Arrivals Hall, it was teeming with people and television cameras waiting for the various sporting personalities who were arriving for the Champions Cup (the reason my hotel was not initially going to be refunded). I looked at the board and about 10 flights had landed in the previous half hour, so I guessed that it might take Nancy quite a while to exit. The next problem was that there were hundreds of people meeting the flights and 2 exits, so I had to keep bouncing between them looking for people who were obviously on their own and looking for the person meeting them. Eventually, someone satisfying the description and looking rather lost came through, so I approached and asked if it was Nancy – and it was!! Meanwhile Stella had come past me and had gone off to buy drinks and food for the journey to Delphi. Nancy is here in Europe for a month so also had a huge case. After shuffling of luggage which reminded me of our 1999 US/UK visit with the tiny hire car, we managed to get it all in and, in the end, I had plenty of space in the back with bags taking up the 4^th seat.

On the journey up into the mountains, which are the ski resorts in winter, we had several thunderstorms and pouring rain, but it only ever lasted 5 minutes or so. We stopped for lunch in one of the mountain villages and it was sunny when we went in, poured while we were eating and was sunny again when we walked back to the car.

We are now here at the Cultural Centre in Delphi, which is up on the side of a mountain overlooking the Peloponnesian waters. (I will take a photo and put it up tomorrow). It is truly picturesque and all the rooms overlook the water. Today is Xenia’s birthday, so we are all going out to dinner tonight to celebrate.