News from the 'Pool

I am in Liverpool for Easter. We arrived yesterday after the usual 18 hours travelling. Only fell asleep once at the wheel - which is not bad.

We got here to find it was the Ladies' Day at the Aintree Grand National meeting...the racecourse is just around the corner from my mum's. So all the girls were dressed in their pretty frocks and curls wandering around Aintree Racecourse in sub-artic temperatures and hurricane force winds from the west...BBBBBBRRRRrrrrrrrrrr.....this is the kind of weather which put me off playing Rugby forever when I was a kid! It is probably the weather we would have in England all the time were it not for the Gulf Stream.

You couldn't see the girls for goosepimples! They looked like those Mars Rover capsules which land on inflated bubbly cushions. Makes me feel cold to think of them!

This is all passing me by though as I am still in the middle of a fascinating aforementioned translation on spectroscopy which I have foolishly but economically necessarily brought with me. We plan to slip down later though and watch the drunken punters stagger out of the racecourse with their winnings or their dashed hopes.

If I can risk taking my hands out of my pockets in the searing winds I may even take a couple of photos...watch this very windy and bitingly cold space...