Sauntering Vaguely Downward

Yes, well done hoomins for buying me this sun lounger, it is a fitting throne for my royal self.


Chin scritchings? Well, perhaps I may allow.


Wait. What fresh hell is this.


Sir, I am not your scarf. Return me to my throne immediately. In the meantime, Expect Pain.

The bloke watches Keiki negotiate a steep climb on his own.

For the past 3-4 years, the bloke has been traveling to cities around the world as part of his air quality/particulate monitoring work. He’s often been accompanied by Robin Price, physicist and visual artist, who makes pollution paintings with a portable sensor setup. The Arts Council recently purchased the “Air of the Anthropocene” collection, and today The Guardian newspaper ran a piece about his work. Sadly, the prettier the photos are, the dirtier the air is!


Robin Price - Dehli Playground light painting

You can view the collection here.

If anyone wants to learn more about the kind of science my other half does*, you can see him in a programme next Wednesday 10 January on BBC Two at 9 PM. It's called Fighting for Air and is presented by Dr Xand van Tulleken. (NB Dr Xand is not the bloke. The bloke did, however, set up the experiment featured in the programme.)

Programme description: Imagine if you could change the quality of the air we breathe - in just one day. Air pollution in the UK has been declared a 'public health emergency' and Dr Xand van Tulleken is seeing what can be done about it. Enlisting the help of enthusiasts and sceptics from the Kings Heath community in Birmingham, Xand stages the first ever large-scale experiment of its kind - using people power to try and bring about a quantifiable improvement in air quality for a single day.

I would also like to take this opportunity to state that our personal vehicle does not run on diesel. After viewing the programme, you'll see why I've made this point!

* Our PhDs were very similar. We are now both rather differently employed.

[Humuhumu smiling in her mint-green glasses and green Christmas jumper, on Christmas day, in front of the fireplace in "the big room", where the Christmas tree always is.]

Christmas day this year was possibly one of the best I've ever experienced. This was entirely down to our children's reaction to it, which was purest joy and excitement, from the discovery of Christmas stockings next to bed/cot in the morning to the reunion with cousins and second round of presents before bedtime in the evening. I didn't take as many photos as I might have, since we were rather busy being in the moment, but below the cut are a few reminders of the day.

( +4 )

We drank a lot of wine, we ate a lot of food and we all received presents we liked, thanks to the family tradition of exchanging lists prior to Christmas (to lower stress levels on procurement, and also because the family is big enough that it takes several hours just to open all the presents by turns). We played silly games until late in the evening.

Keiki, however, gave me the gift I shall probably treasure longest: He slept from 7:30 PM until 7:30 AM on Boxing Day morning. It is the first (and to date, only) occasion on which he has ever slept for twelve hours straight. I don't expect the feat to be repeated on a regular basis, but it was a treat to be savoured, and what timing!