I’ve just spent the weekend in Conwy. I decided to head up to North Wales as there was a North Wales Moth Recorders’ Meeting at the Pensychnant Conservation Centre. I travelled there on Saturday, stopping on the way to do a few geocaches and arrived in plenty of time for the meeting.
After a coffee and a chat with some fellow moth-recorders we had a presentation by Zoë Randle the Moth Recording Coordinator for the Moths Count Project. She talked us through the successes of the Moths Count Project and Butterfly Conservations efforts to put moths on the map.
Butterfly Conservation have had funding from a variety of sources, and lots from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Zoë told is how this money had been spent. Most of has been spent on the website and the publication of national moth distribution maps. I’ve yet to have a close look at these, but they look pretty impressive, especially as many of them can be zoomed in to resolutions of 100m so that you can see exactly where moths have been recorded. Hopefully some of my records will start showing up on these soon. These really are ‘putting moths on the map’.
Money has also been spent on publicity and organising events such as the Garden Moths Count and National moth night. This prompted some ‘discussion’ as one person there in particular thought hat this was a waste of money that could have been spent on computerising historical moth records so as to allow for a better understanding of trends in distribution over time. However, I think that publicity and events are actually a good use of the resources they have. I for one wouldn’t be recording moths if it weren’t for such events. I may only be one small person doing my little bit but I’ve been recording moths, have been partly responsible for setting up the Ceredigion Moth Group and collating records from Vice County 46 and have been spending some of my time on a voluntary basis computerising the historical records.
Just a small amount of money recruiting new recorders and volunteers such as myself can pay dividends in the long run, which has to be better than directly paying to have historical records computerised. Of course such events also fall within the ‘community’ remit of the funding requirements which is why they have featured heavily in the activities of Moths Count.
After the ‘moth meeting’ I headed off to RSPB Conwy where I had a walk around the nature reserve where I saw a little Egret, found a geocache on the banks of the estuary and then stood and watched millions of starlings come into roost.
Not a bad way to spend a day and I almost felt like a naturalist by the end of it!
Little Egret, Conwy
Morgan seems to like his birthday presents so far. We haven’t been out with the metal detector yet, but he has played with all of the accessories that go with his ‘pirate castle’ and seem to like those. The Monkey character that protects the rainforest hasn’t shut up since he got it and he’s had fun with his lego fire-station too…. As did Anna and I when we built it for him!
Lego Fire-station
It may have made sense to have vacuumed the floor before taking that photo though as Morgan was eating a Pop Tart whilst playing with it this morning.
Hopefully he’ll get into Lego and before we know it he’ll have a whole city of the stuff!
Morgan has always wanted to go on holiday in a caravan. Don’t ask me why he has this ambition, he’s nearly 5 and I have no idea why he does half the things he does!
Me in a box
For example he spends lots of his time running around thinking he’s a Power Ranger, obviously he’s not, he just thinks he is! If I did that people would think I was mad. He can also spend hours on end sat in a cardboard box talking to himself. Again, even if I wanted to do that I couldn’t get away with it without people thinking there was something wrong. Although, come to think of it I am currently sat in my little office blogging, which isn’t far from sitting in a cardboard box talking to myself!
Anyway, we haven’t had a proper holiday this year and whilst my parents were here at the weekend they wanted me to book a holiday online for them. It was a caravan holiday in South Wales at Trecco Bay, booked through some vouchers in the newspaper that looked pretty good value for money. Not wanting to be outdone I decided to book one for ourselves as well.
4 nights in a caravan at Trecco Bay. The cost of which with service charges came to £64, plus an additional £25 for the use of the pool and leisure complex on the park. Not too bad really and it should keep Morgan happy as he finally gets to stay in a caravan.
There is plenty to do in that part of thew world as well. Windsurfing, Surfing and Mountain-Biking, Swimming Pools, Theme parks and ‘Techni-Quest; for the family and some nice bits of scenery and walks along the coast too. Not a very exotic holiday but it’ll be nice to get a way for a few days.
My parents are here for a long weekend so we went out for Sunday lunch yesterday.
We had heard that the carvery at the Marine in Aberystwyth was good so after a walk along the prom to build up an apetite off we went for lunch.
All of the reports of it being good were indeed true! Just a starter could have been enough with a huge choice of melon, pate, prawn cocktail, samosa’s, salad, eggs, pasta and more. I didn’t go overboard as the main carvery looked good, but the desert table looked even more impressive!
So it was onto the main course. Not just a choice of one of two meats, but too much choice, Pork, Turkey, Beef, Lamb and Gammon, along with suasages, bacon, roast potatoes yorkshire puddings, stuffing and plenty of sauces. By the time we had chosen and been given hug portions of meat, the staff had stocked our table up with bowls containing a selection of vegetables and plenty of gravy.
All of the food was delicious and there was more than enough by a long way. The dessert table beckoned though. None of us really had room for a dessert but with such a huge selection of home made puddings on offer it would have been rude not to try some. Again, it’s a matter of helping yourself to as much as you can manage from every type of dessert imaginable. I only had a couple but they were nice too. if only I’d had more room to try a few more!
It’s definitely recommended and we’ll be back again fairly soon. I just think I need to go for a huge mountain bike ride beforehand so that I can make the most of it! The prices were good too at £15.95 for a 3 course meal.
The Ceredigion Moth Group is up and running and we seem to be making some progress.
I’ve set up a mailing list so that we can all keep in touch with each other and we have been sending our records from 2009 to the new County Recorder. I only had a fairly small number of records from 2009 as I didn’t start moth trapping until late in the year, but I had an e-mail back from the County Recorder saying:
Your data have now been verified without amendment, and incorporated into the VC46 County list – many thanks.
It looks as though the records I kept were worthwhile and will go towards a greater understanding of the moths that are present in the area.
So far the County Recorder has received records from 2009 that amount to more than 9000 recordings. Not all are verified/processed yet, but they have been used to make a start on a County list which is being sent to ‘Butterfly Conservation‘ to be included in the forthcoming Butterfly Conservation Atlas.
We have a meeting / workshop planned for March 27th and there is a Moth Count Event in Conwy on 13th march that I may well go to. I’m getting quite ‘into’ my moths! If only there were some to trap here at the moment.
Thanks to constant pestering from Morgan we have done our Big Garden Birdwatch. Morgan sat there quietly for a whole hour and helped me count the birds we saw. There was nothing unusual and all in all it was a fairly good representation of what we normally get in the garden, with only a couple of things missing.
The results were:
- Blackbird: 3
- Blue Tit: 2
- Carrion Crow: 2
- Chaffinch: 7
- Collared dove: 2
- Dunnock: 1
- House Sparrow: 10
- Magpie: 2
- Robin: 1
- Starling: 18
Morgan now wants to do the same in the front garden!
It looks as though my hard work on the turbo trainer may be paying off as I seem to be making some improvements.
I did my 1 minute interval session yesterday, where after a warm up I try to do 7 repetitions of 1 minute hard and 1 minute easy. After a little bit of experimentation over a few weeks I found my limits and could just about do these with the hard effort at 350 Watts. I have since done a few of these at 350 Watts, which normally gets my heart rate up to around 90-95% of my theoretical maximum.
Last time I did them on January 19th they felt a little easier and heart rate was only 89% of its maximum so today was the day to increase the output to 360 Watts. I had tried them at 360 Watts before and failed miserably. On that occasion I only managed 5 repetitions, but today was different. In fact, although the last one did feel quite tough it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I managed all 7 reps and with a maximum heart rate of 162bpm I was still only working at 89% of my maximum.
This may all sound very encouraging and it looks as though there are signs of improvement, but it also means that I should try them at 370 Watts next time. I don’t think I’ll be able to complete all 7 reps at that power output, but it has to be worth a go.
I felt quite good at circuits and in the pool on Tuesday too, so maybe I’m just having a good couple of days – We’ll see how I fare in the real world on my night MTB ride tonight.
Heart rate from todays Turbo Trainer workout
Yesterday was a good day. First I took Morgan to school and then worked at the university invigilating exams in the morning. Not the most stressful of jobs as I simply sit in a room with a student or two, keep an eye on them whilst they do their exams and keep a check on the time. It gave me a chance to catch up on some podcasts and just sit there and chill for a while. Any longer than a couple of hours and it does get a little boring though.
Then it was home (via MacDonalds!), and a catch up on my e-mails before doing a quick turbo trainer workout followed by a short Yoga session. Then I was back on the school run, after which Morgan and I went to the climbing wall for an hour.
I then dropped Morgan off with Anna at work and headed back to the Sports Hall for an hour of pain in the form of a circuit training session. I would have then spent some time on the spin bikes and gone for a swimfit session, but I’m under doctors orders not to swim at the moment due to my surfer’s and swimmer’s ear. Once I’m allowed to swim again, Tuesdays could turn out to be an action packed day, turbo training, yoga, rock climbing, circuit training, spin bikes and swimming. I just need to find a way of earning some money at the same time!
Yoga
I’ve always wanted to do Yoga or Tai Chi or something similar to help with my overall flexibility, but I’ve never quite had the nerve to actually do it.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against spending time in a room with lithe, supple, leotard clad girls, but I’m not so sure what they would think of the middle-aged, greying (OK.. grey!) man in the corner grunting and groaning as he tries to adopt some of the poses. I think doing it in the comfort of my own home would be a better option. I’m also not so keen on the ’spiritual’ aspect of such things. I’m sure for some it can become a spiritual thing but I just want to do it to for the physical aspects.
With the recent purchase of a Wii, one possible hi-tech solution was to get a Wii-Fit and the do Yoga using that. That might be an option one day, but it isn’t cheap and for now I wanted a better solution.
I therefore took a look on the iTunes store for Yoga podcasts and found a video podcast called Yogamazing. The website states that:
“YOGAmazing classes are designed for everyonefrom out-of-shape parents to athletes to those with no yoga experience or those with an on-going practice. In a relaxed, down-to-earth, and inclusive atmosphere, Chaz works on developing a yoga practice that you can take home and use every day to improve the quality of your life”
Sounds good to me so I’m going to give it a go. I’ve downloaded a beginners class from yogamazing and will give it a go (when no-ones watching). I’m starting to do a bit more training in the form of swimming, cycling and circuits so it probably won’t be long before my old aches and pains (knees and back mainly) start to rea their ugly heads. I’m hoping the Yoga will help alleviate such things by improving my overall strength and flexibility and at the same time help me relax.
Some say that Yoga is a complete workout for your body, mind and soul. I’m doing it for the ‘body’ aspect and it may help with the ‘mind too. I doubt that it’ll help me find my inner-self so I’m not so worried about the ’soul’ aspect, but I guess you never know.
Don’t worry I won’t post any video clips of me mid Yoga-Flow, but I’ll let you know how I get on with it and what I think of Yoga and using a podcast to guide me through it.
We went to see the pantomime at Aberystwyth Arts Centre yesterday. It was Jack and the Beanstalk and I was pleasantly surprised.
The pantomime is put on by The Wardens Dramatic Society who have been producing shows in Aberystwyth since Jack and the Beanstalk in 1983. The productions are directed by Richard Cheshire, who also plays a leading role in them and this year played the Dame. You can find out more about The Wardens Dramatic Society here – although their website could do with some updating – maybe that could be a website design job for me!
It was pretty funny at times, the kids and adults all seemed to love it and it was a very professional show. Obviously as a pantomime it can’t be too serious or ‘too professional’ but it was slick, funny and the cast all seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was the last show of the season which may have helped matters and I’m sure the cast were playing a few tricks on each other as well which made it good fun.
Being Aberystwyth it could have been a very amateur affair, but it wasn’t and I’d highly recommend it. I’m sure we’ll be going next year.
