Busy!

Wed, 13 Jun 2018 16:12:40 GMT

My Grant is visiting us for two weeks. He flew over from Toronto last Monday. His car is being looked after by maize, okoshun and clawfoot, for which we are very grateful.

Today seems to be resting after Doing All The Things day. I feel like I have learned a lot over the past few days. First there was the Download Festival, where I discovered many new-to-me bands, some of which I'd heard of but not heard, others of which I'd never heard of before. I will probably write more about this in another post. (Although I still haven't written up Download 2016 because I ran out of spoons. I've been keeping the Clashfinder on my phone so that I can remember who I saw!)

Then there was our impromptu trip to Nottingham, which occurred because we woke up at 9.30am on Monday and decided to take Grant to see something historical rather than going straight home. We found out why Nottingham Castle isn't a castle (it was where King Charies I declared the start of the English Civil War, so after he lost, the castle was destroyed by Parliament and the land later bought by the Duke of Newcastle who built a stately home on it) and learned about the Nottingham riot in October 1831 which led to the reform of Parliament in 1832 and improvement of conditions for ordinary working people. We also saw a lot of interesting art.

The ducal palace is already fully wheelchair-accessible (!) but the council who own/operate it are closing it for two years from July 1st so that they can build a fully-accessible entrance into the sandstone caves below it. Then people with mobility difficulties will be able to walk through the caves just like how people with good legs can now.

We also discovered the National Videogame Arcade, although it wasn't open due it being a Monday. Planning a trip there with the Pokecharms people when our Canadian comes to visit.

Yesterday we went to Crocodiles of the World again to see Grant's crocodile. But somehow I hadn't taken into account the extreme sexual dimorphism between males and females of the same species. I'm not certain that's the right word - their shape is similar, but their size is very different. For example, a species where the males grow to 5m has females which grow to only 3m in length. I didn't really realise until this year when they've hatched baby tomistoma, which have never been bred in captivity in the UK before, and I looked at the parents.

When zoos breed other crocodilians, they are able to control the incubation temperature to make sure they get all females (for display, because female crocodiles don't fight) or a mix of males and females (for breeding with other zoos). However, tomistomas have only been bred in captivity a few times, and they literally don't know what temperatures give which sex. So they had to incubate them at a range of temperatures and keep measuring/examining the offspring until they're certain of the sex. CROCODILE SCIENCE.

Also there was a dwarf caiman which made me laugh because it was sitting in the water with feet and tail on the bottom of the tank, front legs floating, and head on the top of the water. It looked like a baby T-rex.

After visiting the crocodiles we went to see otterylexa in Oxford. So I have seen all three of my partners recently, although I never seem to get all of them in the same place at once. We must work on this.

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"Fun" with flying.

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 00:09:35 GMT

I am home after the journey from hell. Summary: There was an ice storm in northwest New York state and southern Ontario which caused a whole load of flights to/from Toronto Pearson airport to be horribly delayed or cancelled. Mine was delayed for 26 hours.

It was rather awful because we got no food and drink provided by the airline until around 5 am, when we were supposed to have taken off at 9.55pm the previous day and been fed and watered within an hour of that time. There was some food and drink for sale at the airport, as well as a water fountain, which we could use while stuck at the gate - but no cups were provided for free, so people not in the habit of going through security with an empty bottle to fill once they're through were dehydrated. Also our checked luggage, having been screened, were not given back to us once it was decided that the plane would be cancelled. So we all had to spend the day with nothing but whatever we had in our hand luggage - which was a particular problem for me since it meant I did not have my wheelchair charger.

Unsurprisingly, between stress, spending all that time in an airport or aeroplane with thousands of other people, and sitting upright for far more hours than my spine will allow, I am now rather ill. All I can say is that if this had to happen to me, I'm glad it was when I was 41, with a credit card, travel insurance, and a well-treated anxiety disorder - rather than when I was 21. Tomorrow's job is to claim on said travel insurance. I have the letter from the airline stating the delay, both of my boarding passes, and receipts for my food, hotel, and taxi. (I'm not sure if I have the receipt for the emergency phone charger which I had to buy at the airport, nor if that's a thing I can even claim for, but I'm going to try.)

I would like to write a timeline of events, but that involves more spoons than I currently have available. So just "enjoy" my Skype and/or text messages. ( Long. )

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helen-louise's journal

Busy!

"Fun" with flying.