Something of a day of firsts

I felt pretty grotty this morning when I got up, not helped by having a very painful left foot. Nothing fundamental or terminal, but what feels like a muscle strain amongst the muscles that hold the bones of your feet together. It eased with a combination of naproxen and paracetamol, and despite my fears to the contrary, I managed the walk to work reasonably quickly. My reason for going to work, when I’d been there yesterday, was to have an in person meeting with a PhD student! How wonderful for us all.

Back here around lunchtime, mainly by bus, for another first. I’ve been able to make a part time research assistant appointment using some money converted out of the travel part of a grant to facilitate me making a ‘virtual tour’ of Latin America. My research assistant is actually based in Estonia, but he is Chilean. To start with, we are concentrating on Colombia, but our first interlocutor is a Colombian academic based in the US. Are you still with me? So instead of the carbon footprint of an academic tour (as I did in Australia in 2018), I travel lightly and virtually, with the assistance of my new colleague, who is excellent. The first meeting was fun.

I finished the day with a bit of yoga, which has further assisted my aches and pains, with a plan for spinning tomorrow morning.

Here’s sedum 'Bertram Anderson'. I love those flowers. Deep red, and they look like tiny coronets. It's quite similar to cauticola, one of which I have had since 2020, but the flowers are a slightly deeper red. Elsewhere on the balcony, the poppies are almost gone, but everything else is holding on well, including the fuchsias. Still watering like mad, which is getting a touch more complicated as my life gets a lot busier, what with my new role since 1 August.