Bluebell ICM

It was quite cool today, no sunshine and much colder again at 13C. It has been a very dry April but a rather cold one too.

I had a good walk with Xena today and as we went past the bluebell woods near our home, I decided to do an ICM of the colours today. The problem with bluebell woods is that they are often very messy with fallen trees and branches lying around, so an ICM avoids those details. 

I have been playing catch up all week, and going out to camera club on Monday night and then my camera group last night means I have not had much time for other things - tonight thankfully I am at home and I can continue watching Anatomy of a Scandal on Netflix!

Another blipper asked about Adam's graduation on Saturday. At the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Dublin, BA degrees are converted to MA degrees after a period of roughly 7 years from when you first started university, and this is what the graduation on Saturday is all about. In the meantime Adam has achieved a MA for another year of study but missed that graduation due to Covid, and he will have yet another graduation after he finishes his PhD next year. This peculiar custom of the converting of BA degrees to MA degrees is based on ancient law - in the middle ages, the study of liberal arts took 7 years and students entered the university at a much younger age, such as at age 14 or 15. While the length of the undergraduate degree course has been shortened to three or four years in all subjects, all three universities still require roughly seven years to pass before the awarding of the MA degree. The shortening of the degree course reflects the fact that much of the teaching of the liberal arts was taken over by grammar schools, and undergraduates now enter universities at an older age, in most cases between 17 and 19. It is common knowledge by students that the MA can only be conferred provided the student has not been to prison in that time, or got divorced, but I cannot find any evidence of that hearsay!