Preparations

The morning was beautifully sunny and warm, so I walked Django through the edge of the Estate and then up to Uttershill Castle. There's a great view of Penicuik from there, but the trees have grown in the time I've been going up, so it's getting more difficult to photograph - not that it's a bad thing! 

We dropped straight down, through the garden of friends who live in (part of) the big house on the right. They are happy for us to use it as a big short-cut down to Valleyfield Pond, where there were no kingfishers to be seen.

Back home I got stuck into workshop organisation. The dinner is the most critical thing, and I got a quote from the University that was expensive, but my attempts to look for anything else proved fruitless. Fingers crossed that the University can actually do what was suggested for the date we need. Most attendees want the HiGHS tee-shirt that we offer and, after I'd done a stock-take, I put in an order for another 85! I also spent a while sourcing bespoke lanyards, and eventually found someone who would do them for a reasonable price. That was one of the few things we forgot about last year, when I spent a long time trying to get everything right well before the event. This year, I've rather left it to the last minute! 

Now to continue preparing a talk I'll give twice in the next fortnight. Plenty of the material is "standard", and will also be recycled in the two talks that I'll give at our workshop.

In the end the University couldn't accommodate us, so we're back to Scotts Kitchen - where we were last year!