Day 12

Evidently, 12 days is all it takes for me to decide I rather spend time with my computer than with nature... Or, it could be that I've nothing better to do in the 40-degree heat as I wait to dry off from a shower and go out for a meal. So here are some photos of my excursion into the Andes. For the sake of speedy download, I am posting only 4 of the 558 photos that iPhoto tells me I have taken. Of course, there are some duplicates (you know... you line up the shot, and just as you take it, the mountain moves or the river blinks, so you end up taking another shot once nature has settled down again), so probably we're talking a more realistic 500 or so photos. You're not really going to be interested in the stories behind the photos (all you need to know is that I had an amazing time - as much to do with being in the Andes as with being away from my office!), so here they are. I might post some more once I've got back. These were all taken near Bariloche, in Patagonia.

Tomorrow, we're off to Buenos Aires. It's even hotter there than here (Neuquén). Silvia has to pick up her hopefully renewed passport, and there's still much meat to be eaten, shoes to be bought, and tangos to be danced...

The Andes

Am currently in a hotel in the Andes. I'd recommend the Andes, and the hotel, to anyone. Will post photos once I've decided I want to spend more time with my computer than I do with the Andes. Things I've done:

• Driven 300 miles
• Climbed the highest peak (I cheated - I took the chair lift)
• Crossed one of the highest and deepest lakes in Argentina (I cheated - took a boat)
• Bought ponchos for my kids.
• Bought gifts for various friends.
• Eaten more meat in a week than my stomach has had to deal with in a year. Thank you, Zantac, for seeing me through!
• Drunk excellent wine.
• Drunk lots of Maté.
• Relaxed.
• Relaxed some more.
• Forgotten all those things that prevent me from relaxing.
• Thought about all those people who make those things tolerable...

have escaped to S. America

I'm taking a short break to write this, as I put together a list of potential reviewers for a bunch of papers that were submitted to the journal recently. I should instead be enjoying the view of the River Plate as I wait in Buenos Aires to board a plane to Patagonia. I feel like I'm on the run... glancing over my shoulder lest anyone with a submission to the journal should have noticed that I've gone AWOL, or worse still, followed me here. But no one's hovering around suspiciously, so I think I'm in the clear. That said, and now that I take a look around me, there are an awful lot of suspicious looking people, and an awful lot of people hovering around. But no one that's doing both. Phew.

The flight over was uneventful. I slept until Brazil (a big thank you, again, to the pharmaceutical industry...) and then watched a rubbish thriller (Invasion - a remake of The Bodysnatchers) until Buenos Aires - actually, I watched it all but for the last 15 minutes or so... we landed before I could get past the climactic scene where Nicole Kidman is set upon by a mob... But experience tells me she'll have survived, saved her child, and then the world. I should've watched Shrek 3 instead. So the inflight movie was not exactly a highlight of the trip. Nor was spilling coffee on myself (turbulence, not Nicole Kidman...)

Ok. Enough's enough. Before guilt sets in, I shall get back to the journal... an alien invasion does seem a more attractive prospect all of a sudden...

I'm off...

That's it. I'm done for 2007. I can look forward to Xmas in Oxford, and a Boxing day flight to Argentina. I've done only half the things I'd have liked to have done in 2007, but hey, that's life. There are, undoubtedly, a string of people to whom I should apologize for the things I did not manage to do in 2007, but hopefully I'll make good in 2008.... Although I expect that at the end of 2008 I shall reminisce about the things I did not manage to do in 2008, but which will be made good in 2009... and so it goes on.

A Happy Xmas to you, whoever, and wherever, you are. And an even better 2008.

Falling behind...

Things I've not yet done in the lead up to Xmas:

• failed to change the mole's status as a still-living organism
• bought xmas presents for my family and myself (hey - I deserve something)
• cleared the queues at the journal (am juggling between answering emails, catching papers that have been in the system since the time of the first printing presses, making decisions on papers, sending papers out to review, and managing the transition from one assistant to another)
• set up the new eye tracker
• marked exam scripts
• breathed in and out with a rhythm that is not indicative of rising panic

Things I've done in the lead up to Xmas:

• worked out the things I've not done in the lead up to Xmas
• breathed in and out with a rhythm that is indicative of rising panic

3 metres and closing

That's the distance between the latest molehill and the pond liner.... Have called in the professionals...

At war with the mole

Have laid traps and sonic repellants. The latter are guaranteed not to work, but they were given to me, and I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not sure what a gift horse is, but there you go... Current distance from closest detectable burrow to pond liner - 10 metres. If it gets through the liner, the only satisfaction I shall receive from having to repair it again is the knowledge that the mole will have been engulfed in the burrowing equivalent of a tidal wave...

While mapping the burrows (with a 6ft iron rod that I had for other reasons), I discovered a 'hole' in the garden that goes down about 5 ft. Not sure what's down there. Could be skeletons, or a septic tank, or both. Once the mole's gone to that great burrow in the sky, I shall map out the hole. If it's too big, I may need to open it up and fill it (the lawn is sinking a little where I found it). With hindsight, it would have been useful to find this hole before digging the pond at another spot in the garden. But another hole would be useful - I recall that the Italian post office, many years ago, were over-burdened with postcards that needed delivering. So instead, they buried them (perhaps they burned them, but the idea is the same). Am considering doing the same with all those journal submissions...