Carnival!

It was carnival day today in Aberystwyth. There were floats, fancy dress, loud music, too many people cluttering up the place and... dolphins! I spent three years here doing my first degree, and then several weekends and finally six months of working here and I never saw the dolphins. But here and today, there were dolphins, and they didn't even need to be sought out as they were right there off South Beach. I've waited years for those dolphins! The semi-mythical summer donkeys were also out and giving rides. It was all rather festive in a commercial tawdry kind of way.

Aberystwyth is very much a town of two distinct personalities. In university time it is the best student town you could ever find, scenic and upbeat, with a lively culture and lots of facilities for people to keep themselves busy. Outside of term time and in the school summer holidays in particular it's a tourist wasteland and nowhere near so nice. Still, this how the locals stay in business so it's best tolerated. Or you can leave for two months of every year and then sneak back into town as the bulk of tourists slide back home. The combination of hear, noise, people and never having the beach to yourself is really quite the nasty one. It's much nicer in the off-months when you can stand on the beach, throw pebbles into the waves, and hear the sound of silence and feel it quelling your stress, or you can sit on top of Constitution Hill and eat a picnic, basking in the view over the ocean. You can even read and work in a scenic wonderland if you're sick of the office.

However, there is one exception to the summer annoyances, and that's when it rains. It's raining now after the sunniness of the carnival and it is gorgeous. That warm wet smell is really the most gorgeous thing, unless it rains for weeks on end as it used to do frequently. If you deny climate change, then all I can say is that you're mad. The climate has certainly changed here, and the only question is whether it's man-caused or a natural cycle. (Hint: It's man-caused.) It's a wonderful time to be here, and I'm glad to have popped up for the weekend.

Oh, dolphins, you made my day. The parade was nice and all that, but the dolphins were the best. They were only silvery shapes hooping out of the water too far away for my puny camera to capture but they were memorable. Finally, the dolphins made an appearance. This isn't a shadowy backup Earth like that in the 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' but the real deal.

Earth: The real deal. Unless this is a very long dream of course. Or a computer game. Or we're all characters in a book.

O.