A lull in the action

And so another conference fades away, and with it goes the nausea, the insomnia, the constant hunger, and that sensation of never quite being alone. It can be rough sometimes. Actually any conference at Gregynog is a great thing in many other ways, with the elegant and stately grounds and the hand of the giant buried underneath old drive and the sticky toffee puddings. Some universities don't even have country houses to have conferences in, the poor dears. It would be nice to sleep though.

This post is one of the few that will go out live in the next few weeks, sandwiched as it is between a conference and a day trip, which will be succeeded next week by a long break in Amsterdam. Oh, the joys of not working! Amsterdam... It feels like it's far scarier in prospect than it will be in reality.

So, this is a lull in a hectic schedule, and just for a few moments there is time to prepare for the coming days and fall apart a little in the privacy of a quiet university. Well, that's falling apart while doing work of course. There would be no excuse for being negligent. Foam modelling is fizzing in the background, as well as secret project 23, and some stats reading. Could it be that statistical oceanography is actually a thing? Really?! Oh, and of course there's the usual sit and wait to see how the next draft of the paper might come out.

A life on the ocean wave. If this journey goes well a whole world of sea travel opens up, to here to there and to everywhere. There's something so much more real about going places slowly and meanderingly. The world assumes its true size and the journey becomes as important as the destination. In the frenzied modern world of the sealed and stuffy cabins of all ground and air transport, a boat is perhaps the last vehicle where you can go outside and watch the world pass by and feel it too in the wind on the face and the spray all around. It's romantic. Even on a giant super-ferry it's romantic, if you ignore all the giant superstructure and being a thousand miles up in the air.

Is the romance of travel ever real? Was it ever real? Has it been fun since the days of horses? Well, we'll see.

O.