It's Been A While

Hello!

Well, it has been a while since I last blogged. I didn’t realise it had been so long though!  Time sure does fly when you’re busy.

I’ve been all sorts of everywhere in the last few weeks. A weekend away to Nottingham with David, a long weekend away to the Lake District with a group of friends from university, and of course I have been up to the allotments.

Allotment News:

Plot 4 is now full and looking good – just need to keep on top of bindweed pulling. It was Momma Pats birthday so David and Momma & Poppa B got Momma P a new bench for her plot. It just appeared as if by magic!

Plot 31 is finally, finally!, taking shape. It is actually becoming the plot I first envisioned, all those years ago when I first took it on (2009!). Building up the beds with wood and filling with compost is proving to be a very expensive and time consuming way to do things – this weekend alone I have spent £90 on peat free compost – but hopefully it will pay off in the future. The ground simply isn’t great for planting things directly into it, so raised beds are the way to go.

Momma P used my new shears to clip the grass and nettles back – we had forgotten just how wide the plot actually is – so now I am planning more beds to fill in the gaps and use up some of the space. I am gradually trying to reduce the amount of grass on the plot, a) so that Momma doesn’t have to keep mowing it, and b) to get rid of the couch grass. I don’t want to be entirely rid of the grass though as it supports a lot of wildlife and helps drainage.

Creative Hobby News:

Whilst I was away in the Lakes, Anna, Rowena and I had a Sunday morning craft session and I decided I wanted to start painting. I mentioned this to David when I got home, and then a few days later he gifted me a watercolour set and a notepad to start painting in! He is definitely a keeper.  I always want to be amazingly brilliant at everything the first time I try it, so I am starting slow and small and just faffing with paints to get used to them, to decide what I want to try and to learn how to doodle in paint. So far I have done this:

…Which is guess isn’t a bad start! I am going to experiment more with perspective and layering – starting with things in less detail at the back and building up detail in the foreground.

Job News:

I had the busiest day of my new job so far, with 40 volunteers coming to a session led by me. It was easily the most stressful two weeks building up to it, but it all went ok and we got absolutely loads of work done. By the end of this week I will have had about 85 volunteers out with me at two sites. I am still really enjoying it; I get a lot of freedom to do things, and this week we are going to tick off a few big creative projects and start planning the next lot.

My new buddy Jess the Farm Cat

Lake District News:

It was beautiful. B-e-a-u-tiful. The weather forecast was awful but actually turned out so good that we all got sunburn on the first day! We found some exceptional fossilised plant remains which are now in my collection at home, and had a couple of nice scenic walks. I have never been to the Lakes before, but I want to come back with David and properly explore. The house we stayed in is a 9-bed AirBnB – link here if you want to see it.

Life News:

Momma P cut my hair in the back garden. A bit spur of the moment, but it has needed cutting for a few months but I keep conveniently forgetting to book an appointment. I had planned to cut 2 inches off but actually removed about 5 or 6.

I am still trying very hard to not be on social media at the weekends but it doesn’t seem to be working. I don’t use it much during the work day, unless I am using it for work, but the weekends is when I tend to share allotment things on Twitter, or bee house updates (see below):

Boy bee

A ruby-tailed wasp. Parasitic on mason bees.

Crochet News:

I am still working away on both my Battenberg Blanket, and the Temperature Blanket. I haven’t had much desire to do crochet lately. I took my squares with me to the Lakes and made 8 more and I am still noting down the temperature at 4pm each day. I just tend to save it all for a mass crochet session instead of little and often.

I shall post another blog shortly with Lake District Fun Times in it, with pics of the fossils!

Lickey Quartzite Walls

This is a very nerdy post – if you don’t like geology or care for walls, I don’t mind if you skip over this one!

Cofton Hackett Wall. Nice big chunks of quartizite.

The Lickey Hills in S Birmingham are made up of a ridge of quartzite. This is a sedimentary rock as opposed to metamorphic, and was laid down in the Cambrian-Ordovician periods when this part of the UK was a) not attached to Scotland, and b) approximately where Australia is now (south of the equator). Despite being a marine rock there are not many fossils in this stone.

Locally this rock was used as roadstone (each parish was responsible for making and maintaining their roads). There are a number of disused quarries around the Lickey Hills. When the Frankley and Bartley Green reservoirs were being constructed, the Halesowen-Rubery railway was extended to the building site. During works there was a slope failure (I think in Bartley Res), and quartzite was extracted from Cock Hill Quarry, chucked on the train, taken to the reservoir, and used to shore up the collapse area - I know this because I once had a lovely chat with a bemused man from Severn Trent water about it all. See, nerd.

The stone has also been used locally for walls, and I have been on an unofficial lowkey mission to document these walls whenever I see them. So far I have found a few close to the Lickeys; a couple in Rubery, one by Cofton Hackett, and one long retaining wall in Rednal. I have also found some further afield; Northfield has quite a lot down by the library, and my most recent find is on Bournville Lane by Cadburys!

Bournville Lane nr the railway station. This verge also has massive boulders dropped by the glaciers!

As I build up my collection of photographs of walls (the finance manager at my new job was quite taken aback when I said I needed to take a photo…) I plan to map them. There isn’t really a real reason for this, except the local importance of this stone as a building material. Local history is all too easily erased!

More information about the geology of the Lickeys can be read here: the Lickey Hills Geo-Champions group work to look after the quarries.

Two more walls were tweeted about a while ago;

Wall in #northfield made with lumps of quartzite. Nearest quartzite quarries are up the @LickeyHills! #geology pic.twitter.com/bWMAsi1XKD

— Lickey Geo-Champions (@LickeyChampions) 29 January 2017

There is another quartzite wall in Northfield - part of it can be seen by the steps up to the library and the other is in the front garden of the house next door.

Wall made of Lickey Quartzite up Leach Green Lane in Rednal. #urbangeology #geology #birmingham @LickeyHills pic.twitter.com/AWXFbBh3iL

— Lickey Geo-Champions (@LickeyChampions) 4 February 2017

The map so far. Only four sites have photos.

Roadtrip to Charmouth

My very first blog post on here was about a brief jaunt to Charmouth, back in 2016. On my first venture it was cold and foggy, so I didn’t do much proper fossiling as I didn’t have my kit with me. I took some photos of Mini Mary Anning (a Geological Society pattern) and found some trace fossils in the shale.

This time, I took David with me – I have been having quite a stressful, anxiety-ridden, crappy brain time lately, and I really needed to be at the seaside. I just wanted crashing waves, harsh fresh air, and a chance to not be surrounded by urban sprawl. I also had some stuff to take down to Devon for my sister, so we combined it into a weekend getaway.

I took Mini Mary Anning, how could I not, and we also took a riddle and my geological hammer, for some proper fossil hunting. It is important to not go near the cliffs here, or to hammer them. Charmouth is a protected site and it is against the fossil collecting code. It is also stupid. These cliffs are always moving, shifting, changing - and falling. 

This weekend we discovered that actually, the best fossils are closer to the water, but often just slightly buried. Moving the beach aside with your foot, hand, or hammer often yields bits of fossils. We found loads of bits of belemnite guard, quite a few pieces of broken ammonite, a couple of pieces of crinoid, and some whole pyritised ammonites! David found the first one and I am still mad, but then I found an absolute cracker on the second day so I still win. 10 geology points to me!

Davids first fossil find, maybe EVER.

Mine.

On the way to Devon we stopped off in Lyme Regis for lunch, and also happened to fall into a brewery for a couple of bottles. There is so much history in this area, and Mary Anning is a personal hero of mine, so walking in her footsteps and imagining what it was like in the 1700s is so cool to me. She walked these streets! She stepped on this beach! She may have liked local beer!

I had a great little much needed weekend away, now I have to sort and clean loads of fossils…………

#geobritainroadtrip - Cheddar Gorge

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David and I took a day trip to Cheddar! We left at the break of dawn to make sure that we would have the whole day at the site, whilst avoiding the worst of the M5 rush hour. I visited Cheddar Gorge late last year and I was there for about half an hour – it was freezing cold and was full of dense fog, I could barely see the rocks. I was on my way home from Devon and detoured to see th Gorge; but ended up hardly seeing anything. I have wanted to go back ever since.

Cheddar Gorge is split into two – the north side is owned by the National Trust, and the south side is owned by the Wildlife Trust. There is a circular walking route which you can follow, up and along the top of the Gorge, before dropping down to cross the road, and then back up again. The best views of the Gorge are easily from the south side. On a clear day, the views are beautiful – we could see for miles and miles. We visited in spring; the bluebells and wood anemones were gorgeous, and we counted plenty orchids.

The Gorge is well known as a tourist attraction. There are caves which can be explored (at a (high) cost), and lots of shops to mooch about in. Cheddar Gorge also is known for cheese! The cheese wheels are matured in the back of one of the caves. We bought a small wheel of the mature Cheddar cheddar – very nice. 

Glow worm!!!

Thar be fossils in these rocks

View over the Gorge with the reservoir 

The cheddar quarry. Cheese is extracted here before it is matured in the caves. ;-)

#geobritainroadtrip – Millook Haven

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I have been fortunate enough to bag me a man who not only (apparently) enjoys when I go off on one about rocks, but also a man who lets me book and plan a weekend away based on what rocks I can go and visit, and drag him along to look at too. Hurrah!

I visited Millook Haven as part of a three day break down to the seaside – this location has been on my geology bucket list for a very long time, and I attempted to visit it on day one of the geoliday (geology holiday, it’s a thing) but I chickened out with the 30% incline and strong winds. On day two however, I talked myself and the car into it, and in first gear we made our way down the single lane road to Millook.

There isn’t much to Millook, it only has a few buildings and the road quickly and sharply rises again on the otherside of the valley. The cliffs however, are spectacular. This section of cliff made it into the #100Geosites list by the Geological Society of London, and it is easy to see why! The folds are AMAZING. Recumbent, tightly folded, horizontal chevron folds. This place is a geological delight. Also, if sea-worn pebbles with hydrothermal veins are your thing, this is the place to bag some mega nice samples.

The rocks here were affected by the Variscan Orogeny, which is also responsible for the folded cliffs at Hartland Quay. 

David for scale

#geobritainroadtrip - Hartland Quay

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I have been down to Hartland Quay twice now, once with university on a field trip, and again with my partner for a geoliday. It was his first time there, and I hoped it would blow his mind – the rocks here truly are spectacular.

The rocks here are Carboniferous in age, and this location is well known for the structural geology goodness it contains. The cliffs here show vertical chevron folds; the cliff has been concertinaed and folded up, squeezed by the huge forces of the Variscan Orogeny [PDF]. The pictures truly do not do it justice; the drive down the narrow road to the car park is the first part of the fun, the rocks the second, and then the pub is third.

Be sure to visit when the tide is going out! High tide cuts it all off and you won’t be able to get anywhere near the rocks.  We got there at high tide and so went for a long walk (4 or 5 miles) and by the time we got back, the tide had gone out (and we’d worked up an appetite).

Looking along the axis of a plunging chevron fold (plunges towards the camera)

Geology Crochet

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Crochet is a fibre-craft that I taught myself a few years ago, when I dropped out of uni with a case of the mentals (read: depression, mental breakdown, leave of absence). I use crochet a lot to manage my mental health. It is great when I am anxious because it keeps my brain focused and my hands busy. The reason I have so many handmade blankets is because they are easy to make and take very little brain power, and is a great relaxation technique for a crazy brain.

In 2014, the Geological Society of London released a pattern to make a mini Mary Anning – and of course I just had to make her. Mary Anning is one of my ultimate Science Women™, and so I set to work. There is also a Darwin pattern available (I haven’t made him – yet).

I have also made a trilobite, and he has been called Malcolm. This trilo is my third or fourth attempt at the pattern, and I somehow managed to give him really evil eyes! This pattern came from Ravelry. There is another pattern available too but I haven't had much luck with it, I have not mastered front post double crochet yet!

Next up, is Nessie! I made this when I was signed off sick (with the mentals) last year. Nessie now lives in my window, with a paper cocktail umbrella behind an ear.

I made this dinosaur a long while ago, it is from a paid pattern I found on Etsy, and the legs and horns were fiddly, and I sewed its head on at a weird angle so it looks perpetually sad L     

Last up, the ammonite. I made this by reverse engineering – I couldn’t find a pattern I liked, but I found a pic I liked, so I used that. I started at the aperture end and got smaller, I think I did some maths to calculate how big I had to start it, then decreased my way along the tube. It is stitched in a coil, and then I made a circle to cover the end. I also have a smaller blue one made with embroidery thread hanging from the mirror in my car. There is also a pattern on Ravelry. 

Yes that is also a 3D printed trilobite on my dash.

Share your #geologycrochet pics with me on Twitter: @hammijam