Busman's holiday

Today I found myself in Hayes and Harlington. For ten minutes. I have no idea where I was, really, except that it was part of my journey to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories (RAL) in Oxfordshire. While I was there a couple of trains hammered through the station so quickly and noisily they actually made me jump! Trains do not move like that in N Ireland. I guess we are so small that trains can move from one place to another fairly sedately, but you still get there in half an hour or so.

I am on a 'professional development ' course on how the Gaia space telescope can be used to improve science teaching. I'm so excited! The hotel is FAB and our first talk was by Gerry Gilmore, a Professor of Experimental Philosophy from Cambridge University - also FAB!

Tomorrow we will go to RAL for more talks by experts in the field of particle physics and space science.

Livin' the dream, my friends.