Nik's Saga

I think I may have found something even better than Classic FM.

It's Classic FM's sister station, The Jazz. It's proving very good for the office as it's less distracting than Classic FM. I can see that I'm going to end up switching between them in the office depending on my mood for the next while. I'm a big fan of Classic but it does have more dynamic range than Jazz, which means that now and again it gets a bit loud, which can be a problem if I'm trying to concentrate on something like exam marking or a meeting.

Things are starting to get back to normal again after Revel, although I keep wanting to come home and just snooze for a while. Unfortunately this isn't possible right now as I've got two more visiting Scadians turning up here tomorrow. They weren't due to arrive until Saturday but I got a phone call earlier saying that they were running ahead of plans, were currently in Húsavík and would be here tomorrow evening. I therefore have a bit of tidying and cleaning to do before then. :( Ah well, I live to serve. :)

Oh shit. I have to be at the university at 09:00 on Saturday morning to attend the start of the computer architecture exam and to be available in case they need me for anything. That's going to complicate things, as I'm not going to be able to take them out to do the local stuff. Still, there's nothing I can do about it so I should really stop worrying. As if I could...
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According to the local shooting club, archery is an extreme fringe shooting activity.

I quite like this as a concept - I'd never really thought of the relationship between the archery and gun communities before now. It turns out that one of the senior members of the local shooting club works with one of our shire who is keen to keep up the archery, with the result that after work today we went up to the outdoor shooting range to investigate its suitability for archery.

The site is in an area in the foothills of the local mountains but has lots of twists and turns that lessen the impact of the wind. We were directed to an area that the local archery club had rejected when it lost its indoor range as being too rough on the ground for their arrows. It may not be suitable for aluminium or carbon arrows, but it'll suit us and our more flexible wooden arrows quite nicely. What's more, we can take our target haystacks up there and leave them in place instead of having to cart things up and down to the site. If we remember to take the targets off the haystack then the local shotgun people will probably leave them alone (leaving the target in place would be considered an invitation to shoot it). There are specific opening hours for the range, but in practice we can really go up any time we like... if the Icelandic SWAT team is on exercise we'll hear them, and besides, they always use an area on the other side of the range.

So we may even be able to do archery this weekend. Our main problem is going to be wind; it was a little windy today with a windspeed of 4.5m per second (about force 3 on the Beaufort scale) but as we'll be shooting at 10 yards to begin with I think that we can deal with it. For now we can use my two bows but we're probably going to need some new arrows pretty soon so I'm going to have to get someone to work out how the import paperwork actually works and then teach my archers how to make their own.
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With the departure of Gonz on the 08:40 flight this morning, life officially returned to normal.

And by normal, I mean that I had a quality management meeting at 09:00 and another meeting at 10:30. By 09:15 reality had re-exerted itself and I so wanted to be back on Thursday again. It's been fantastic having everyone here - hectic a lot of the time, but it really lifted my spirits to move in part of my old familiar circles again. It's great having friends here in Iceland who have shared interests in things like the SCA but it was nice to have folks around me who already have all of the contextural knowledge. Many thanks to Gonz, Fiona, Siubhan, Gilbere and Vivi for coming to Revel, not only for supporting my nascent Shire but also for bringing a little sanity back into my life.

I haven't posted over the last while because I've been so busy; over the next couple of days I'll post my backdated entries for the missing days, including my view of the event. Once I've got everything up I'll post an entry with links to the entire event's entries.

For anyone who is thinking of coming to Revel in the Midnight Sun III next year (tentatively scheduled for 6th-8th June 2008 (in the hope of better weather and direct flights to Akureyri) we've created a LiveJournal community "revelmidnitesun", where folks can discuss previous Revels and plan those to come in the future.

Labels: revel 2

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Is that 'IT' is too small.

I took my normal nice big handbag out with me on Friday, which meant that it accompanied me on the no-whale- watching trip and got soaked through. It hadn't dried out by this morning and so I had to find something else in which to carry the essentials of life - purse (wallet), Palm, camera etc. (my phone now lives on a lanyard around my neck). Unfortunately the only other similar item I own is the small black evening bag that I bought for the Christmas party at the Ambassador's residence at the end of last year. I refuse to recognise this as a real handbag and it has therefore acquired the moniker 'IT'.

So, much to my distaste, I went to dig 'IT' out. 'IT' is barely big enough to carry the three basics, never mind anything I might buy while out shopping. 'IT' is so small and girly that Martha thought that someone had left their bag in my car. Gonz laughed so much that he had to take a photo for potential blackmail purposes. I was not a happy bunny.

In spite of this embarrassment I boldly led an expedition to the pastor's house at Laufás, where we wandered around the turf-roofed farm which dates back to 1047 and then had a delicious afternoon tea before shopping for shiny things in the gift shop. Elizabeth found a very impressive replica Urnes dragon brooch, Gonz indulged in a large jar of blueberry jam and I bought a rather nice leather-bound pocket book for SCA purposes.

The final stop on the Midnight Revel Tour Of Bathing Spots was a hot tub in Húsavík. This is basically a large metal tub (which was, in a previous life, a cheese-making vat) on top of a hill, fed by a hot spring and accompanied by a portakabin which acts as a communal changing room. The water was hot, the view fantastic, and the tub large enough for four of us to dance a double bransle within it. We tried a single bransle too, but that was rather more difficult - I suspect that's because in a double you've already got the water going in one direct so the second step is easier, while with a single you're always fighting the current you stirred up with the previous double. Naturally much hilarity followed.

Labels: revel 2

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I'm currently suffering from sunburn and a heat rash.

Yes, after the freezing cold yesterday, once we'd delivered Siubhan, Fiona, Gilbere and Vivi to the airport this morning and headed up to the site we had a beautiful day of heat and sunshine. The wind dropped away almost entirely, allowing us to do archery in the morning and then following it up with heavy drills outside in the sunlight and finally some real fencing. With two complete sets of kit everyone who wanted to try fencing had a chance to armour up and and try it for real - it looks like we're going to have quite a few fencers in the Shire and two of the new fencers are both left-handed and interested in learning the Spanish style. I'm really going to have to source some heavy black linen for armour for the three of us. :)

Interestingly enough, I felt much better today than I did yesterday. It may be that I was just badly allergic to something growing in the canvas of the tent, as I spent today outside more than in. We eventually struck and packed the tent at about 18:00, at which point we headed back into town for a Subway meal and then off to the pool at Þeramörk for a post-event unwinding session. I think that this is also going to become an integral part of future Revels, as we had a great time relaxing now that the event itself was over. Another thing to add to the planning list and schedule for next year.

Labels: revel 2

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Today was the day.

We were a bit late arriving on site this morning as everyone was shattered after yesterday's adventures and we had quite a lot to load into the car. Nevertheless we were still the first there. Icelandic time and SCA time are both... flexible to start with, so combining the two was bound to have something of a reinforcing effect. We were due to be on-site by 10 but we didn't manage to leave until then and so didn't get to Finnastaðir until 10:45. We decorated the inside of our pavilion (a 10m by 7m canvas tent hired from the local Scout/Guide group) with my fabric ID and Drachenwald banners and the paper banners we'd made over the previous week and by the time we'd got everything up it looked quite impressive.

The weather was still rather cold and miserable, so we decided to hold all of the classes and games within the pavilion rather than freeze outside; even so we were very happy to get a mobile gas heater early in the afternoon. Before that, though, and started the day off with an introductory class on heavy combat. I spent most of the morning running around doing autocratty things but I did get to try the 'snap', a basic move with the rattan (it feels wrong - it's all big movements with none of the subtlety of a rapier, so I think I'll stick to the fencing myself). After this and a quick lunch of soup and hangikjöt (smoked leg of lamb) most of our guests went off to the swimming pool about ten minutes away at Hrafnagil in order to shower and soothe those strained muscles. I didn't go swimming as I had to go back into town to collect some more stuff but I'm told that people felt that the mid-day swim was an excellent idea. It may have to become part of any future Revels.

After lunch we went into the fencing and A&S classes. The fencing classes were good for keeping warm, but it was definitely too cold for comfort. By mid-afternoon I was also starting to feel quite ill - snuffly, headache, puffy about the eyes - and by the time we got to the feast I really didn't feel like eating so I served it instead (apart from a little fruit and cream). This had the added advantage of getting my hands on the warm serving dishes! The food was excellent - a combination of traditional Icelandic dishes and simple meats and fish.

A little dancing followed during the washing up phase, after which it was almost midnight and time to plant our trees. Everyone present planted their own tree, then we planted trees for Their Majesties and the Viceroy and Vicereine. The plan is to expand Klakavirki forest event by event and to have a special page on the website tracking the growth of both the trees and the forest itself. By this point several people were flagging, so while others continued dancing I did a delivery run into town and then back out to the site just in time to see people coming out of the tent after the dancing had finished, ready to be ferried back into town.

It was a long day, particularly after yesterday, and it was 03:00 before I got to bed. Still, in spite of the cold everone seemed to enjoy themselves, which is the main thing.

Labels: revel 2

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Today we did the 'tour for foreigners'.

The basic plan was to collect Elizabeth, go up to Húsavík for a picnic and whale-watching trip, then down to the blue mud zone at Námafjall, relax at the Nature Baths at Mývatn, then stop at oðafoss and Ljósvatn on the way back to Subway to grab something to eat before an early night.

It didn't quite go as planned. After yesterday's blizzards the weather was less than encouraging, and there was some doubt that the company we were planning to go whalewatching with would actually sail, but once we arrived and checked in they confirmed that although it was a bit choppy the trip was still on. Before this Martha, our native guide, took us into Húsavík church, which has a very Scandinavian design - an equi-armed cross (cross couped) - and had some interesting woodwork painted to look like stone. Most impressive was the carved book-cover for the church records. Traditional carved book-covers are very popular here for things like guest books and other books of record.

We didn't have time for lunch as the whale-watching boat left soon after we came out of the church. At this point the party split up, with Martha taking the non-sailors to the whale museum while I accompanied the nautical team aboard the largest of the company's boats. We'd already been given sea-sickness tablets in the company office and even I had taken one, which proved to be a good idea. None of our group was physically sick aboard but Vivi was certainly rather green about the gills and Gonz spent most of the trip hanging onto the boat with the kind of grip you normally expect to see only in corpses or robots.

It was rough. It was rough enough in the bay, but once we got out of the bay in search of the humpback whale and calf that had been seen earlier in the day it got extremely rough indeed. In the end we didn't see any whales, although I did see a beautiful arc of vomit falling from the upper deck into the water. Positively mathematical in form, it was. :) By the time we got back ashore we were all so cold and soaked through that we retired directly to the restaurant on the quay for hot chocolate and something to eat.

The drive from there down to the Nature Baths seemed to take forever, and it was quite difficult staying away while driving. Once we were in the pool, though, the heat of the water at last warmed us up and we spent a very pleasant hour or so just lounging in the hot blue waters. Even with quick stops at the blue mud zone, the lake and the waterfall we still didn't get back until quite late. It's a good thing that we don't have much running around to do tomorrow... and I hope that the weather improves overnight.
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The best-laid plans, etc.

I had planned to do all sorts of things today, but these were rather over-ridden by the need to get Svenni's garb finished before Saturday, and given that tomorrow is going to be rather busy it had to be done today. I did give in at 16:00 and decided to go swimming again, much to Gonz's delight.

On top of this we may have a weather problem. It's been snowing here and the road up from the south was particularly unpleasant. It seems that the south has been worst hit by the weather, and the first of the three high passes on route 1 was the most snow-bound. Our visitors had quite a journey but Fiona, Siubhan, Gilbere and Vivi finally arrived at about 20:00 this evening having had a final hot-chocolate stop about 90 seconds from my appartment. :) Siubhan and Gonz are staying with me on my sofas and Matha and her guest beds are playing host to the others.

Martha and I are also doing the driving tomorrow. The original plan was for Gilbere to drive the other car on the local tour but after the long and tiring drive he's done today that's not really fair. I just hope the weather lets up for our whale-watching trip.
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As promised, the sólarhnútur.

The sólarhnútur is a three lead, eight bight flattened turk's head knot - or, to those who appreciate such things, a large squashed WoodBadge Woggle with an extra set of twists. It's about 4cm in diameter and made from metallic gold craft cord. It will eventually have a pin on the back for attaching it to garb and so forth. Each one takes about 15 minutes to make, so I don't think that they're the sort of thing that you could use as event tokens for Crown, but for our little event there's a small enough number for it to be practical. As the cord is synthetic the ends of the cord can be heat-sealed to prevent it unravelling, which is useful although you have to be careful about burning yourself (I speak from experience). I suppose that if I wanted to do all of this properly I'd have lucet-woven the cord myself, but I didn't have time for that as each one requires just under 1.2m of cord.
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Sixteen sólarhnútur later.

Today was garb workshop 3. Garb workshop 4 (also known as garb workshop the last) is set up for Saturday. Today's tally was two dresses and sixteen event tokens... although I focussed on the event tokens rather than the dresses, just providing technical support when necessary. The two dresses look extremely good even now and will be absolutely stunning once they're hemmed and decorated. Unfortunately the trim we've ordered won't make it here in time so we're going to have to improvise on that front but I'm sure that we'll come up with something.

I almost managed to get the venetians completed, except that the fabric is such a swine to work with to do something in stripes that they're going to end up as trunkhose rather than venetians. I'll finish them tomorrow night and sort out the tableclothes, then I can hoover again and try to get rid of some more of the velour dust. My main contribution to the shire today was the set of event tokens - sólarhnútur or 'sun knots'. Folks are sufficiently happy with these that we're going to do 'moonknots' for our October event and 'starknots' for the February one next year. A.S. XXXXII is clearly the Year of the Knot; I can see that next year I'm going to need to come up with another set of themed event tokens but at least I can put that onto a backburner for about ten months. Thank goodness. :)

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It's been a mixed day, but probably more successful than not so.

Today's checklist has looked something like this:

• Survive faculty meeting without becoming Interim Dean. Check. I was expecting a certain amount of politics but not quite the stuff that was actually raised. Nevertheless, the result was what I had predicted, although not quite in the way I'd expected it. Interestingly, I was appointed as the independent counter of votes and 'returning officer' by acclamation, as it were ... perhaps my being outside of the mainstream faculty politics by dint of language differences has something to do with that.
• Deal with enquiries from potential students. Check. I had a phone enquiry from someone who specifically wanted to study in English rather than Icelandic, which is heartening.
• Do paperwork. Check. I've even got some stuff in place for the next academic year, and I'm definitely seeing the principal that you need to go through two and a half cycles of any process in order to get it right. I'm currently at the end of cycle one, which means I've got another year and a half to go before I can say that I have anything truly sorted.
• Do more paperwork. No check yet. Although I have requested more information from various places so that I can check this within the next week.
• Buy new duvet. Check.  Until today I had n guests due to stay with me during Revel and n-2 duvets. I can manage with n-1 duvets, so I picked up a light summer duvet to make things work.
• Buy fabric to make tablecloths for Revel. Check. We will have nice matching tablecloths to cover the probably non-matching tables. They're not going to take long to make up and will be easily machine washable - very important.
• Buy cord to make event tokens. Check. I got an extra skein just in case and should be able to make them tomorrow.
• Decide on subtlety for feast. No check yet. I have, however, got an idea. I just need to find some gelatine to make it work and to actually look at the mechanics of the problem (no, it isn't a sugar paste trebuchet, although that's not a bad idea either...)

Tonight I plan to clear some of the remaining debris from the weekend and maybe even hoover the place before I start again tomorrow. Then I can make up the tablecloths and Byggi's venetians, deal with some phone calls and maybe, just maybe, do a little non-SCA, non-work stuff. Maybe... :)

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Remember poster paint?

That stuff that you used at school until you decided to do an art qualification, at which point they let you try other media just to prove that there are alternatives to large areas of flat colour? It used to come as a powder stored in tins, to which you then added water until you got the consistancy you needed for the project at hand. Well it turns out that you can't get the powdered stuff here in Akureyri, you have to get the pre-mixed stuff in plastic bottles instead, as i discovered when I did the rounds of the art/crafts/DIY stores in search of poster paint in red, green, blue, black, purple, yellow and white this afternoon.

Yes, those of a heraldic bent will have recognised that colour set. The paint, together with a large roll of wallpaper lining paper, was destined for the Klakavirki A&S meeting this evening where we started to make banners to decorate the inside of the tent we'll be using for Revel. Some of the devices that people have chosen aren't going to be registerable within the SCA, but I thought it better to let the creative juices flow than to stamp on ideas. I have, however, pointed out that if (big if) people want to register them then there may have to be changes. Right now no-one seems to worried about that, and as I doubt that most people are about to start attending huge numbers of events outside Iceland I think that keeping people happy for now is a wiser course of action.

I was a bit worried when we started painting, as the paints did seem a bit dull, but they brightened up as they dried and we've actually got a very colourful set of banners. Even my pegasus works (thanks to the 628th Support Battalion for the simplified version) The idea is that we can roll them up and store them after Revel until the October event and even if a couple need to be remade at that point most of the work will already have been done. We were originally just going to display the personal banners but we've now decided that it would be good to have them seperated by Klakavirki banners, which means that we've got about 10 red and white ones to do next week. Fortunately we've got a time slot pencilled in to do these and we should be able to get them done in an evening.

The other good news is that the tent and the feast have been sorted out at last. Hurrah! I've now got to go away and think about a subtlety to go with it, as the rest of the kitchen team, while excellent cooks, have never had to deal with the idea of a subtlety. I lean towards the architectural myself, but if anyone has any ideas or suggestions then I'd love to hear them.

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Velour dust is definitely not meant for breathing.

What I didn't mention yesterday when I was discussing the various dressmaking sessions that have been occurring over the weekend is that all four sets of garb are being done in velour. Yes, I know it's not Period but it's the most sensible option over here, especially if you're an impoverished student (which these folks are). My first SCA gown was velour, as were those of a number of other people I know. Velvet is just too expensive even in the UK; here it's a complete non-starter.

So anyway, after two days of garbmaking my flat is filled with velour dust. It's horrendous stuff and makes me want to sneeze and/or cough and occasionally just throw open the door onto the balcony and just breathe fresh air. I'm holding off taking the vacuum cleaner to it for another day as I've still got to cut out the stripes for Byggi's venetians. I've just finished his doublet apart from the hand sewing and I'm damned if I'm going to do that bit too. :) The venetians will have to wait until tomorrow when I can breathe once again. I might get them done in time for tomorrow night's meeting or I might not; I'll just have to see how things go once I get back from work tomorrow.
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Two sets of garb underway, two to go.

After yesterday's pair of cotehardies with overdresses of one type or another, today we had a heraldic cotehardie plus a doublet and venetians. Although these are conceptually easier than yesterday's designs, the actual construction is a little more complicated. The main reason is that the Arnfriður's heraldic cotehardie is a quartered design, which means we had to make sure that we had the correct pieces in the correct orientation and the correct colour. Lots of thought required there.

The doublet is straightforward - just a case of taking a standard male pattern and then tailoring the style appropriately. The venetians are going to be striped just to brighten them up. These two will probably be completed over the next day or so as I'm making them myself (the girls have at least a vague idea of how to use a sewing machine, but I don't really have time to teach Byggi how to do everything from scratch with stretchy material).

Martha also came over to finish the main body of her Tudor, and it does look impressive. Rósa and Fjóla from yesterday also dropped in to show off their cotehardies and they too look extremely good. Nothing is hemmed yet so we're going to have a serious session to work out all of the appropriate lengths and do the hand sewing.

Or, as I put it, we're going to need an earnest hemming day.
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Today was the first day of the two-workshop garb weekend.

Today's creations were two basic cotehardies to be topped off by a sideless surcote and a dress which is wrong in every respect except that the person who's making it wants it that way. I shudder at the thought of the style, but then I think about my first SCA gown and remember its technical accuracy and keep quiet.

We got everything cut out ready to sew, which means that everything is ready to be sewn at home later. I'm working with the Period Patterns cotehardie pattern, a tracing wheel, and several rolls of brown wrapping paper. I'm very taken by the tracing wheel approach, as it means that I can take several different sizes and styles off the same pattern without destroying the pattern pages. It's also useful in that I can cut the pattern and then take it apart to tailor it to fit properly... after all, who actually fits into a standard size anything?

At the end of it we're going to need at least another evening for me to do (or at least to heavily support someone else doing) the fiddly bits of the edging on the surcote and the collar on the other one. Still, it's looking like we're going to be the best-dressed reactivating shire in the Knowne World.

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There are days when I just want to come home after work and curl up until the world goes away.

Today was one of those days. Frustration at work, the prospect of curtailed weekends this and almost certainly next week, and to top it off the wedding that I'm due to attend at the end of the month had to be a week later than intended which means I can't make it because it's the day before graduation (which I must attend).

This final thing is the most frustrating in many ways, not only for the wedding but also because I was hoping to get a weekend at the caravan immediately afterwards. Bah.
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I could do with a new pair of hands right now.

Actually I could do with replacements from the elbow down, as both my hands and wrists are rather sore today. My wrists don't want to do anything other than stay straight, my thumbs are objecting to pressure in any direction, my knuckles feel as if they're about three times their true size, and the rest of my fingers tingle slightly in a very annoying manner. So please forgive me for not writing a lot today.

But for the sake of 'what were you doing when you heard that Tony Blair finally named the day', I was... er... sitting marking a piece of coursework while listening to Classic FM. Nothing quite as memorable as when I heard that Margaret Thatcher had resigned, when I was sitting in the Chaplaincy at Dundee University revising for impending MSc exams. Nor when I heard that Colombia was missing on re-entry, while I was driving south from Aberdeen to something work-related further south - I've no idea what it was any more but I was listening to Radio 4 longwave at the time.

I fear that we're now in for seven weeks of incredibly boring politics on the news. Roll on the end of June.
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It's not easy self-medicating here in Akureyri.

I was in town today for the formal opening of the new School for Renewable Energy Science - it's a new independent international college focussing on Masters degrees in various renewable energy technologies, summer schools in specialist topics and short courses given by leading lights in the renewable energy science fields from all over the world. They're going to be moving into our building once the building is extended, and we in computing are hoping to do more collaborative work with them (we already have research links with some of the organistions behind setting up the college). The opening was very swish, very professional (it's amazing what you can do if you've got the budget to do good publicity) and attended by most of the big guns from the university, the town, the Icelandic foreign minister and a selection of hopeful politicians (we have national elections here next week). It was in Icelandic, but a couple of the speakers spoke slowly and precisely enough that I could understand quite a lot of what they said. Certainly when one described the actual degree programmes I looked at them and thought that I'd find a couple of them really interesting myself and even had the necessary previous knowledge... I knew that taking a year of geology at university would pay off eventually.

As I had to go down into town a little early to play pass the paperwork for something unrelated, and as I'd had a bit of a miserable morning, I decided to indulge in a little retail therapy. Unfortunately Akureyri isn't really big enough to do that properly. Eventually I came away with a single book (Wicked by Gregory Macguire) with a reduced sticker and a guilty feeling for not having bought the rather more expensive but considerably shorter new idiot-friendly Icelandic language text. When the spoils of your retail therapy session consist of a single reduced book and a guilt trip you have to wonder about the nature of the universe.

Once the opening ceremony (with superb 'eye candy' - I can't remember the Icelandic word for beautifully presented nibbles but that's how it translates) was over I went back and bought the text book. By now I was really, really in need of something lighter so on the way home I dropped into BT, the local equivalent of a Virgin Megastore (more of a Virgin Corner Shop really) in search of something more uplifting. Even they, the last refuge of a geek in search of media gratification, were rather low on things to tempt me. I finally came out with the first season of Life on Mars - so you folks who've been raving about it had better be right, considering how much it cost me. :)
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Today has been full of the joys of use case modelling.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, it is a technique used in systems engineering (and in software engineering too, for that matter) which allows you to model how a system works by describing it as a series of use cases - basically sequences of events which, when you put them all together, allow you to show how a system does something useful. I originally came across the concept in a previous life as a process improvement consultant (that really was my job title for a while) when we began to implement the Rational Unified Process for software engineering purposes. It struck me at that point that this clearly had far more potential than as a purely software engineering tool.

So today, thanks to my attending the quality management course last week plus another couple of things that have come up in the last few days, I sat down and documented the processes by which the computer science department works. We work slightly differently to the rest of the university as we were set up on a more UK/US-style basis than the traditional Icelandic one, so our processes are slightly different too.

When I sat down and started to think seriously about how to structure these process documents it rapidly became obvious that what I was about to write was a set of use cases describing the system that is the computer science department. In an abstract manner it's quite interesting because the set of 'actors' - i.e. different people wearing different hats - is surprisingly wide. So far I've got some quite finely detailed first drafts of the processes for creating a new module, teaching a module, and running a non-resit diet of exams. These are, after all, the main tasks that we perform, so I'm fairly pleased that I've got these three done. There are certainly others to do, but some of them require rather more knowledge of how the overall university system works than I have at present.

Not that that's really a problem - I just have to define the outside university as another 'actor' in the system that has all of the extra knowledge. All being well, then, I'll be able to come up with a nice wallchart showing how everything works from our point of view. Hopefully that'll make it easier to explain to other people just how we do things, while also making sure that we are consistent within our own operations. The process of building this is quite tiring mentally, as you have to not only work out how things should work, but also what the alternative actions are - how do we handle exams for resits, for instance - and what sort of process can be put in place to handle the unexpected. A friend once described this to me using the nuclear missile use case: in normal operation it acquires a target, launches, travels to its target, then explodes. An alternative is that there's been a mistake programming in the target and it's heading for the wrong place - the solution here is that you retarget it or, if that fails, you send it a self-destruct signal and it explodes harmlessly somewhere over the Atlantic. The unexpected is where the self-destruct fails and you've got an armed MIRV heading straight for Birmingham and what are you going to do about it?

I don't generally have to deal with MIRVs heading for Birmingham but at least I have a basic plan for what to do should it ever happen. The aim of management, I believe, is to make sure you don't get into that situation in the first place. Depressing, isn't it?
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The 'average' temperature in April-May is supposed to be about 7 degrees.

That's 5 for April and 10 for May. Last Monday, April 30th, the temperature was over 21°C, the highest temperature recorded in Akureyri in April since records began. By last Friday, May 4th, it was snowing again, and since then it hasn't risen about 4°C. Clearly the weather is trying to compensate for the three days of unseasonal warmth last week.

We've had light snow showers every day since Friday, and although the snow doesn't settle at sea level, the mountains behind the town are once more covered with large areas of white. If it keeps this up for the rest of the week - and the five-day weather forecast suggests that it might - then the ski slopes might be open this week end after all. After the hotter weather they thought that last weekend would be the last, but given the variability they may just be wrong.

I don't mind the snow. It's now clearly heading towards summer because the sun doesn't set until after 22:00 and rises again not long after 04:00. We've got to the other end of the light cycle, where it's still dusk when you go to bed but it's bright and sunny when you wake up. This affects the body clock as much as does the winter darkness; now you don't want to go to sleep because it's still daylight outside. Of course, it does mean that my wonderful dawn simulation alarm clock no longer wakes me gently in the morning; I really must get some heavy curtains to remedy that.

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Today has be wonderfully relaxing.

My activities today have included:

• Watching the last two episodes of Torchwood


• Watching a Midsomer Murder (The Maid In Splendour)


• Watching the antepenultimate and penultimate episodes of Primeval


• Watching episodes 2 and 3 of the second season of Rome

I'm really making the most of my free day (as I've got rather busy Saturdays at present) and the chance to just relax, embroider and listen to the television is something that I'm savouring. Admittedly I haven't just slobbed on the sofa, eyes fixed on the gogglebox - I've also spent the time making a water bottle cover to send off to  as a tournament prize at Double Wars. It's slightly smaller than I planned (mainly thanks to me completely screwing up the construction process once I'd finished the embroidery) but it will still take a round litre bottle comfortably and a Volvic bottle with a bit more effort. It's also in need of being ironed, but that's because I took my iron and the little ironing board to the garb-making workshop yesterday and forgot to bring it home. D'oh!

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It appears that our fjörd is currently home to many, many swans.

They all seem to be whooping swans though - I passed a flock of about a hundred of them as I drove upstream up to Finnastaðir for today's garb-making workshop. The only other place I've seen numbers like that was off the south coast when I drove around Iceland two summers ago. The only slight problem is that whooping swans look like big long-necked white ducks - they just don't have the stylish curves of the mute swan.

This afternoon we got through a viking apron dress and underdress, plus the cutting out and the start of the construction of another Tudor gown. And while all of this was going on I managed to do a fair chunk of the embroidery on a prize I'm making for a fencing tourney at Double Wars (so Gonz can relax a little as it'll be in the post early next week so it should be with him by next weekend).

Revel is beginning to look quite sizeable - we've got 8 overseas visitors and more than twice that in locals. Hmm... 30 people is 0.01% of the national population. I believe that, relatively speaking, this makes us larger than Pennsic. :) We've also now got the date fixed for the next one - an A&S event in October for which we're going to hire a large summer house at Varmahlíð and have a weekend away making things, dancing and generally having a relaxed time. The title is still under discussion but I expect to have the announcement for Dragon's Tale early in June.
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I have at last got my lute in tune and have even played it a little.

This has led me to make a few observations about my wonderful new instrument.

1. Lutes are a bugger to tune. Mine has 13 strings, all held in place and in tune by smooth wooden tuning pegs which are quite petite and, in some cases, difficult to turn. On tuning attempt 1 I eventually had to resort to a pair of pliers to twist one particularly recalcitrant peg.
2. Once in tune, lutes refuse to stay in tune for very long... and when they go out of tune it's either waaaay out of tune or only ever so slightly out, so slightly that it's just too out of tune to play but tricky to twist the pegs just enough to bring it back into tune. I read a quotation from an Elizabethen lutenist who once claimed that if he ended up playing the lute for eighty years then he'd spend sixty of them tuning it.
3. Lutes have beautiful curved sound boxes. Their shape is ideal both for producing marvellous sounds and also for sliding off your knee so that it's impossible to make such beautiful sounds. I tried holding it this way, holding it that way, propping it up on a cushion, but to no avail. I even tried putting a layer of bubble wrap between me and it - this helped a little but not a lot. I think that I'm going to have to try the method shown in some period illustrations and try leaning it on a table while I get used to it.
4. The tuning is a little strange. The guitar is generally tuned in E, while the lute is tuned in G. It's quite odd hearing the guitar intervals in a different key on a similar instrument.

Apart from the problem of holding it steady I'm also having fun and games with the notation. Lutes use a tabulature notation, where there is a line to represent each string and, just above each line, symbols are placed to show upon which frets you should place the fingers of your (normally) left hand. Another set of symbols further above the line provide the rhythm for the notes. There is an equivalent for modern guitar, where the fingering symbols are numbers - 0 represents an open string, 1 is the first fret, 2 is the second fret and so on.

I'm not very good with guitar tab. I learned to play the guitar from standard musical notation, so I find tab rather hard to follow. Lute tab has an extra complication - instead of having numbers to represent the frets it uses letters, so a is the open string, b is the first fret, b is the second and so on. This is extremely confusing to a bear of little brain such as myself.

Nonetheless, I'm happy that I've finally started on the serious work of learning to play my lute. I look forward to making beautiful music with it... in a couple of years' time. :)

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One advantage of taking a coach for the 15 minute drive to the workshop location was that I got to look at the wildlife.

I'm normally too busy watching the road, so this sort of thing is something to be savoured. The workshop was held in a hotel-cum-craft workshop just upstream and over on the other side of the fjörd. It has a superb view over the water and, when the windows are open, you can hear the sound of sheep bleating in the surrounding fields. It is, I must admit, the sort of venue that's difficult to find (and would no doubt be horribly expensive if you could find it) in the UK. The room we used was a workshop, with lots of rolls of furnishing fabric around the place - occasionally that was a little distracting as I'd quite happily have taken several rolls home to make garb.

But back to the birds. The road to the site is in the bottom of the fjörd on the flood plain - it floods roughly once a decade, I'm told - but this provides lots of flat grassy ground with streams that appears very popular with the wildlife. There were a pair of whooper swans nesting on a hummock under a power pylon - every time we went past one was sitting on the nest while its mate waddled about nearby. Several of the pools and streams played host to goldeneyes (which I'm getting better at recognising nowadays), while both there and on the fjörd itself there were quite a few eider ducks. These, I must admit, I had to look up in my bird book - they're a very striking black and white combination that I don't think I'll forget in a hurry. I really ought to keep the book in my bag, or at least in my car. And, of course, there were the ubiquitous black-headed gulls. We should have arctic terns around the place too, but I haven't seen them yet.

One of these days I'm actually going to go upstream armed with binoculars and my big camera. This seems to be a good time of year for it, so I just have to stir myself... perhaps one day after work.
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Today is the first anniversary of Mum's death.

I don't think I've ever been so pleased to have been in a meeting all day. Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call asking me if I would attend a quality management workshop today and tomorrow instead of my boss. Fair enough, I thought, I can do that. So I've spent almost the entire working day with the 'top team' of deans and heads of administrative divisions learning about a particular quality management model. A lot of it is presenting what should be obvious but often isn't in a manner that makes it so. Fortunately I've had experience of this in several former lives - SHEFC assessments, implementing parts of Investing In People and ISO 9000, and working in a process improvement department - so I'm familiar with a lot of the jargon and the practices involved. It was surprisingly interesting, and I'm quite looking forward to tomorrow's session where we'll look at how to define action plans that address the issues we identified during our self-assessment today.

Just before we started the day I discovered the real reason that I was there - yesterday my boss handed in his notice. Ah... yes, well, there was clearly no point to him attending the workshop, was there? So of course there's now going to be a huge amount of speculation as to who's going to take over from him. I've no idea whether we can just appoint from within the faculty or if it has to be advertised externally. No doubt the rumour-mill will start grinding very fine indeed. We could be about to start living in some very interesting times.
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... Chocolate heist?

What with it being a bank holiday today, I've not been in work. Instead I've been at home drafting out the pattern for a man's early Tudor jerkin and overgown (I've still got the trunkhose to do). While I've been taking a break I turned on the television to watch the marvellous How It Works series on the National Geographic channel. Now this programme is generally full of fascinating things - such as how they make golf balls, or toilets, or plastic gloves, but today we had Belgian chocolates.

It was a revelation. There are, I was told, tankers rolling around Belgium filled with melted Belgian chocolate which they deliver to the chocolate factories and then pump the liquid into the factory's holding tanks. I watched carefully, but there were no signs of police outriders or armed escorts... it is therefore my belief that it should be possible to hijack one these tankers, take it away into the Belgian countryside where it could be safely emptied into people (and maybe the odd container or two) before returning the tanker itself with a polite apology - I'm terribly sorry, I though that it contained Preparation H and I've got these terrible hemaroids you see...

Now even I can't tackle an entire 30,000 litres of chocolate alone, so I'm going to need some partners in crime for this one. Any volunteers? :)
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