Graham Davies and Catherine Millar

My mum and aunt finished their spectacular train journey in LA last Friday. Starting in Denver they took in mountain scenery all the way to San Francisco before travelling down the coast. Expecting 3 days of glorious sunshine and progeny/relation-guided tours what they got was 2 inches of rain and a sick person. Everything started ok with a 'lovely walk' by the Venice Canals and beach in the sun. The GPS even turned up a nice track by Ballona Lagoon to complete the circle.

My guts decided to take a starring role in the weekend about 30 minutes before boarding the high speed catamaran to Santa Cruz Island. An island that it turns out is inhabited solely by conservationists and is 28 miles, or a $6,000 helicopter ride from the nearest hospital. This we are helpfully told by the friendly guide after disembarkation and continued to ring in my ears during the hours that I spend curled up on the grass between dashes to the pit toilet.

Before you begin filling in your sympathy vouchers you should know that I did get to see a school of dolphins feeding and playing around the boat on the way out and three grey whales at close quarters on the way back - well worth the price of admission.

Ajay pointed out that as President of SoPS I could officially take a guilt free holiday this President's Day Monday. Unfortunately, it was my turn to give lab meeting on Tuesday morning so the end of last week was a little frantic. Amy, Greg and I drove up with Riley and arrived at about 2:30am Saturday in an chalet complete with portraits. On arrival Riley immediately ran to the TV and waited expectantly until it was turned on. He clearly enjoys TV and unlike most dogs actually watches things on the screen move around and gets very excited when animals appear. After a slightly lazy start we hit the slopes with fresh powder and more snow falling. Powder, although much more tiring, is great on a snowboard and you really feel like you are floating along. Steep runs are also less intimidating without the scraping sound of the ice and I was much more comfortable on the harder black runs. The double black diamonds at Mammoth (ratings are relative to the rest of the mountain) are still far too steep for my liking and quite frankly give me the heebie-jeebies.

The Mother popped round on Saturday afternoon for a light stroll along Santa Monica beach in the evening sun. The weather in England has not been great of late and so she decided the 6,000 mile journey was worth it. On the was back on Sunday morning she decided to stop off in New Mexico to visit her sister and family for a couple of weeks. If by some random chance she returns to LA in two weeks by train from SF we may take a day trip to the Channel Islands.

In other news, Wendy got engaged to her boyfriend Dave - and in doing so drew attention to my lack of news in this matter. Talking of which - Catherine and I will hit the 8 year mark next week and so far we haven't needed the help of an invisible dog. Since I recently found out that I am Myers-Briggs type ENTP, I will blame the absence of left-hand-bling on my tendency to be 'deceptively offhand with their nearest and dearest'.

Jeremy's house and extensive garden, located just outside Thousand Oaks, played host to a Superbowl party with a twist yesterday. Guests where treated to the normal delights of delicious food and beverages but where also invited to place an illicit wager on the game and to join in on a round of croquet. Of course, as with the 'football', the Americans always have to do things a little differently. Not satisfied with the traditional Association Rules they 'remodel' the game to their own requirements. The once genteel sport, popular among Ladies, now becomes a veritable war - complete with viscous club-like mallets. The simple rectangular layout of the UK game becomes a bizarre double-diamond with two pegs! Not only that but the dainty 'taking croquet' that one is allowed in the UK version after making a 'roquet' (hitting another player's ball) becomes a foot-smashing, mallet destroying death sentence for the other player because you are actually allowed to put your foot on your ball while you whack it against the other players - crazyfish.

Meanwhile, some people on TV stood around waiting for commercials to come back on whilst some of their friends occasionally ran into each other. Some people in stripey outfits didn't seem very happy as they kept losing their dusters whilst practising their semaphore and whistling routines. Some very old people came on halfway through and moaned about not being satisfied. Slate has a good summary of the under-age-beer-touting-mostly-unamusing superbowl adverts.

Well in my case it turns out he was Thomas John Davies - a Welsh coal miner from The Rhonnda Valley. If you think this is obscure you ain't seen nothing. I am now the proud owner of the knowledge that I am a direct descendant of Thomas Titt who was born in 1527! Yes, you guessed it I have been struck by the affliction that is genealogy. But don't panic just yet - ok maybe panic now before it is too late.

Pictured right is John Wallis Titt, my 2nd great grandfather, who is mildly famous (among windmill historians) for inventing a wind engine. More fame comes from Richard Gush, a close relative of my great grandmother Lily Eliza Hammett Gush. He went to South Africa with the 1820 settlers in the ship Brilliant (nice) and subsequently became The Hero of Salem when he 'saved the village of Salem, showing great courage and faith, when he rode unarmed to negotiate with 500 Xhosa warriors who had surrounded it'.

I am still in Brisbane. Malcolm and I have bought a house together. All is well, we are enjoying the Aussie lifestyle, although it is very laid back. Went back to Blighty for Christmas, which was great, and followed that up with a mini-tour of Europe. Caught up with Dr Wren in Verona, but I haven't heard from him since.... I have just got back from a conference in Sydney which was great. Not your usual academic conference. Only 50 attendees, mainly industry types, lots of great food and entertainment!

Well we've finally done it - managed to escape the ICMB.... arrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!! Jen and I are now living is Adelaide, Australia where the weather is better that Edinburgh but the beer is worse. You win some and you lose some !

Adam just e-mailed me with a photo of his and Ali's protochild (his word not mine) Megan but I'm only posting a thumbnail in the interests of the child's privacy! Or until Adam posts something himself. I am in the process of setting up user accounts for people in each section with the hope that people will add their own stuff. This may seem a trifle conceited but I have found that setting up your own site / blog is very time consuming and somewhat tricky so hopefully this will make life easier. Expect an e-mail with login details soon.

Maria goes to Death Valley for the weekend... comes back married. The first we heard about this was a group e-mail to the lab members from Siavash which read:

Maria and Mayo got married just after sunrise on the morning of Saturday March 6, 2004 at a drive-through chapel in their silver truck in Las Vegas. After exchanging rings, they spent a short honeymoon in the Death Valley. She'll be back tomorrow.

In celebration we all went to Michael's house for lunch and Champagne...

Living... near or in Cardiff with husband, as of 2002... can't remember his name... but did meet him on a drunken Christmas Eve in the White Rose... which sadly shall never be again sold as it was last year.

Working... as a Doctor most likely as that is what she was trained to do... despite doing Religious Studies and English A Levels...