There we are, Monday morning. Time to start telling you about all the things that happened during the blogging break... and the first thing is: our holidays.

This year for our holidays, we went to England again. Now, me and the most patient husband of them all like to have vacations with an, um, active element to them, such as going for a several-day canoe paddle... or travelling with the tandem.

If you've been a long-time reader, you might know that we own a semi-recumbent tandem, a perfect machine for travelling. We've done two England cycling trips before, and this time, we wanted to have a go in the south - Kent, Sussex, maybe even the Isle of Wight. We prepared the trip by getting Sustrans maps, loading all kinds of data onto the satnav, checking out what English Heritage and National Trust things would lie in the region, and finally went off for a two-week holiday.

What we had underestimated were, of course, the hills. Now we knew that England is only flat in tiny areas (quickly travelled through) and goes up and down otherwise. We're both not afraid of climbing a hill or a large hill... but the short and steep inclines in the inland of Kent and East Sussex do drain one's legs quickly if you have a bike with some weight to it. And with all our stuff, plus the rather heavy build of the tandem itself, it's a significant amount of weight! We were planning to camp, so our gear included the tent, mats, sleeping bags, and a full camping kitchen including a stash of emergency food supplies. Alltogether, with our personal gear and food and water loaded onto the bike, it weighs about 70 kg - that's a lot of weight to pedal up a 10% or more slope.

So we didn't get as far as the Isle of Wight. We did, however, manage to see Brighton (including some sea-bathing, though not directly in Brighton). We also saw lots and lots of beautiful vistas across cliffs, lands, fields; rode through dozens and dozens of streets that were flanked by trees so dense and high it turned them into green tunnels; went into gardens and old churches and houses. We saw Dover Castle (twice!), happened across a band of change-ringers (to our great delight), and most of the time we were very, very hot as we managed to get the full heatwave that England had in July.

It was, altogether, lovely. We met lots of nice people, had lots of nice food, slept incredible amounts of time ("oh, it's dusk already... hm... we could go and sleep?") and took in wonderful, wonderful landscape and scenery. We also made the most of our Overseas Visitor Pass from English Heritage... and not so much from our National Trust one. And you can totally save yourself the money for buying an overseas membership for the Camping and Caravanning club if you are going to use a tent - not worth it at all.

More detail? Here you go.
We have had so many good times with the English Heritage pass that it was a no-brainer to get one for this holiday. Really, it's amazing value - if you visit Dover Castle twice, you are already saving money if you bought the pass. And it's easy to spend two days (or two half-days) at that place, there's so much to see. When you buy the OVP, you get all the info stuff you would receive with a regular one-year membership, so you can look up all the details for all the places in a book.
If you are still in doubt - don't be. We usually broke even on our second or third day of holidays with the pass, even if travelling on the bike. And it gives you plenty of side destinations, all with clean and nice toilets, friendly people, gift shops to browse and fairly-priced, good food in their tearooms.

The National Trust has lovely parks as well as stunning houses and gardens, and they also offer a temporary pass. Unfortunately, though, you do not get a book with info, and all you have to plan with is a (rough) map that tells you whether it's a landscape, a house, or a garden. There are no opening times, no descriptions, no prices for regular entry (which would help in planning, as the price is usually a good hint on the size of the property, and thus the time you should plan to visit it). The only way to get this information is to pick up one of the info leaflets for the individual properties and places - and these are not always available in the spots you happen into. We thus had a hard time planning, and ended up not visiting as many of the places as we had hoped to (also because we were not cycling as far as we had originally planned to go, so it's not completely the fault of NT). The staff, though, was all incredibly nice, and we were even given a proper info book at one place, when we complained about our difficulties. We were also allowed to have a walk through the garden at one place even though we came there on a day where it was closed, having cycled a good distance just to visit this place.
So... if you are planning to do a sightseeing trip with bicycles or similar slow transportation, you will probably want to look up everything in the Internet before and take notes - including notes on opening times, which can vary immensely from property to property. The parks and landscapes are usually free to visit, so you might not even need to buy a pass.

And in regards to the Camping club... not only do you get no info, you also get an unfriendly answer when you ask for more info, or for the reason why they are so stingy with their stuff. As most of the places they have are very hard to find without the big book of sites, it was a waste of money and we will definitely not do that again. Also, they have plenty of places that do not take tents, and it's a hassle to find out which ones do from via the websites, if it's at all possible.

But that really was the only fly in the ointment of a holiday trip full of sun, fun, and beautiful things. Was it exhausting to cycle in England? Hell yes. Would we do it again? Hell yes, too.

The cat, sleeping contentedly beside my desk again (lucky cat) just looked at me a minute ago, slightly confused. The reason for that? This video:




(Sorry for the facebook-link - I'd have preferred to link the video directly, but could not figure out how to do that.)

I laughed so hard I had to cry. Which, in turn, made the cat stare at me. (Weird humans.)

In other news: the library at Erlangen has digitised manuscripts available online, I have a medieval event coming up, I've finally managed to re-stock my beeswax pieces, and am planning to fire a batch of spindle whorls the coming weekend.

Also it finally rained during the last two days - finally! The garden was really parched, so it was high time. (The lawn outside has been in crunchy summer edition mode for a few weeks now, and as usual, it will recover - but the strawberries and tomatoes and flowers don't take the heat and drought so well.)

The weekend's over (already, sigh), the sun is shining, I have a pot of tea in front of me, and a heap of work lurking inside my computer, while the cat is taking her morning nap (lazy cat).

In case you, too, need something to procrastinate a little, I recommend this graphic of our solar system - the moon (our moon) is one pixel large, and you can scroll your way out to the other planets and get an impression of how much space there is in space. (Hint: I've yet to reach Jupiter. My scrolling finger needs a break.)

I stumbled across this video, purely by chance, and if you've ever wondered about DNA or why all calico cats are female... you really will want to watch this.



Plus it has really cool graphics... and you get to go "aaaw" about the smallness of the Y chromosome.

Semi-related to this: Medieval Beasties, special edition, over at the British Library blog.

We all know that human beings do weird and often not really healthy things in the name of fashion... and the past was no exception. There's an interesting article about "if looks could kill", so to say - here, titled "Deadly Victorian Fashion".

If you'd rather prefer looking at healthy stuff, you can guess which of these MRI scans of fruits and vegetables is which edible thing. And be amazed at what modern imaging technique can do.

Or look at snails instead, lovingly photographed... here. (I quite like snails, as long as they don't eat my salad and plants.)

The last three weeks were... well, let's call them "full" - quite a bit of things going on, and quite a bit of travel, with very little time at home inbetween. Which means that, once more, I am sitting in the middle of a medium-sized chaos that begs to be taken care of.

Also, orders have to be sent out, and I have to plan for the next events (yes, already). Nothing about the relative slowness last year warned me that this year would be so busy! Don't get me wrong, though: I quite like having to be busy. It's just a matter of coping with the peaks in business (and the accompanying chaos) that I struggle with.

So, for you, while I try to stow all the things that have been on tour with me, and get the washing done and packed away again, and sort out all the other things that need sorting out, here's a link so you know where the nearest airport is. As a Voronoi map. Just in case you feel like getting away from it all. (You can turn that globe with your mouse, if you, like me, are more interested in the European 'ports.)

If you like coffee, you might also be amused by the story the Yarn Harlot posted on her blog. Something rather similar happened to us once, but with much less attending ills: we found out after buying the next glass of our preferred instant coffee and seeing them both beside each other - resulting in a new appreciation of the quality of the product we bought because we did not pay attention, and now having an alternative to the normal one.

It's Friday, hooray! And since it's Friday, you are getting a list of links. Friendly links. That might or might not begin with an F, such as:

Fablab. I've posted about my visit to the FabLab Nuremberg, and just in case you are interested in learning more about these labs, here is the website of the international association of FabLabs, and here is a list with all of them, sorted by location. In case you are planning to make something on your first visit, I'd recommend checking out the website of your intended lab and preparing as much as possible - for instance, drawing the thing you're planning to lasercut or 3D print beforehand; these things eat more time than expected as a rule.

Finalist list for the Hugo Award, with links. I'll be going to LonCon this summer, together with Margit from Alte Künste, and that means I'll be a Hugo voter. I've linked to this list before, but in the meantime, I have actually managed to read some of the pieces, and they are delightful reading, so I link it again. Plus Finalist starts with an F.

Friends, as painted by Bob Ross. I've never watched more than a small snippet of his videos or shows, but this article about statistics in Bob Ross' work is delightfully geeky, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Fernsehen. That's German for Television, but if you need me to tell you, this link is not for you - it's a show of a series of educational television called "Experiment Mittelalter", with each episode about 15 min long. I've taken a glimpse into the first one and I'm not so sure about whether to link to this or not: It's a mix of commonplace knowledge without mentioning the many nuances, living history scenes that are not really bad but still cater to quite a few typical expectations and misconceptions (such as rough-hewn undecorated stone walls in the dining parlour and drab brown garments worn by almost everyones), but also nice glimpses at modern crafters working on replica pieces and with historical techniques. I'd recommend taking what is said with a grain of salt, maybe a bit more than a grain, and enjoy the pretty pictures - especially those of the crafters doing their thing. Having said this, go take a look and decide for yourself what you think of it, and I'd be happy to hear your opinion. It's here, and it's all German.