On the left we have Geoff, I’m in the middle, and Andy T is on the right. A proud Team 173 at the old Eurostar terminal at Waterloo. In this image we still have energy. Things were to change… We knew about the prospect of potentially abseiling, kayaking and other fun activites in London. I gave Andy T a quick interview before we began to ask him what he was looking forward to.

With a very loud foghorn, the 4 hours started. We raced to collect a map, and scribbled on it the 35 checkpoint locations from a list we’d been given with instructions such as “Find the marshal to start the challenge”.

We then decided upon our route, staying roughly south of the River Thames for a few checkpoints, crossing at Tower Bridge, heading north, then west, then back to Waterloo to the finish line. Along this route we’d take part in the checkpoints as we came to them. The first one was a mini treasure hunt at the Imperial War Museum. One of the checkpoints was surprisingly difficult to find. We then headed to the River Thames for a checkpoint called “Cammo’d Up”. And, well….

You’re not sure what the checkpoint activities involve until you get there, but you can usually get an idea from its title. In this case “Cammo’d Up” meant all the team members had to put on camo face paint.

This was quite apt, being the Soldiers Challenge for the Soldiers Charity – now we’re running around looking like soldiers. Soon after this we found an inflatable It’s A Knockout style obstacle course that we had to complete in the moat (dry moat!) at the Tower of London. It was a fantastic little obstacle course that was over all too quickly – it was so much fun!

As we were in the former moat of the Tower of London, we were below street level – so hundreds of bemused tourists were watching us from above trying to complete this obstacle course and, in my case, nearly falling over the edge of it after a particularly unlucky bounce. After this we continued to head north of the river to ultimately get to a kayaking challenge, but on the way we passed a task called “Sumo Training”. This is what happened – Geoff is in the red, I am in the blue.

We finally reached the kayaking challenge which Geoff was slightly worried about as he can’t swim. Sadly, we gave him a lifejacket.

The kayaking turned out to be about 800m in length, much longer than the hundred metres or so that we were expecting. It was a lengthy paddle, it took us about 20 minutes to complete it! Interestingly, the kayaks were built to be rowed in pairs, but we were a team of three. We put Andy T and Geoff together as Geoff absolutely wanted to be with someone as he’d never paddled before, which was fine. We figured that they’d pair me up with someone else to complete the kayaking with. WRONG! I had to row a two man kayak on my own, and whilst the kayaking was apparently “very tiring” with two people on the boat according to Geoff and Andy, I can confirm is was absolutely-sodding-knackering on your own! Kudos to the other singletons who did that challenge, that was a toughie. Amazingly, none of us fell in despite a few bumps with other kayaks and some non-moving boats, but we were pretty wet as the kayaks held some decent puddles inside them.

From the kayaking we headed towards a TA barracks where we had to identify 4 tanks (which we had to memorise by sight) from a selection of thirty or so on a wall. This was good fun and not easy for us civvies, but a further surprise awaited us after we successfully identified them. The marshal in charge of the task then said to us: “Well done guys, now go over to that girl with the razor and she’ll give you your points”. Did he just say razor? RAZOR?! One of us had to get some hair cut off, and thankfully they accepted leg hair. Geoff now has a strip of bare leg (see below) and probably looks like he’s wimped out after one attempt at waxing.

We took a bus along part of Oxford Street (until it became quicker to run!) and headed to Hyde Park collecting some more points as we went. Once there, Andy and Geoff had to withstand some beasting by a PT instructor. They were told to do a firemans lift (i.e. one person over the shoulder of another), but instead they did some piggybacks, as you’ll see below. What came next was far more masculine…

It’s a good thing we were in Hyde Park, a place where no-one ever goes so they didn’t make a fool of themselves in public… oh, wait. They were laughed at by dozens of people in deckchairs (and me!). Nice one guys! With about 30 minutes left, we started to head back, took the tube for the one and only time, and made it to two more tasks and crossed the finish line with 9 minutes to spare. Here is Andy T and myself, afterwards, lacking energy. You can see the size of the map we were given – it’s massive!

It turns out that Andy T is a fantastic navigator. He never got us lost once!

So – how did we do? There was a total of 500 points on offer if you completed all 35 of the checkpoints. I’m not entirely sure how many checkpoints we did, but we got a whopping 315 points and came 21st out of 242 teams!!! That’s in the top 10% – and there were some seriously fit guys on the course! I am immensely proud of our team and I, we really tried our hardest, never really stopped, and achieved a fantastic result. I’m not unfit, but I’m not very fit either. The longest distance I’d run before the challenge was 12km. Geoff had a GPS tracker so we could work out how far we’d gone. The map it produced is incredible:

The distances marked on the map are miles. You can see we travelled a heck of a long way, and if you ignore the tube journey (miles 15 to 17) and the bus journey (mile 11 and part of mile 12), we ran approximately 13 to 14 miles (20 to 21km) – i.e. a half marathon. I’ve never ran anywhere as far as that before. Thus the Soldier Challenge was a huge amount of fun and simultaneously the toughest thing (physically) I’ve ever done. I’d do it again. I will do it again. Both Andy T and Geoff want to do it again. We loved it – and if any of the organisers are reading this blog then I have a HUGE THANK YOU to say to you for organising such a brilliant event.

Why were we doing this? To raise money and awareness for ABF The Soldiers Charity which helps current and former soldiers and their families in their civilian lives. To find out more about the charity click here: http://www.soldierscharity.org/ , for more information on the Soldiers Challenge click here: http://www.soldierchallenge.co.uk/ . Finally, there is still time to donate to our team doing the Soldier Challenge – worth it as we game are all! – and you can do that at www.justgiving.com/danielpeake .

It was a fantastic day out. One that I’ll remember for ages to come, although in the immediate future I will be remembering muscles which got used for the first time in a while… I’m a bit achy today! It was totally worth it though. Bring on the Soldiers Challenge 2013!

On 19th May, myself, Geoff Bell and Andy Turner (2 scientist friends of mine!) will be doing the Soldier Challenge (http://www.soldierchallenge.co.uk/). Four hours to visit as many of the 35 checkpoints scattered across central London as possible, and completing the challenges at each checkpoint. These challenges could include kayaking, abseiling, obstacle courses… anything!

We are doing it to raise money for The Soldiers Charity – http://www.soldierscharity.org/ . The charity takes care of soldiers when they come home from war, and their families if they don’t.

Can I ask you to please donate to the money through our JustGiving page – www.justgiving.com/danielpeake – we are trying to raise £500. If you could donate £10, that would be great. Even more would be fantastic, but if you can only give £1 or £2, then I still please urge you to give as much as you can.

We’ll try and take lots of silly pictures around London as we complete the challenges.

I make no apology that I’ll be putting up reminders to donate several more times over the next few weeks. It’s a worthy charity.

Thank you very much for reading this – and PLEASE DONATE!!

It’s come to my attention that it was Valentine’s day recently. I’ve been having a craving for love hearts as a result. For some reason, I really like the pink and white ones the most. However, I’ve been to six shops, and NONE of them stocked any love hearts!!! Astonishing! The local Sainsburys, the shop at the end of my road, the cafe at work, the shop on campus at uni and a Tescos local all had no love hearts – I had to go to the large Sainsbury’s in town and even they didn’t have the normal packets but special packets of small tubes (each with seven sweets). Very disappointing. I may have to investigate further to see if I can get a regular supplier. I hope they don’t hook me in, then raise the price and force my addicted self to sell my belongings to get more. I could end up doing that with love hearts if I’m not careful.

Thesis update! First draft written (except conclusions), second draft started (2/6 edited), third draft is waving at me cheerily in the distance. It’s currently 118 pages and about 30,000 words. I’ve been funded to study up until the end of March, so I’m now starting to look for jobs that begin in April. If anyone out there is impressed with Accumulate!, please send me an email and I’d like to get involved in some telly production! Oh, the vain hope that someone will read this and *actually* do that. The chances are better than winning the lottery… which is a shame, as I’ve never won the lottery. Could you buy us a ticket, love (heart)?

For the weather literate amongst you, one of the highest pressure centers I’ve ever seen has been siutated over Siberia, extending from as far west as the UK and as far east as Japan, bringing anomalously cold (but sunny!) weather our way. Luckily we haven’t had much disruption from any snow, but that might change over the weekend. I don’t reckon Reading will be too badly affected, we might get a light dusting of snow, but London and anywhere east of Reading is likely to get quite a bit of snow.

For the weather illiterate, isn’t it bloody cold and aren’t snowflakes pretty.

Thesis update!! A first draft of all chapters (except conclusions) has been written, it’s 100 pages long and 25,000 words. Work on the second draft has begun, and hopefully will be finished before the end of this month.

After a long wait, it won’t be long until the game show that I present for the student television at Reading University will be back on air! Filming of the fourth and final series of Accumulate! has nearly wrapped. You can watch previous shows of my masterful performance skills (ahem) at www.ruon.tv , and click on Accumulate! An advert for the show will be appearing in the next few days, and the show itself will be on the air within three weeks. There are seven shows in this series, which is sponsored by www.eclecticgames.co.uk – they kindly provided the prizes and are, all in all, an awesome shop for all your board and card gaming needs.

Well, that’s enough writing from me. I’m off to try and warm myself up by clothing my lower half in radiators. Now that really is a pair of thermal leggings! Or hot pants, of course.

So, hello, I’m still here. I’ve had a fun little Christmas with family, which I’ve immensely enjoyed. Aside from one picture that makes me look like a lecherous speed dater, I think I’ve come out of it quite well! I’m going to head off now and have a board game evening to whisk us towards 2012.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

As it was cheap, I decided to get the bus, just €2.60. The bus brochure said the journey would take 80 minutes. However, Arriva have just taken over the management of the buses and their interpretation of the brochure is… creative. Both the bus journeys there and back were surreal – if the passengers flagging down the bus looked even slightly hesitant or unsure, he didn’t stop for them. This happened at about 1/3 of all the ‘stops’ that he should have serviced. I found out the reason for this later – at about 1/3 of the other stops, the prospective passengers would ask “Does this bus go to x”, he would say yes/no (usually no), and the bus would continue on its way, delayed by that extra bit. The routes are all new, so no-one yet knows where they go. This pushed the travelling time each way (25km) to 2 hours. Ouch. And, given the rather efficient air conditioning on the bus, bloody cold. So, four hours on a bus…. made my day a bit stressful.

Still, the time I had in Valletta was superb. It was city with a large amount of history and character. No two houses are the same, they’re all built higgledy piggledy and their styling was just fantastic. The main street of Valletta leads to the Cathedral of St. John, a small building as cathedrals go, but decorated with a staggering array of gold, marble, silver… you name it, it’s there. Well worth a visit if you’re in Valletta. I walked around pretty much all of Valletta, from the commercial centre, to a church with a huge dome (bigger than St. Pauls in London I think), to all the residential streets. It felt very safe, and oozed individuality and personality which I’ve not really experienced in a city before. I recommend Valletta. I do not recommend trying to put on your sunglasses, somehow find your head was too big for them despite having worn them for several years, and have one of the arms ping off in the middle of the street. Very strange! I went looking for new cheap sunglasses at a few places in Valletta, but most of the styles were quite feminine, so I didn’t buy them. What do you mean “it would have suited me”? Out! Now! Shoo!

To round the conference off, a dinner was held on the nearby island of Gozo (yes, an even smaller island off a small island off of Europe). To get there, we took a roller-coaster of a ferry ride that lasted about 30 minutes, with winds so strong it was difficult to maintain your balance. The wind certainly made some people look a bit more dishevelled than they’d hoped… it probably improved my appearance and elevated it above “street urchin” to “homeless beggar with a sign”.

Before the meal itself, we were given a guided tour of the Citadel in the centre of the island – a hugely important part of Gozo’s history. (More info at: http://www.gozo.gov.mt/pages.aspx?page=155). Being the highest point on the island, the views were spectacular in all directions, particularly at dusk. Whilst not looking where I was going, I of course walked into a metal railing and also stepped in some chewing gum. In some way, by taking the chewing gum with me, I can say that I helped clean a world heritage site. Ahem.

The conference dinner contained three courses, plus bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and each course was large. A large amount of a pasta starter, followed by a very very VERY delicious rack of pork ribs, and finally a dessert of gooey chocolate pudding and ice cream. There was so much, that I could only manage a small portion of the cake – very disappointing.

But having said that, it might have been a good idea I didn’t stuff myself completely full as the ferry ride back, while calmer than the ride out, still had a bit of swell and I could still feel the boat moving even after I’d gone to bed back in the hotel a few hours later… I had the bin next to the side of the bed, just in case, but thankfully it wasn’t needed.

Join me soon for another punnily titled post about what I did today, which was go to the Maltese capital, Valletta.

There’s a flood along my corridor from an unknown source. It rained inside and formed a puddle, and now it’s smelling quite mouldy.
I broke one of my flip-flops today. I guess you could say I broke my flip. Or I broke my flop. I don’t know precisely which one broke.
I ate so much watermelon today, I wouldn’t be surprised if I gave birth to a watermelon in a few months time.
Red jelly is not just for kids.
One of my dinner courses today consisted of watermelon and red jelly.

And in other news, I randomly met the grandparents of someone studying meteorology at Reading, that I probably taught as a masters student year before last.

The weather has also been rubbish today – 30mph winds and not particularly warm, I had to put a top on when outside! Shocker! It turns out it is difficult to swim into the wind when waves and spray are being blown into your face by the wind. Especially when it turns out you’re in a pool and the spray is coming from waves crashing 6ft high over a wall!

Tomorrow things should calm down a bit, I hope so as I’m heading to Gozo (small island north of Malta) on a ferry and I hope the ride isn’t too rough. If my writing is sideways in tomorrow’s post, then you know I’m a bit seasick.

Here’s my thoughts at the end of today:
Chicken Nuggets aren’t just for kids
A cold front and wind made things less warm and – dare I say it – slightly nippy. It was uncomfortable without a top on! Shocking!
There’s a large spider behind my curtain. Me no likey.
I saw the most tortured acronym ever today.
The Daily Mail costs 4 times as much here in Malta than in the UK.
Dendrogram is a nice word. Dendrogram. Say it out loud. Dendrogram.
There is such a thing as too much chocolate cake, it turns out.

All in all, things are going well on the first day of the air pollution conference. My talk is out of the way, so I can relax and enjoy the next two days’ worth of conference. It’s a hard life when an hour after you give your presentation you’re swimming in the hotel pool. So far 15 talks presented, 28 to go. Then I’ll have to find something to do here in Malta! That’ll be a novelty. I’m currently thinking I might take a day trip into Valetta (the capital), I reckon I’ll make up my plans as I go along. Coming to think about it, that sounds like how I’ve done my PhD these past three years…

I am now in Malta for a week to present at a conference on Air Pollution (Monday), attend the rest of the conference (until Wednesday), then relax (until Saturday). I’m starting to get a bit nervous – and it must be telling due to my latest jokes on twitter:
What did the thunderstorms say to each other before they had a fight? LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE! (To which @foggybrume responded “Nothing, they just clapped” – nicely played sir)
I wanted to start a bandage removal company, but people kept telling me it was a rip off.

So, after a smooth journey to Gatwick, a smooth flight across France, Italy, the Tyrrhenian Sea and Sicily, a less-smooth taxi ride to my hotel, I’m now at the Ramla Bay Resort – www.ramlabayresort.com . My first impressions are as follows:
MY ROOM IS HUGE
There are plenty of cats trying to get food from you at dinner time
The ironing board I’ve been loaned by the hotel isn’t much better than the one we have at home that makes it look like you’ve ironed on a barbeque
The cheese board can be detected from Belgium
I’m getting confused by not changing the time on my laptop or phone
It’s lovely and warm
Closing the pool at 6pm seems at tad early
MY ROOM IS HUGE

So, it’s all going swimmingly. Pictures will be making their way onto facebook shortly, a link will follow. I hope to have a good nights sleep before the start of the conference tomorrow. Fingers crossed!
Edit: And here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150799184265517.722201.677225516&l=d435528c70&type=1